NX-TypeR Class

NOTE:  You can click on most pictures to get a larger view of them.

I'm not sure which I like more, the NX Class type of ship, or a well designed ring ship.  Well, I decided to have a go at combining the two.

This ship was my own design but I will admit that the idea sprung from someone else's work...

In Universe Story:

She was rescued from the Federation boneyard, repaired, restored, and refitted by the Triple-D Construction Company (formally known as Dougherty & Sons Ship Building). Not much is known about her.

USS LOTaR (NCC-599) 

NX-TypeR Class 

1:2500 Scale Johnny Lightning Kitbash

 

 

 

 

She appears to have been an experiment at merging Vulcan Warp Ring Technology with Starfleet Hull Designs. She was in pretty bad shape when she was towed from the boneyard, having her original warp and computer cores pulled at some point. Her impulse engines were blown out so we had to replace them with some newer drives. These have given her some pretty hefty speed increases at sub-light which necessitated adding extra RCS thrusters on the warp ring. Let's just say, she's pretty maneuverable. We've installed a newer computer core and an even newer compact warp core which seems to have meshed well with her unique nacelle configuration.  We were never able to figure out her original designation, so we've re-christened her the USS LOTaR (NCC-599). The name apparently is some inside joke with our construction crew and comes from an old Earth movie about something called a Hobbit. We classified her as an NX - Type R (or NX-R for short) She proudly joins our fleet of other NX variants. We hope you enjoyed this presentation. 

Real Universe Story:

After seeing John Payne's Ring Ship Kitbash, I really wanted to make one of my own. This was my second attempt at making a ring ship and I decided to forgo the tedious building process by using a Johnny Lighting toy that had been hacked up for parts. This ship was a lot more work than her previous two NX variant sister ships. This one took some time to get all the proper proportions and lots of consulting with the gang over at Star Trek Modelers Group to get her right. The group had recommended me using a piece of PVC pipe for my ring.

So I set out and eventually was able to acquire a piece of PVC pipe.

My initial dry fit had the ring surrounding the NX's impulse engines, but the ship looked ridiculously short, so I built a piece to extend the struts and support the ring further back. Since the original NX engines were now covered over by the ring support, I chopped off some extra impulse engines I had from some other kitbash projects and supercharged her with those engines.

 

Once I had both halves of the ring just right and filled in the engineering section with an extra greeble, I did a base paint of all the new parts.

 

I then mounted the rings and started touchups. And once that paint dried, I then painted all the details.

 

 

It was then time to glue it all together.

 

All in all, it was a fun little build and I liked the final outcome.

As always, I hope you found this article useful and informative.  If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to comment below.

So for now, "Live long and prosper!!!"



Additional Links To Photos Of My Collection:

The Model     WIP Pictures