Love, hate and the AMT Enterprise model

[Forbin]

There's a guy in the model club I used to belong to who (20 years ago!) claimed to have at least 4,000 models in his stash. At the time he was in his 50s. I saw him with a table at last year's MosquitoCon trying to sell a biiiig pile of them.

That'll probably be me in a few years, and I only have about 1500. I KNOW I can't build them all before I croak.

[TREK_GOD_1]

Forbin wrote:

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There's a guy in the model club I used to belong to who (20 years ago!) claimed to have at least 4,000 models in his stash. At the time he was in his 50s. I saw him with a table at last year's MosquitoCon trying to sell a biiiig pile of them.

That'll probably be me in a few years, and I only have about 1500. I KNOW I can't build them all before I croak.

Personally, i never got into having too many of the same kind of model; my "dream" (not yet realized) was to have a perfect display model, along with one still in the box. But if i'm not careful, even that threatens to make my home look like a hobby shop.

[ssosmcin]

I ind up getting additional copies because after I've finished making a kit, sometimes later I want to do it again. The fun was putting it together and I have no interest in "real world" subjects. So I now have three submarine Seaviews, two Jupiter's 2, two flying subs and a half dozen starships...

I've had dozens of this kit throughout my life (I broke the first few by sitting on them) and it's still my go-to kit for making the Enterprise. It's exactly the right size. The Polar Lights snap together kit is too small (and the nacelles are unnecessarily hard to get together). The new Round 2 kit is HUGE. The AMT is just right and even though it's inaccurate, it's still a beautiful model and a fine representation of the lady. The recent reissue with the smooth hull is the best version yet. Get some after market parts, like the deflector dish and nacelle tips and you have a great model.

[plynch]

Much frustration, since I wasn't that good at modeling. Getting those pylons up and straight! Finally built it upside-down once; that helped.

Decals that would curl up in the water. Arggh!

Once I painted the whole thing silver, which was a very soft, gummy paint that would not dry.

When we moved to a house, the dining room table wouldn't fit in the small dining area, so it went in our basement. It became my modeling table. With a cool, plastic Testors drop cloth. Well, one day in frustration at the AMT Ent. I picked up a nearby hammer and went whamwhamwhamwham into the very nice table, making a very not-so-nice 1/2-inch-deep hole in the tabletop. My dad is pretty mellow, but not when he found the hole.

[xvicente]

I have some AMT/ERTL unbuilt models too, al bought in the nineties.

I never bought two of the same kind, except in two cases: the Enterprise-A, because at the time there was no model of the Reliant and I thought I would kitbash one. Never built either one (but someday I intend to).

Also I have 2 Ktingas because the first one I built sucked. The 2nd never got out of the box.

Such modeler I am....

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I bought the very first version of this when it first came out - big box with the drawing on the cover. There were two grain-of-wheat lights for the saucer, and the front sensor assembly on the engineering hull rotated to act as an on-off switch. Three big divots in the lower saucer; my friends and I assumed they were torpedo tubes. The sensor dish was huge.

It's my all-time favorite model kit.

[MacLeod]

I've had a few of them over the years, the ship, the bridge etc...

[ZapBrannigan]

I built all the AMT Star Trek kits in the '70s, along with the Revell and Monogram kits from the Apollo program.

I thought about buying a second "Enterprise Bridge" kit for parts to complete the circle, but never did. That was a great kit, though.

The Enterprise itself was the only kit I built twice, and that was when the boxes were saying "Build the entire fleet!" -- a slogan that cleverly fired a boy's imagination. I named the second one Lexington and went with the Franz Joseph number for it.

[feek61]

The first one I bought was the one with the little lights in the bridge and lower sensor dome. I must say that this kit must get the award for the most insanely horrible attachment where the engine pylons connected to the secondary hull. Trying to get that plug thing in the loop at the bottom of the pylon to hold up the engines about drove me insane as a kid, lol. The horrible sag really depressed me, lol

[xvicente]

xvicente wrote:

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I have some AMT/ERTL unbuilt models too, al bought in the nineties.

I never bought two of the same kind, except in two cases: the Enterprise-A, because at the time there was no model of the Reliant and I thought I would kitbash one. Never built either one (but someday I intend to).

Also I have 2 Ktingas because the first one I built sucked. The 2nd never got out of the box.

Such modeler I am....

aaaand here they are:


Image0605 por vicentox1999, no Flickr

[Warped9]

ZapBrannigan wrote:

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I thought about buying a second "Enterprise Bridge" kit for parts to complete the circle, but never did.

The current reissue of this kit has some tweaks and the parts to make the complete circle. It also has extra figures I believe.

[TREK_GOD_1]

feek61 wrote:

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The first one I bought was the one with the little lights in the bridge and lower sensor dome. I must say that this kit must get the award for the most insanely horrible attachment where the engine pylons connected to the secondary hull. Trying to get that plug thing in the loop at the bottom of the pylon to hold up the engines about drove me insane as a kid, lol. The horrible sag really depressed me, lol

Bat part fitting seemed to plague many 60's sci-fi model kits from AMT and Aurora. Somehow, most of their car kits had no trouble reaching a nice fit, even with all of the engine and interior parts. Go figure!

[publiusr]

jayrath wrote:

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When I recently bought a vintage light-up AMT model and built it, my intent was to recreate the imperfect "toy" Enterprise of my childhood. I was completely successful, and it remains "my" Enterprise.

Is it screen-accurate? Nope. (But it was at least personally vetted by Jeffries, and in many ways compares well to the TOS three-footer.) But the point is that it was my first tangible TOS artifact when I was nine, and it is again. And it looks absolutely glorious with the dome lights on.

