AMT 1:537 Scale Star Trek USS Enterprise NCC1701 Cutaway Model Kit

I'm a 10 yr old kid again. Not only having a blast modeling again but doing one of my favorite builds, a cut away. The tooling on this kit is very good. Not perfect mind you. Liking this kit so much that I've invested the extra money on aftermarket etched parts and a lighting kit which will make this a show quality item (Providing of course I've still got the skills. LOL) Not for beginners but if the builder has experience with a few Lvl 2 kits of a couple hundred parts this is a great kit to take the next step with.

Hobbies

Since this re-release of the kit is still fairly new and I haven't completed it as of yet, I figured I would write a review of my initial impressions and differences between this and the original release.First off, for anyone wondering: no, it is not an easy kit to build. If you plan on actually building it as a "cutaway" ship, you will be doing a ton of small hand painting of details. If you plan on building it as a complete ship, you'll have to spend a ton of time filling in some pretty substantial gaps.That said, since this is a re-release, don't expect the typical quality of the newer Polar Lights Star Trek kits. Just dry fitting has shown me that a great deal of fighting will be required in order to make things fit correctly (I'm doing a complete ship, with the exception of adding the saucer "innards" to be able to show the bridge). To that point, there have been some alterations: the windows that used to be on the secondary hull are gone and we are treated with more accurate window decals.A few things perplex me, though. First off, the painting diagrams leave quite a bit to be desired. The 1/350 TOS Enterprise had a color chart that was pretty much spot-on (you can get the pdf file from the Polar Lights website for these colors), but these instructions have the more vague "grey", "red", type of direction. Also, the box states that you can build it as a cutaway OR a complete ship. However, the bussard collectors (the domes at the front of the nacelles, for those of you who aren't nerds like I am) are the same as the original release- meaning that you get one complete one, and one that is split in half for the cutaway. Why not include an extra complete dome to give us the option to avoid that split, rather than having to get aftermarket parts? Not only that, but there are also vents missing from the inboard sides of the nacelles, as well as the deflector dish being almost completely incorrect. Most normal people wouldn't even notice, but Round 2 has been correcting things with these re-releases. These little missing areas are a tad bit annoying.All in all, this kit is WAY more accurate than the old 18" Enterprise kit. But...nothing in the cutaway sections, save for the bridge, nacelle innards, shuttle bay and engineering section make you say, "Oh, so THAT'S where that is. Most of the stuff seems to just be corridors and random boxed areas. I've seen some great buildups of this ship, cutaway and complete, that have looked simply amazing. If you don't mind the extra work that will be involved with building this kit, it's definitely worth your time. If inaccuracies make your skin crawl, you're probably better off spending the extra for the 1/350 kit.

Product arrived as advertised and on time. Would definitely buy again.

Great ship! I collect not build

This was a birthday gift for my dad and he loved it!!

I'd found a couple of other ST ships in this scale, and was making two or three of the ships from stories written and videos I want to make, but this was the only Constitution-class ship I could find in said scale. Read that it could be built as a non-see-into version, so ordered one (needed TOS version for a Destroyer). Got here. Was intrigued by the see-into parts, just not enough to want to build one.While fun, it's also a remarkably poorly-engineered model if you want to build it closed-up. The saucer alone required several days' worth of modeling time trying to warp the pieces of the saucer to fit each other seamlessly. I don't know who's in charge of the molds for this ship, but they really ought to be out finding another job. It's fortunate that I'm building a single-engine Destroyer out of it; it's taking a like amount of modeling time trying to put piece halves into some seamless shape (I've never had to do this much bondoing and sanding on a model in my life).Once I get all the disparate parts to look right I'm really looking forward to having my Destroyer. More work you put into something the more you (should) like the finished result, and given the work I'm having to put into this one, I should love the finished product to death.And yes, you should be able to put together an Enterprise; but with the awful fit of most of the parts, beginning and some intermediate modelers may find themselves giving up instead of being able to have a model that looks good.

While the price is good and the customer service is excellent the kit itself is less than spectacular. It is not easy to build and the parts are poorly molded requiring hours of reshaping and fixing to get together properly. This kit is a retooled version of the original kit released about 15-20 years ago. The fit and finish of the original version is much better. I don't see how Round2 messed this up so bad. I can see why its only $32.99. Once assembled the model is impressive but I don't recommend it for a beginner or even someone with experience. Save your money and go for the big 1/350 scale instead.