Thanks to everyone!!
I have used Squadron putty and I have had ok results and some horrible disasters!
Whiskey Rat: Which lacquer thinner do you use? I assume it is the Tamiya Lacquer thinner, but I want to be sure.
eagledoc15, I have a can of plain old store brand lacquer thinner, nothing fancy. Lacquer thinner is lacquer thinner, you don't need any particular brand, unless you
want a particular brand for whatever reason of course.
As an aside but related to this discussion, wherever I can I like to use plastic to fill gaps and spaces, minimizing as much as possible my usage of putty. On something like the paneling on the Enterprise kit however, there's simply too much of it to consider laying plastic down, so putty/sand is the only real alternative in this particular case. Or, just sand it all off and skip the putty altogether, which is a perfectly reasonable alternative. Either way you're gonna get a case of bursitis in your elbow and shoulder from the repetitive motion...
For me, my number one concern is the shrinkage that I get when using Squadron putties and similar. So, even using the red body-filler putty, I typically will do at least two or maybe three applications before I am satisfied that it can't shrink down into that crevice any further, because there's so much packed in there now.
I also use two different water-based two-part epoxy putties, which I reserve not for filling small cracks and gaps (although sometimes yes but rarely) but rather for re-shaping large areas and building up thickness on thin parts. Aves is great, cures hard as a rock, but can be difficult to manipulate until you get some practice with it and a feel for how to work the material. The second water based filler is a Japanese product, Wave is the brand, and it is called "light type epoxy putty" and can be found online
here. It cures within 3 hours, is water based, about the same density of most polystyrene when cured, is easy to sand, easy to carve, and also holds on to plastic like grim death as long as the surface has been scuffed or sanded to give it some tooth to bite on. Both of those are entirely different creatures from the Squadron, Tamiya, etc. type one-part fillers, and have very different handling characteristics.
All of that said, what would I do if I wanted to get a smoothie Enterprise from a tiled kit? Sand it, skip the putty. It's just another step you don't need. Just be careful to not destroy any detail while you're scrubbing furiously at the parts and you should be ok. Except for the bursitis.