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Shortly
after completing the Enterprise model, I made epoxy castings of
the custom vacuform molds used to make the warp drive domes. This was in
the hopes of being able to share what I was able to do with other modelers
and also make a little cash in the still new Garage
Kit industry. The STARSHIP LIGHT-UP KIT by Plastic Things
included all of the parts needed to light up the kit's saucer domes and
add the missing "Aft Navigation Beacon" to the kit. It also came with the
translucent parts necessary to light the warp engines in the same manner
that I did. (Learning from my experience, the kit's warp dome parts consisted
of a streamlined 2-dome arrangement.) An eight
page instruction booklet was included. (Adobe Acrobat Reader required.)
The first and only run consisted of about 25 kits, most of them sold over
a period of about three years in the early 1990s. Of those sold, many were
by vendors who worked local Star Trek conventions. Some were
word of mouth.
My timing could not have been worse. At the same time I made my light up
kit available, Ertl ceased production of their 18-inch Enterprise
kit after a successful run of about 35 years. It was replaced on hobby-store
shelves by a 22-inch "Cutaway" version also by AMT-Ertl and later by a
more
accurate 11-inch kit of the Enterprise by a new company called
Polar Lights. |
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The above photo shows the kit as packaged on the left along with the included
components. In the middle from the top down are a half-inch section of
Plastruct 1/4-inch O.D. tube, battery clip, 3 clear and 2 amber model railroad
lamps and color coded wire. The two vacuform sheets on the right are the
silvered reflectors at the top and the warp domes at the bottom with the
"Navigation Beacon" in the middle of the bottom sheet.
Over the years, I had heard of modelers building the AMT Enterprise
using the Light-Up Kit but to this day haven't seen a single example or
photo. If you happen to have built a model of the Enterprise with
my lighting kit, please, please email me a photo or two at
alanoodle1
"at" optonline.net. With your permission,
I'd even like to post your photos here! |
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