USS Achernar

This is the Achernar from McDaniel models. I ordered it as a vacuum formed model primer. I have some very expensive Babylon 5 vacuum formed kits and figured this would be a good practice project.

As I understand it, the Achernar is supposed to be an interim ship design between the original series Constitution class and the movie refit ship. As such, it pretty much looks like the original Enterprise, but the defector dish is like the one from the movie. It’s not an original design, but from some Star Trek book I don’t have. I think it’s called “Ships of Starfleet Vol. 1.” If you have an extra copy of this book, why don’t you send it to me.

Vacuum forming used to be the standard method of garage kit ships. It’s fallen out of favor for resin and I think I know why. Vacuum formed kits are a pain in the ass to build and the detail is soft, if it’s there at all. I can’t imagine this technique being used for anything with lots of intricate detail. Judging from this kit and the others I have, I think the medium is at it’s limit.

You have to cut the pieces off or out of a sheet of styrene. The instructions on the kit were helpful in suggesting that you scribe the parts at 45 degrees and then sand the bottom.

After I had my pieces, I began to test fit the parts. This showed me another shortcoming of vacuum formed kits. There’s no such thing as a “good fit,” or even a “fit” at all. The pieces aren’t pieces in the usual sense of the term but more like “close approximations.” The instructions were helpful again in suggesting that you add styrene strips to the edges to provide a glueable surface. The kit even came with extra styrene for this purpose. I lined up the pieces as best as I could and glued it together with plastic cement (which works very well on the styrene vacuum formed parts).

Some of the parts were tricky to attach, particularly the few resin parts like the shuttlecraft doors, nacelle domes, and forward deflector. I glued these on with CA glue. The secondary hull didn’t match up at all and I had to stretch it around. The instructions recognized this flaw and suggested this work around.

Within the secondary hull is a resin piece which holds the nacelle pylons in alignment. When I first saw this piece, I thought to myself, what a wonderful idea. I’m finally going to get the nacelles right. However, since the hull didn’t go together easily, the alignment pieces got out of wack. I had to bend the pieces once they were set to get the angles right. Good idea, poorly executed.

Once the pieces were glued together I got to putty and sand. Then I puttied and sanded some more. When I was finished with that, I puttied and sanded a bit, followed by some puttying and sanding and then some more sanding, puttying and some more sanding. It took me a week to get it where I left it.

Again, following the suggestion from the instructions, I postponed final assembly until after the painting and decals. I painted the four part (nacelles, saucer and secondary hull) a gray/blue color I mixed from my trusty Liquitex acrylic paints. The red nacelles were painted with a Future/Cadmium Red to give it a transparent red depth. I think it worked well.

After painting, I sealed it with Future floor wax and then used a heavy blue wash to bring out the panel lines and other details like the shuttlecraft doors. I use this technique a lot now. The trick is first to seal the model and then use an oil base paint over the acrylic seal. I go ahead and make a mess of the application because I can use a towel and wipe off the raised areas later. The oils takes time to dry and it isn’t chemically attracted to the acrylic. After the wiping, I sealed the ship with Future again and then moved on to the decals.

The decals that came with the kit (for an extra fee, by the way) are not the traditional decals I’ve used. These were printed from an ink-jet printer on special decal paper and then sealed with some kind of spray. Unless you have one of those now defunct ALPS printers, I guess this is the only way you can make decals from home.

Decals made this way are a pain to use. Firstly, you cannot cut across the color because then the ink will run. You have to leave room around it. Secondly, the decals are thick. After I applied them to the model I wanted to putty and sand again to get rid of the hard edges around each one. Instead I just sealed it again with Future and then some Dullcoat to lose the shine.

Nevertheless, the decals saved the model. Never underestimate what good decals can do for a mediocre model. Good decals turned my Enterprise D into a showpiece from a distance and they did the same here. Provided you don’t look at the hard decal seams or cracked paint or the misshapen hull, you get the idea. From five feet away, this is a really spiffy model.

My last problem with the kit was the stand. I don’t know where I saw this done before, but I can’t claim invention for it. I went to a craft store and picked up a wood plaque. I cut a couple of dowels to the proper length. I had some sponge padding from some WH40K figures lying around. I cut a couple of small pieces and attached them to the ends of the dowels to better cradle the model. A bit of black paint and there I have it. A base, a black wooden, boring, but functioning base. Another adventure in modeling at an end.