Enterprise - Liberty Class

By Mike Riehl

After seeing the Star Trek movie of 2009, I really liked the look of the starships that were created for the film. I thought ," What if..." a dangerous path a modeler can wander down. I took that path. I rummaged through my bins and bins ..lots of bins of model parts and found what I was looking for.  I dumped the various parts across my drafting table and got to work. My plan..a drawing and thats all I needed. I used the nacelles from the original cut-away Enterprise, redesigned them and found the parts to a Trade Federation Battle Tank that were perfect for the ends of the nacelles. The "rocket engine" look. The dorsal connection to the saucer and secondary hull was scratch built and the secondary hull  was from a vacuform 1/350 1701 I never built. My modelling friends winced when I told them what I done to the kit. I cut down a nacelle, capped one end with styrene. I added the original deflector dish, cut off the tip and sanded it smooth. The aft section to the shuttle bay, was cut to a gentle curve that was similar to the original Enterprise, and plated with styrene, puttied and sanded smooth. The shuttle bay door was also scratch built using a corrugated peice of styrene. I used the saucer section of the Amt Ertl 1701 A and removed the bridge area and created a sunken look similar to Kelvin. The underside of the saucer had to be flat. I cut away the curved lower saucer from the 1701 A and using a section of .40 styrene, glued it in place and sanded the egdes smooth to the saucer. I found a 41 inch Excelsior lower navigation dome, it was perfect for the look I needed. I notched out the back of the saucer section and created the impluse deck.

The engine pylons were also scratch built and cut low so it gave my Enterprise a sleek look. The were slanted slightly and then towards the top of the nacelle notched forward. I added some "hull plating" from sheet styrene here and there and on the entire model and acheived the desired look. The bridge was taken from a Reliant model. The model was painted in a darker grey and "dirtied up" so it would appear used and could have been part of the fleet that met its fate at Vulcan. I used a a variety of decals to created the ship's hull registry. The model is 23 inches long, 1/537 scale. I named the ship one of  the "Liberty Class Starships" the predecessor of the Enterprise in the movie. I  take it to conventions and the response is very kind. This model is a great addition to my Enterprise collection and I am very pleased it turned out the way I wanted ..so go down that dark modelers' path it's not to dangerous. Image: Top Image: Saucer Image: Front Image: Rear Image: Saucer, underneath

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