eastern express

Hi group, I was eyeballin' the Polar Lights Enterprise NX-01 at my local Hobby town, and was wondering : How good does this kit build up...good fit of parts/Decals accurate? I think the box says it's 1/3500 scale...not sure.

How does this compare in size to the Ertl releases of the Star Trek ships .

Thanks in advance......Stan

The EE kits of the KVs are the best out there right now. They have some crudities and some areas to watch out for (the idler mounts are fragile, especially if you try to use the slightly too tight kit tracks) but can be made into showpieces.

I recently did a conversion of one into the KV-1 Model 1941 that ran in a four-issue series in "Military Modelling". You can make a great model out of them with some Eduard brass and a set of Fruil or Model Kasten tracks (cheaper alternative is to fudge the tracks from a DML IS-2 series kit, which can be found at shows for as little as $10)

The only one which is of limited value is the KV-9, which was a one-off prototype that only saw limited service. Some of the other designations don't match (e.g. Model 1941 vs. Model 1942 and early and late designs) but overall they're currently the best going, and they make the only KV-1S and KV-85 in town.

Note that Trumpeter plans to reslease a dual kit (KV-1/2) and separate KV-1 and KV-2 kits later this year.

Cookie Sewell

thanks cookie. is your conversion on line? i have built the tamy kv-2 30 years ago. i liked the result but i suspect it is dated now. thanks for the caveats about the idlers. perhaps i'll strengthen them with beass rod, i really can't afford to cannabilize a whole dml kit for tracks. i try to buy built kits for parts...right, billy b? always appreciate your help. you have a cookie cd in my archives with all your good stuff saved.

Build-up seems pretty good (only dry-fitted so far), but there are problems around the pylons/ncaelles, as usual. The detail is somewhat soft (low pressure injection) and the panel lines are rather large. The decals look pretty good, but I think the ENTERPRISE type is too light a grey.

It's 1/350.

You saw the box, it's 1 inch larger than the diameter of the saucer. This is the largest injection trek kit so far, until the release of the -A in a couple of months.

Dom