Some of my old 1/537 Scale Models *PIC HEAVY*

[Griffworks]

I recently perused the Wayback Machine and "rediscovered" some pics of models that I either no longer own or no longer have pics of - or both. First up is one of my oldest models, the Federation-class Dreadnought, built using an old SciFi Spaceship Miniatures conversion kit.

From my old page - Griffworks Shipyards, via the page saved on the Wayback Machine.

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This is the Sci-Fi Spaceship Miniatures Federation class Dreadnought conversion kit, built by me. I bought the kit several years back (nearly six years, now) and built it one weekend using an already built Enterprise kit from ST: III, which I'd never decaled and had lost said decals not long after I'd built her. Did this one over one three-day weekend while I was single and living in the dorms...

I purchased this conversion kit from a now defunct company in Irvin, Texas, though I forget the companies name now. The decals used on this one are those from Sci-Fi Spaceship Miniatures (same company who made the this kit), are far from the best I've ever seen. The side pennant is simply the pennant from a spare Ent-A sheet I had. The pre-made ship names and miscellaneous numbers were all just a bit too big, and the red was a bit too close to the black lettering for these to be of any real use on most models. Unfortunately, I found this out the hard way.

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I've been thinking I might strip this model down, add megaphasers off of the area where the pylons and nacelles meet, then repaint, and re-decal her using some of the decals I have from either Thomas Models or WebGames.

I'm in the process (over one year now!) of building another Federation class dreadnought for a friend, which will become the Dominion NCC-2115, which is in Franz Josephs Original Series "StarFleet Technical Manual". Fortunately for me, I'm not on commission, and *I'm* supplying both kits...

Eventually, I'll pull it out of storage, strip and repaint her.

[Griffworks]

Next up is my first kitbash. From back sometime in the mid-1980's comes the Saladin (or Jenghiz) destroyer.


Once again, from the Wayback Machine page for my original entry

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This is the U.S.S. Loki prior to her recent refit which added a saucer mounted navigational deflector, a (plain) lower sensor array and saucer mounted shuttlebay from Thomas Models. She was my first guinea pig in the area of kitbashed conversion.

Originally an ST: II Enterprise model that fell off of my stereo, I kept the remains and just bought another and built it as a replacement. One day a couple of years later, it occured to me I could make the remains into a movie style Saladin/Siva class destroyer. I pulled out the parts, broke the nacelles in half and glued just the outside portions together. I then did some sanding to fit and glued this single-unit nacelle to the bottom of the connecting dorsal/neck.

At the time, I was somewhat worried by the lack of nav deflector we see in the original Star Fleet Technical Manual, but figure "Hey, they probably just built it in to the regular deflector shields in this design", and promptly forgot about it. Now fast-forward about ten to fifteen years later when I discovered Thomas and his absolutely cool parts! Duh!

Anyhow, I like to think of this as one of those little lessons in why it isn't such a bad idea to "rat-hole" some of those busted kits...

I'll try and get pictures of the refit Loki taken in the coming months and will add them to this page.

Another I plan to eventually dig out of storage and re-work.

[MadManMUC]

Love these.

Maybe make them serious 2018 refurb/refit projects, with accurising parts, opalescent Aztec paint and lighting?

Would be an awesome way to give them new life!

(Also, I’m a sucker for 1:537)

[Griffworks]

Thanks! This has been my favorite scale for years. I got into 1/2500 scale due quite a few years because I could build a small fleet of ships to place in the same area as a single 1/537 model, and at one point I had just shy of 300 built and models representing the Big Three (UFP, Klingons, and Romulans), as well Cardassians, Civilians, Dominion, Tholians, and more. It also spanned from the time of ENT to VOY.

However, I grew disenchanted with the lack of detail on the models themselves, so have stopped buying, building or even finishing them. I've gotten into 1/1000 scale as a sort of compromise between shelf space and detail. While I'm getting out of 1/2500, I intend to keep my 1/537 ships. I've got a bunch of 1k ships fairly close to being completed, however, so intend to finish those before returning to 1/537 scale. As such, it might be 2019 before I get back to the larger scale models.

[Griffworks]

This is the refit USS Ptolemy, NCC-3801. This was my second kitbash and yet another based off the FJD SFTM. One thing I guess I did after writing the below is to have cut out the VIP Lounge windows and glue some Evergreen V-groove (I think?) to act as a small hangar area that would fill most of the B/C deck. My thinking is that it would store a maximum of two shuttle craft and as many as 8 Workbees, the latter of which would be for moving items onto the tow pad, in case of a loss of the main tractor beams.

Anyhow, here's the Wayback Machine page

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One weekend, while sitting in my hobby room, looking at my Loki destroyer model, I got to thinking "Why not build a movie style Transport/Tug?" I got out a spare ST:V Enterprise-A kit that was sitting in a box, and built it up over the course of two or three weeks. I used the aft upper portion of an Enterprise kit and glued it to the bottom portion as seen in the second picture. I decided to do this as a smaller version of the extended hull seen on the Reliant as it seemed only logical that they would need someplace extra for the engineering teams. Thus, the Ptolemy was born.

I still have yet to add the towing pad to the "neck". I'm eventually going to go back and "retro-fit" Thomas' saucer mounted navigational deflector and shuttlebay, though might not since this would require a bit more extra work then was involved in refitting the Loki.

Of course, I DID have a minor accident while moving her not so long ago, and may just do the full-scale refit after all...

Another that will one day receive a refitting. I've got the spare split Impulse deck and navigational deflector to add to her

[MadManMUC]

However, I grew disenchanted with the lack of detail on the models themselves

Do I ever hear you.

I love the fact that I’ll have a 537 Reliant, but all the extra work and financial investment I have to put in to fix details, add missing details, correct outright wrong stuff, just to get it all the way it should be ... ugh. It’s maddening.

I really wish Paramount/CBS would give the Trek license to someone better than AMT/R2, especially for 537 kits.

[Griffworks]

Ultimately, it's all about the bottom line. Yet another reason I like 1k for my models. It's not nearly as expensive for them to produce the much smaller kits. They may sometimes be a pain in the posterior where construction and fit are concerned, tho with patience and skill, you can turn a sows ear into a silk purse!

[Max Nex]

I also built a Dreadnought (USS Star System) using that vacu-form conversion.
all I have left of it are some Polaroid instant pictures of her
all of the ships you posted look pretty good to me

[Kremin]

Ahhh those were the days when you could get the refit 537 for about £10

[Griffworks]

I also built a Dreadnought (USS Star System) using that vacu-form conversion.
all I have left of it are some Polaroid instant pictures of her
all of the ships you posted look pretty good to me

Yeah, these pics were all taken with an early gen digital camera, with a few I had posted at one pointed on my old site being manual film camera pics. I've still got some of those pics somewhere, too.

Ahhh those were the days when you could get the refit 537 for about £10

When you could find them for some of these builds. Several were built after they were put into moratorium, so we're going for something of a premium, which was I the late 90's for a few, mostly stuff I've not posted yet, tho. Federation, Loki and Ptolemy were built in the late 80's, back when you could still just walk into a hobby store, Wal-Mart or K-Mart and pull it off the shelf. I had a couple of the various Refit kits in my SRSR (Styrene and Resin Strategic Reserve) when I Enlisted in the USAF and was able to bring my stuff to my first Duty Station, where I tinkered with my kits. Then John F. Green, Inc. helped me a lot in the late 90's and early 00's by being a fairly cheap alternative to eBay.