USS Ampere - 1/650 (1/1000)

[Tiberious]

In a bid to get my modelling mojo back in form, I raided the local hobby store (about two hours away) and came away with the Moebius 1/1000 Kelvin kit. Among others...

I actually didn't plan on building any of the recent acquires yet, but with one model after another just sliding across the modelling table with little interest, this one sorta stuck.



But I didn't want to build the Kelvin, so I rooted around for another/similar name by way of measurements and came up with Ampere, NCC-0516. I also don't consider this kit to be true 1/1000, and seeing how it would best fit size-wise with the older AMT 1/650 Enterprise, I went that route.

This will be OOB, except for sanding off the raised panels on upper port side of the saucer.




Out comes the sanding sticks and some tape to protect the surrounding area.




Once that was done, I went according to the instructions and glued the side walls around the perimeter of the bottom saucer half. (Don't do this! Back on this later.)



After putting them in place, unsightly gaps were discovered between each section.



To combat those, I brought out a metal file to wide and straighten the gaps, and then pulled some strip stryene to fill them.






After that, the halves were clamped together and set aside.



While that dried I moved onto the upper hull, which was easy enough and just needed a little PPP to fill some gaps.





But I did come along a bit of a fit issue with the cap that butts up to the back of the neck. It's not really a good fit and needed its own application of PPP.



Back to the saucer, and I found the fit was not good at all. There were gaps along the side walls and the edges of the saucer, and I had not been able to get good contact with the lower half for a good glueing.

When first test-fitting without the side walls, I had an errant thought of gluing them together and sliding the side walls in afterward, which I should have done after all. Rather than putty and sand the whole thing and try to get glue into the gaps, I decided to take it apart and do just that.



So, the upper and lower saucer halves were glued securely first and then the side walls were slipped in and snugged up. Good to go this time!




And the styrene used to fill the gaps survived also!



I have been going over the seams on the upper side, with CA and sanding sticks, smoothing that out. I'll have to rescribe some panels but that shouldn't be any trouble. Also painting some clear parts for when the nacelle goes together and such.

Until then, model on!

[SCI-FI]

Cool update, thanks for posting--

-SF

[Trekriffic]

I have this kit too. Looking forward to your progress. Thanks for the tip about the sidewalls.

[srspicer]

Looking good so far.

[Tiberious]

Thanks fellas!

A little more done today.

I think I finished up the saucer, after adding some styrene squares to the top and redoing the grid lines back to the edge.



Then I loaded some clear blue and red, then dark copper into the trusty ol airbrush.







Now I can get that nacelle closed up and star putting the ship together!

Model on!

[Bridger]

Looks really nice

[Scorpius]

Killer work!

[Tiberious]

Thanks a bunch! Getting the warp nacelle together and dealing with the seams. For some reason, some didn't close up all the way.

[Scorpius]

I've watched a few videos of this kit and they all seem to share the issues you've had. I really like your solution to the gap on the saucer rim, sort of looks like it was meant to be that way.

[Manu2401]

Looks very nice so far.