u/CaptDistraction

Finished a "practice" 1:1400 Enterprise D kit - I've built these before as a kid, but its been a good 30+ years since I've worked on one, I've done a couple 350 refits over the years; with this I was hoping to dial in the paint colors and some processes before tackling something a little larger (see last photo for a clue). This was the clear version of the kit, and it fought me the whole way kicking and screaming. Custom parts from Motion Pictures Miniatures went on beautifully, and the paint masks are my favorite aspect of this build. An interesting study (and usually had Canadian Starships, Aztec Dummy, Sprueverse, MPM, etc playing in the background). I learned a LOT from the community, and certainly appreciate the knowledge.

Lots to nitpick this study effort:

-the clear plastic kept cracking on me - once in the final hours and I had to abandon the idea of a perfect fix (as I was out of the custom mixed paints for the aztec so properly resurfacing a large amount of the model was unlikely to yield a good result, I did a spot fix),

-I'm not sure I nailed the paint colors (I know how I want to adjust them for the bigger project)

-the windows are questionable at best and take away from the sharp paintwork

Overall I'm happy with how this kit turned out, and along the way I learned how to cut my own vinyl masks, improved my fabrication skills with scratch-made parts, and learned a lot about what does and doesn't work. This model is a gift to one of my brothers and as soon as the armature shows up for the next, I'll get to tackling it. I won't miss scraping windows - I learned about masking them a little too late into the project to alter course, but again I won't miss using a variety of tools to cut into a nicely done paint job. Nor will I miss the asymmetry and lines of this kit (though I guess they are charming and do speak to the skill of the old school development techniques that went into this thing). Couple touch ups, warming the base backlight and sealing a few leaks in it, and off it goes. Cheers!

A couple weeks back my wife called me coming home from work, she had been hit by someone leaving the parking lot at her work as she was driving back by after picking up one of our dogs from daycare. Took me a bit to get to that side of town, but I was blown away by how well the bronco held up - the toyota that hit her was a total loss, frame rails pushed over and everything forward of the strut towers was just a mess, bumper beam mangled.

The bronco sport was hit right in the front right wheel at a perpendicular angle, so my wife lost steering control and was pushed up on the walkway before coming to a stop. No injuries thankfully. The damage to the BS was everything on that suspension corner, so far about $5k estimated between the wheel/tire, strut, control arm, upright, CV, tie rod and steering rack - but I'm just blown away by how well the bronco handled it all things considered. My wife had slowed down for a car turning right into the parking lot (which the car that hit her assumed no one was behind that car despite the BS being very visible). I'm glad it wasn't at the posted speed for the road, this might have worked out very differently.

Their insurance was a nightmare to deal with but having dashcam of the incident really saved our bacon here. We had a 2021 BS OB, and I remember that truck getting $8k of damage from a bit of blown out tire getting kicked up by a truck on the highway (hit the lower radiator area and just destroyed everything) so I thought these little CUV's had a glass jaw - we loved them though and with the BS BL being a bit beefier (and a far better driving experience) we traded up last year. Bummer to have a hit on the car at 12,000 miles, but glad there's no bodywork involved (maybe a bit of bumper plastic - we're not sure yet as it was pretty dirty from all the radiator fluid kicked up out of the toyota. So my opinion on the toughness of these things is coming around.

The toyota was very lucky my wife didn't take the 2011 F150 Raptor that day (her main vehicle) as it would have been up and over .