NOTE: You can click on most pictures to get a larger view of them.
Welcome back to my series of reviews for the various resin kits I've built. For my next review, I would like to focus on Cozmo Heavy Industries' Dakota class carrier.
Welcome back to my series of reviews for the various resin kits I've built. For my next review, I would like to focus on Cozmo Heavy Industries' Dakota class carrier.
C.H.I.'s eBay Advertisement
This ship is not listed in either Memory Alpha or Memory Beta. There is discussion of this class of ship at the Orion Press Fanzine under thier Starfleet Cariers page. You can read that article at THIS LINK.
Dakota class starships were first introduced in 2279 as the Napolean class became more and more obsolete. The Dakotas were designed to transport larger fighters and shuttles at an even faster velocity.
SHIPS OF THE CLASS: NCC-2300 U.S.S. Dakota, NCC-2301 U.S.S. Choktaw, NCC-2302 U.S.S. Muscogee, NCC-2303 U.S.S. Hopi, NCC-2304 U.S.S. Kiowa, NCC-2305 U.S.S. Miccosukee, NCC-2306 U.S.S. Pawnee, NCC-2307 U.S.S. Seminole, NCC-2308 U.S.S. Shawnee, NCC-2309 U.S.S. Blackfeet, NCC-2310 U.S.S. Arapahoe
Ship’s Complement: Officers: 64; Crew: 520
Weaponry: Phasers: 9 Banks of 2 Cannons Photon Torpedoes: 8 Tubes
Warp Speeds: Normal Cruise: 4, Maximum Cruise: 6.7 , Maximum Rated: 9.5 for 12 hours
The Dakota class heavy shuttle carrier is one of the first non-dreadnought classes to utilize 3 warp drive nacelles. The "Dakota" is designed to be a support ship for a variety of shuttlecraft in non-hostile and rear support areas. She carries a standard complement of 425, an impressive 28 shuttlecraft bays.
The Model
The Dakota class shuttle carrier is another one of Jay's Miranda variant ships. Actually, to be more accurate, Jay obtained permission from Jackill to reproduce his schematics in model form. This one is pretty hefty coming in at 15cm long of solid resin. It's been a while since I built my ship, but I think it comes in about six pieces and Jay also includes a stand base with it.
DeepSpace Pat's Paint Scheme
The primary hull and the extra parts required some trimming to remove the excess resin, and although I personally didn't do it, a light sanding in a few spots would probably be a good idea. I believe that I needed to do a little picking with the end of an exacto knife in a few of the hanger bays to remove resin crumbs. Other than that, this is a fairly clean model with lots of molded in details. Although I didn't use them, Jay provided a set of decals to add even more detail to your ship. I may one day revisit this model to put the some of the decals on, especially in those groves above each shuttle bay. I built this ship prior to my taking work in progress pictures so I really don't remember much more about the build in general. This was my second resin build though, and like my Hippocrates class ship, I do remember getting my butt kicked while trying to mount on the warp nacelles. They were a pain to mount, plain and simple. And this ship had three of them.
NOTE: The issue that I had with the nacelles was because I was new to resin kit building, not due to any fault of the kit itself. THIS ARTICLE on gluing has some helpful hints to help those of you who are new to this form of modeling.
As I said earlier, the kit also comes with a stand base. There is no rod with the stand so you will need to fabricate one of you own. I have written a short article on how I make the rods for my stands and you can read that HERE if you like.
Conclusion
Overall, this is a very cool ship to have in your fleet. It is not one for first time modelers AND if you are new to resin kit building in general, I would hold off on attempting this one. If you plan to use the decals, I would say that the skill level required for this one will go up even more do to the sheer amount of decals you will be cutting out and placing.
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:
Cozmo Heavy Industries
Kit Maker Information
Jay who runs Cozmo Heavy Industries sells all of his kits via eBay. He changes out what ships are for sale every Saturday evening so it is best to check in once a week to see what he has for sale.
Jay also maintains a FaceBook page where he likes to share his work in progress on future kit releases. I really like this approach as I'm a big fan of behind the scenes stuff.
Lastly, Jay does have a website, but it is more of an informational page about the business.
C.H.I.'s eBay Seller Profile: CLICK HERE
C.H.I.'s FaceBook Page: CLICK HERE
C.H.I.'s Website: CLICK HERE
If you have ever followed Jay's work, you will know that he hand makes all of his kits from pre-existing parts, and he hand crafts all the other pieces for the ship. This allows him to produce all sorts of unique model kits.
When I interviewed Jay about his business, he says that a lot of his kits were designed and made over 20 years ago so he is unsure now just how long it took to make most of them.
I consider myself an intermediate model maker. I'm pretty good with assembling kits these days and OK on the painting side of things. I ultimately end up with ships that look good enough to me to display in my collection. In an effort to expand my ship collection into areas that I can't buy pre-assembled ship types and classes of, I've turned to building them myself, either by kitbashing or purchasing ready made resin model kits.
There are several smaller garage kit makers out there that produce some very good kits. I've actually developed a good relationship with a couple of them and volunteered some of my time to write up reviews about the kits I've purchased from them. I have already warned them that I intend to be pretty objective, not pull any punches, and these reviews are going to be written from the point of view of an intermediate model builder.
Lastly, due to the nature of resin casting, not every kit is going to be the same. Excess resin and air pockets are a part of the game when you get into this sort of model building. The kit that I got and built may be slightly different than your kit as far as minor quality issues. I will still point out flaws with my kit as those flaws could lead into a lesson of some sort for either you the reader or the kit maker themselves.
Helpful Hint Articles
NOTE: If you are new to my reviews, then please read on. This section talks about the garage kit maker that made this kit as well as a little about why I'm writing this review. If you are one of my regular readers, then feel free to skip the rest of this article as it is a word for word repeat of stuff from previous articles.
Jay also maintains a FaceBook page where he likes to share his work in progress on future kit releases. I really like this approach as I'm a big fan of behind the scenes stuff.
Lastly, Jay does have a website, but it is more of an informational page about the business.
C.H.I.'s eBay Seller Profile: CLICK HERE
C.H.I.'s FaceBook Page: CLICK HERE
C.H.I.'s Website: CLICK HERE
If you have ever followed Jay's work, you will know that he hand makes all of his kits from pre-existing parts, and he hand crafts all the other pieces for the ship. This allows him to produce all sorts of unique model kits.
When I interviewed Jay about his business, he says that a lot of his kits were designed and made over 20 years ago so he is unsure now just how long it took to make most of them.
DISCLAIMER SECTION
I consider myself an intermediate model maker. I'm pretty good with assembling kits these days and OK on the painting side of things. I ultimately end up with ships that look good enough to me to display in my collection. In an effort to expand my ship collection into areas that I can't buy pre-assembled ship types and classes of, I've turned to building them myself, either by kitbashing or purchasing ready made resin model kits.
There are several smaller garage kit makers out there that produce some very good kits. I've actually developed a good relationship with a couple of them and volunteered some of my time to write up reviews about the kits I've purchased from them. I have already warned them that I intend to be pretty objective, not pull any punches, and these reviews are going to be written from the point of view of an intermediate model builder.
Lastly, due to the nature of resin casting, not every kit is going to be the same. Excess resin and air pockets are a part of the game when you get into this sort of model building. The kit that I got and built may be slightly different than your kit as far as minor quality issues. I will still point out flaws with my kit as those flaws could lead into a lesson of some sort for either you the reader or the kit maker themselves.
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