Parts You Get

Gluing - Unfinished

On It's Side - Unfinished

Underside, Starboard - Unfinished

Under, From Aft - Unfinished

Top, Port - Painted

Top, Fore - Painted

Under - Painted

Item Description

Directly from the PNT Website:

"This five piece all resin conversion kit assembles easily with the Polar Lights* U.S.S. Enterprise kit to turn it into either the Franz Joseph Destroyer or Scout Class Starship. This bagged kit also contains a fully illustrated and detailed seven page assembly, detailing, painting, and decaling manual for finishing your model with professional results. The decal sheet includes six names for marking the Destroyer or Scout starships.
1/1000 scale, 9.5 inches (24 CM) long when assembled.
Item #4046
$5.95 + shipping and handling."

Parts Preparation

This kit was easy to prepare, since there are so few parts. There was very few flash to sand off, but the pylon connecting the saucer to the engine was slightly warped. This wasn't noticeable until I test fit the engine. The engine, during test fit, sat about 5-10 degrees to the starboard at aft. This was corrected by running the pylon under hot tap water until it was plyable, then bending it straight and running it under cold water. I did it as part of the cleaning process (cleaning the parts to get the release agent off).

Also, the spire base for the deflector was too wide in one direction and needed sanded to fit. Not that difficult, but I broke off the spire when I tried to test fit the part in the bottom of the saucer and got it stuck.

Construction

The hardest part of construction was the modifications to the warp nacelle. The instructions say to turn the engine on its side so that the flux chiller is pointed down. This means that the rear of the nacelle, the intercoolers, the front nacelle cap, and the two box-shaped thingys at the end have to be removed, replaced, and turned 90 degrees. After this was done, the rest was a cinch! I put the saucer together with the deflector mount in place, chose the taller-standing bridge (for the heck of it), glued the pylon in place, and then attached the engine. I let the superglue stand about an hour each time something resin was attached, just for surety.

Paint & Detailing

After the kit was assembled, I masked off the bridge dome with a piece of masking tape cut with a hole punch. The bussard collector was masked off as well after the interior piece was painted red (with wifeys fingernail polish) and the part was attached. The whole model was first painted with Krylon grey primer, and any imperfections or visible seams were filled, sanded and reprimered. A topcoat of Krylon's Pewter Gray Gloss was sprayed over the entire model. After a few days for drying, I took a pencil and a compass and drew out the gridlines on the top of the saucer. Darker spots were lightly erased. A mixture of charcoal grey and orange chalk were ground on a sheet of fine sandpaper, and with a brush, I applied the weathering, the dust stripe, and added more details to the gridlines. Three coats of Krylon's clear matte finish were then sprayed on in order to seal in the weathering.

Decalling

The model comes with a decal sheet and 6 specific names for the scout/destroyer class ships. I chose the USS Columbia for my scout class ship. The Columbia was briefly mentioned in TMP in radio chatter, and I wanted a ship that had a place in history. The decals that come with the kit need to be complemented with the decals that come with the PL kit, and there are some slight differences, so it is difficult mixing them. Make sure that you do not have the "NCC" from the PL decal and the "621" from the PNT decal sheet next to each other. You will notice a difference!

After the decals were chosen, carefully placed, and let sit to try in place for a few days, another two coats of Krylon clear matte finish were sprayed over the top of the entire kit for an overall sealant.

Conclusion

It's the easiest of the three conversions from PNT to put together, which is why I chose this one to do first. I'm very pleased with the kit as a whole. This kit would have been easy enough to kitbash, since there's not all that much to it, but for the price (which is practically what the decals would have costed me alone), it was well worth it. PNT has put off selling these conversions in order to make more molds and to get a stock built up. I have heard that PNT will again sell these conversions. I am not sure, though, if this is true. Don't quote me on it. If PNT does again sell these kits, I know several folks that will love getting their hands on them. I do a lot of grades every day as a high school teacher and college professor, and I'd give this little conversion kit an A- (90%).