USS Osmun

By Elvis Algate

These images showcase a rather unique scratch-build/kit-bash I put together for a friend as a birthday gift; a TOS-era version of the Constellation-class starship. There were a couple motivations for doing a build of this type. One, I've always been a huge fan of the Constellation-class (of which Capt. Picard's first command, the USS Stargazer, was part of). I just find it's a very eye-catching design, in my opinion. Two, as I've seen a number of folks do their own interpretations of TOS-inspired starship designs, I felt compelled to do one of my own. The build was based partly on Polar Lights/Round 2's 1/1000 TOS Enterprise kit, of which two were bought and used to scavenge the four nacelles necessary to achieve the correct aesthetic look. The rest of the parts were easily obtained from just one of the two kits. The rest of the build was comprised of sheet styrene, which included the main hull and cross bars supporting the two sets of nacelles. The vertical support struts for the nacelle assemblies were repurposed dorsal (neck) sections from both TOS Enterprise kits. I decided to repurpose one of the display stands included with the kits, but knew I'd have to modify it in order to support the weight of the model. All it took was adding a 1/4" piece of Sintra (PVC) board to the bottom of the delta shield, then trimming and sanding to shape. A little bit of putty work and sanding was required to conceal the seam between the Sintra board and the original stand. I used some 1/8" thick brass rod I had on hand to modify the connection point so I could secure the model to the display base. As I got close to completion of the model, I found that if left alone the finished piece would look very drab and boring, and so opted to use some of the pilot version decals included with the kits to add some surface detail and break up the monotony of grey. Both the pilot and production window decals for the dorsal and engineering sections were utilized in detailing the sides of the main hull. I had a basic set of ship's registry decals custom-made using my friend's last name and year of birth. Given the pilot version decals present on top of the saucer section, I decided to go with the pilot version Bussard Ramscoop collectors (with antenna) on the front of the nacelles. The resulting visual effect works well, I think. Needless to say, my friend was very surprised to be given such a gift, quite a rare one at that. Image: Front Right Image: Top Front Image: Top

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