Centaur Class Refit

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

I love the art of kitbashing.  It has allowed me to populate my collection with all sorts of unique models.  However, given the choice of purchasing a pre-built and pre-painted model over building my own I will often opt for the lazy approach and make the purchase.  Had I known that Eaglemoss was going to produce the this ship, I never would have embarked down the path of building the model.

This is the story of that model build...




Per Memory Alpha and Beta, "The Centaur-type was a Federation starship design operated by Starfleet during the 24th century.  Its overall design was compact, featuring only a saucer section connected directly to a small secondary weapons pod, which housed four photon torpedo tubes. The ships's nacelles were connected directly to the pod. The weapons pod was of the same configuration as the pod on the Miranda-class line of vessels."  They go on to say, "The USS Centaur (NCC-42043) was a Federation starship operated by Starfleet. In 2374, the Centaur was under the command of Captain Charlie Reynolds."

If you would like to read more official stuff on this type of ship, feel free to check out the following links:

Centaur Class Information: Memory Alpha LINK and Memory Beta LINK
USS Centaur (NCC-42043 Information: Memory Alpha LINK and Memory Beta LINK

In Universe Story:

After the Dominion War was over, the Centaur went into drydock to undergo an extensive refit to take advantage of some of the technological advances that had come along since her hasty build years before.

USS Centaur (NCC-42043) 

Centaur Class Refit 

1:1000 AMT Kitbash

 

 

 

 

Some of the upgrades consisting of the addition of a deflector dish and an increase in the size of the shuttle bay.

 

The upgrades also involved a major overhaul to the engines, with the addition of additional impulse engines and an upgraded warp core and nacelles.

 

Real World Story:

I had been dying to build a small scale version of the Centaur for quite some time. The problem had always been finding a Miranda Class Weapons Pod and roll Bar that would be the right size when mounted to a 1:2500 scale Excelsior Class Refit Saucer. Finally, Michael Payton over at Star Trek Modelers Group FaceBook page helped me figure out that the 1:1000 roll bar was as close as I was gonna get and he even helped me get one for this project. I am still not a big fan of painting the Excelsior Class nacelles and saucer in the 1:2500 scale size, as there are too many tiny details for a shaky hand to make it look perfect, but I think she turned out pretty good. 

After acquiring the roll bar and weapons pod, I then had to decide on the saucer section.  I was going to reuse my saucer from the Nimitz Class Refit project but since I had to open up a whole new Enterprise B kit for the rest of the parts, I then began modding a fresh saucer section. There are some subtle differences between my model and and the official screen used model in regards to parts placement, hence my reason for calling it a refit. 

 

The next day saw me putting the nacelles together and trimming off the flaring around where the original struts connected to them. I didn't like the fact that the weapons pod was sitting flush against the saucer. It would have made it extremely difficult to mount it and keep it level while the glue set, so I built a small "lift kit" for it from the innards of the Enterprise B's engineering hull. While I was working on this part, I also trimmed the ends of the roll bar so that they would mount flush to the nacelles when the time was right. I filled the old nacelle struts mounting hulls with putty. I then commenced on painting the topside of the weapons pod and struts and the bottom side of the saucer. This morning, before going to work, I started painting the nacelles and top side of the saucer. 

 

 

 

A day later, I was in the home stretch with the project.  I finished painting all the parts and started putting the model together. 

 

 

 

After freaking out because the nacelles mounted all willy nilly, I sawed them off and mounted them correctly. At that point, I just need to file down a small mistake and then finish touch-up painting it.

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:

AMT ( Model     Work In Progress )