Hey All,
I am rather new here, and just returned to model building. I am looking online for Star Trek Models, can anyone give me links to hobby sites that carry Trek type Models at decent prices please. Prethx for the info.
Guido
Great models has a few Trek things, not much though.
The only Star Trek kits that I have seen lately in shops are from Polar Lights. (That is all the Squadron.com seem to have in stock too)
AMT used to do quite a few kits, but I haven’t seen them around for a while & they might be out of production?. You could probably find them on ebay though.
If it’s Sci-Fi related your likely to find it here. http://www.starshipmodeler.com/cfstore/index.cfm
There’s also Federation Models
Hey All,
Thx for the quick replies. Good info I am happy. Question though Who are Polar Lights, I am used to building Amt type Star Trek Models ( 2 many years ago ). Are thier models decent to work with or is there alot of patch work that needs to be done? Thx again.
Guido
Polar Lights has a good reputation. Here’s my thread on the PL Refit Enterprise I got for my B-day recently it’s 1/350th and, the NX-01 is too
/forums/720040/ShowPost.aspx
To add to what Eddie has said - Polar Lights is a now-defunct company that was part of the Praying Mantis corporation. Sadly, Praying Mantis was bought by RC2 (Racing Champions) who wanted the Johnny Lightning line of Die-cast vehicles. They also bought out AMT/ERTL some years back, mostly for the ERTL Die-cast line.
Polar Lights is basically now a brand-name part of RC2 - and RC2 has announced that they’re doing away w/that name brand, tho should be continuing w/the Star Trek line for as long as they’ve got the license from Paramount. Last scuttlebutt I heard was that RC2 is negotiating to continue the Trek License, so we should see their kits for a goodly while.
To answer your second question - the PL brand kits all have their quirks, but are generally much better engineered than most SciFi kits from major manufacturers. They were also engineered w/the modeler in mind. The 1/1000 scale TOS 1701 kit, for example, is very lighting friendly w/it’s two-part warp nacelle pylons, as well as a number of clear parts. Their Klingon D-7 kit had a problem w/the initial run in that the neck pieces didn’t fit quite right forcing the builder to either scratchbuild a shim for one part or to build the kit w/the entire neck/head assembly canted to one side. Polar Lights fixed that right away, however, and later releases of the kit were corrected.
The only negative I can say about Polar Lights/RC2 is that they have pretty much ZERO customer service when it comes to missing parts in a kit. If you purchase one and it’s missing part(s) you can’t send it back to them, get them to send the parts or get a refund from them on the kit. They’ll tell you to take the kit back to where you purchased it and ask for an exchange or refund. Gone are the days when you could call up ERTL, tell them of a missing part, decal sheet or whatever and get a replacement mailed to you for free. [sigh]
well put Griff
megahobbies.com has a few. You should check them out!!
Hey,
Thx Again for all the info.
Guido
We’re here for you! [#toast]
The only thing I have to add is that the parent company is/was Playing Mantis. A great company now long gone. [:(]
New news on the contract is that it’s a done deal & RC2 has a contract, but we just don’t know for how long which would give us a clue as to if they’re just going to repop everything or make some new molds.
In the past few years i have bought most of my kits from eBay. Every day I go to ebay and type in star trek model and see what comes up.
The PL kits have been good (The 1/350 Enterprise refit really stands out) but understand that everything that’s out there is what you’re going to get because noe of them are in production anymore.
If you are interested in broadening your horizons there are several manufacturers of resin kits out there that are very good but before you go ordering any, check out what the poster (like Griff) at starshipmodeler.net have to say about it.
I also recommend starfleet-models.com as Jay’s service is outstanding.
Be prepared to do patch/accurizing jobs on pretty much every styrene Trek kit out there.
-Shawn