My fatefull words to Joseph C. Brown, at Wonderfest 2000, were something to the effect of:
"I'm going to just whip out this ERTL Enterprise E kit in 3 weeks - I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, and get rat-holed on the details".

Well, it's nearly three years later and I've finally finished this kit that was custom detailed with after-market decals, insane paint templates, and a liberal amount of putty.

I wasn't happy with the kit to begin with - the parts were poorly engineered for a 1997 injection molded model. I found the fit to be sloppy and the surface details soft. Sub assemblies went together quickly (saucer, body, nacelles, pylons), but I spent a great deal of time fixing gaps along the way. The base coat was shot with Acryl Light Gray - an almost white-looking gray that keeps the ship from being pure white

Image: Side, rear, low

So why did it take three years, then? Detailing. A move, and detailing. I would finish a section and lose all interest in the kit.

Image

The Toltec pattern behind the main bridge was hand masked with strips of tape. The darkest patches flanking the bridge were painted Dunkelbraun RLM 61 - a color that closely matched the pantone patterns I got online at Model Citizen. It is a dark, warm gray, and a color that I would use again.

The slightly off-gray patches all over the hull were a challenge for me to paint. My experience with masking and airbrushing, at this point, was somewhat limited so I tried many techniques - hand cut masks, cut tape, parafilm-M, and liquid masking film. At one point, after spending nearly two days masking the top hull, I found that the off-gray I mixed was the same color as the base-coat, so I needed to re-mask and re-paint. I tried it again with a ghost gray, but it was far too dark and mine had a purple cast to it (let's here it for consistent paint colors!).

I finally setteled on Camoflage Gray as my off-setting gray color, a choice I wasn't entirely happy with. Camoflage Gray is too yellow for this ship. The complex lines in the dark patches were made with no fewer than six hand-cut masks. The windows were filled with a light wash of charcoal gray oil paint, brushed off with Turpenoid. The clear engine nacelle and impulse drive parts were sprayed from behind, leaving a transparent effect.

After long deliberation I purchased an aftermarket detail set by ST Modeler. I used just about all of the details except the dark panel details (I had already painted them).