Whilst in Bath, we swaggered into a weird hobby/toy/educational store (like National Geographic shops, for the Ozians reading) in which I found, for the princely sum of £3, this:
It’s appropriate the Olympics were on at the time, because I think I set a world record with the speed at which I purchased it!
It’s a guidebook to the (original series) Enterprise that also includes a cardboard punch-out model! The difficulty rating was the highest they used, but this didn’t sway me. I skimmed past the technical pages (with sections on space navigation or how the transporters work) and moved straight to the seemingly-endless instructions (over 150 steps!) and starting punching out the pieces:
Notice nothing is labeled by number, only coloured dots. This could have been designed a bit better…
Folding began! It wasn’t particularly difficult at first; certainly easier than the few ‘build a castle’ books I’d purchased in the past (for which you’d need to be a Cardboardmancer to successfully complete). Very quickly I had a piece of the saucer section complete:
Looks a bit iffy doesn’t it? I won’t take the time here to criticise the ensign who had come up with the idea of requiring the card to gently bend inwards with no actual support method and instead fast forward to the completed saucer:
It’s not bad! Everything more or less lines up, and incredibly stayed together without any tape or glue. What this picture doesn’t show though was the tension! Even at this point – only half built – it felt like a big compressed cardboard spring wanting to go off. I handled it with care, at least partially, because I didn’t hate it yet. I continued.
The engineering of this kit was, shall we say, ambitious. Take this photo showing the not-quite-semispherical Bussard Collector (and yes, they are referred as such in the instructions) on the front of a warp nacelle:
I swear I did the best I could there, but it still looks like it was assembled by a Gorn. You can ignore – or at least politely not refer to – the fact that the nacelle behind it is visibly not cylindrical as well.
I forged on, and after maybe 3 hours in total was complete. Here it is in drydock:
Beautiful! It resembles the actual ship quite a bit, and more or less holds together seamlessly. It was still a ball of tension though, and I had many pairs of kid gloves on as I delicately transported it. I confess two pieces of tape were required (one on each nacelle) and the dish on the lower front was a bit of a hack job since I had torn one of the tabs during assembly.
On it’s maiden voyage, as it often did, the Enterprise encountered a strange new life form:
Those of you that know the titanic size of Yossie can appreciate just how big this model is.
Then tragedy struck! Almost immediately after the above photo was taken, as the Enterprise took off for a further voyage, this happened:
Some say it was space debris! Some say the warp field collapsed! Yossie was heard whispering to Emi that she saw me violently tear it to pieces!
All I can say is the model that cost only 3 pounds and gave me 3 hours of entertainment was ruined utterly in only 3 seconds 🙂