That is the way the AMT should be viewed--not a representation of Datin's film model (we have the 1/350 for that) but of our memories.

The AMT model was more than just a model. It is different than any other kit in terms of its place in time--and the associations with it.

To me, the AMT was a summer with the old window unit air conditioner running--almost speaking--in its breathy susurrus as chimes on the porch blew in the warm breeze.

It was smell of paper and pencils--as they used to smell. The AMT kit was healthy parents, Apollo on all the television channels that forced everyone else to look up as we already did. And yet Trek was something special, something only a handful seemed meant to enjoy. It gave shelter, but pointed in its mature, responsibly cerebral fashion, towards the future adulthood that awaited us all.

It was never just a model. Those came later in their accuracy, good, but....

Expert modelers amazed us as we were welcomed into the Lodge.

Where the AMT was the warm fire in the hearth, later incarnations were just snuggies.

Christopher wrote:

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I never had that much luck with model kits. I did get that snap-together 3-ship set and applied the decals rather crudely, but I left them unpainted, and they didn't hold up very well.

Same here.

My very first Enterprise was an early version, with the smooth aft nacelle caps. Knowing even then as a little rug rat that I couldn't do anything right, I convinced my Dad to put one together for me. For a jig he used stacks of Funk & Wagnalls. He actually seemed to enjoy this model. I think he even fixed the nacelle seating using a pocket knife.

My Dad was an amazing man. He never finished high school, and the only way he kept a roof over my head and my Mom was that he worked for the L&N (Seaboard System/ Family Lines/ Chessie the Cat) that became CSX and was a member of the UTU.

Once we had a grey cat that got a forelimb stuck in a chair, breaking it. Somehow, this man set its foreleg with two popsicle sticks and a curved metal brace/splint that went around my pinky that got caught in a door hinge at our old house in Inglenook, across from the old firestation that became a library:
http://www.bplonline.org/locations/branch/Inglenook/

With a little tape and a lot of patience, the cat got full use of its leg.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm sure I pestered him: "That doesn't look right"-- but he made that model gleam.

Well, once on a visit to my Grandmother on my Mom's side in Vernon Alabama, around the time Guin got nailed in the '74 Superoutbreak, I took that model with me.

I was warned: "You'll break it."

"No I won't" I replied. Well, I had fun until my little brat cousin Donny Tubbs (he was just like his name sounded) showed up, all James Dean and crap. I tried to hide it because I KNEW what would happen. Then my Mom volunteered that I had the model.

"Let him play with it."

I lost it--I put it up--finally "No Grandma, he'll break it --I know he will."

Next thing I know the little hellion is running all over the house until such time as he hooks an ankle against my Grandmum's recliner that looked to date from the Precambrian. A sledgehammer could not have done more damage.

I think that's when I had a light stroke--and for once tough guy was scared of me. :0

"He broke it He broke it.I knew he would."

Calm down they said.

I went through the things. One had a booksatchel thrown on it. I couldn't seem to keep one.

When driving back, my Mom said I told you so and blamed me.

I can look back on it and laugh now. Donny had a bad childhood, and everyone there is dead except for me--which is really the saddest thing.

I never had a model that good. The preacher's son had a newer one, with spheres on the caps. I had the D-7 though. Later a kid played with it. He asked about the D-7 Cobra head: "Does this come off?"

Before I could say no--it did. Sigh.

That was the day I swore that, if I ever got near my guardian angel--I'd punch him in the face.

Other memories:
http://federationreference.prophpbb....40.html#p10657

Shaw's fine work
http://www.shawcomputing.net/racerx/...sembly_004.jpg
http://federationreference.prophpbb....30.html#p10459
http://federationreference.prophpbb....50.html#p10960

In Arena, the original effects had the phasers looking different. This actually had to do with Jefferies and the AMT:

The Enterprise's three double phaser bursts, which Sulu says constituted a full discharge of phaser banks, fire from an unusual location in this episode – not from near the glowing dome at the bottom of the saucer, but from much higher up, closer to where Matt Jefferies originally located the main phaser banks in his early diagrams of the ship. These schematics appeared as display diagrams in other episodes and also on the sides of the early AMT Star Trek model kits.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Arena_(episode)


Lastly, here is some new work on an old favorite
http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=387046
http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=388623
http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=390398

[Redfern]

Warped9 wrote:

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The current reissue of this kit has some tweaks and the parts to make the complete circle. It also has extra figures I believe.

Not yet on the market. but here's the product description from Round2...

http://www.round2models.com/models/amt/star-trek-bridge

Looks like one will be able to assemble every recurring character except Chapel.

Sincerely,

Bill

[CrazyMatt]

Like most of you, I had at least half a dozen stretching between retoolings and re-releases, mainly in the early to mid 70s. Each version seemed to have it's own problems... drooping nacelles, scondary hull upper halves that didn't line up just right... etc.

The two things that stand out in my memory as I type this are.. first, the difficulty in ensuring the saucer was glued on straight... it attached to the main strut with a skimpy tongue and groove piece and it didn't always fit tightly--if you weren't carefull, it was too easy to glue it at a less than perpendicular angle.

Second, I remember how the caps on the nacelles never looked quite right when painted a solid color (usually bright red)... the christmas light effect on the 11-footer was a major aspect of the shooting model and the models I built always looked "fake-er" in the absense of that effect.

Oh, one other memory... me and my friend burning an Enterprise model in a sand pit behind his house... making a Constellation, maybe... and breathing in that pungent black smoke from the burning model... I wonder, what mysterious things are going on in my body from that?