Saturday, February 28, 2015

Resin Kit Review: Cozmo Heavy Industries 1:2500 Constitution Class Phase II Prototype

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

My next resin kit  review is going to cover a rather rare kit, the 1:2500 scale Constitution Class Phase II Prototype from Cozmo Heavy Industries.

C.H.I.'s eBay Advertisement

This kit is of one of the proposed designs for the Enterprise had we seen a Star Trek: Phase II TV series.  I believe that it was also reconsidered when they started thinking about what sort of ship design to use for Star Trek: The Next Generation.


There is not a lot of information on this type of ship other than it was a study model built for a proposed movie.  Per Memory Alpha, "Star Trek: Planet of the Titans (alternatively called Star Trek: Planet of Titans) was to have been the first motion picture based on Star Trek: The Original Series. It was one of several early attempts to bring Star Trek back after the series had been canceled."  You can read more about that movie and the model at this Memory Alpha LINK.

The ship does make a super brief appearance in Star Trek III where she can just barely be seen in the back of Spacedock.

Photo Credit: Memory Alpha

She also makes a guest appearance as a junked starship in a Federation Boneyard in the Next Generation.

Photo Credit: Memory Alpha

The Model

It has been a while since I built this kit.  I didn't remember it coming in 7 pieces, but when I went and took a close look at my model, the saucer was indeed in two pieces.  Because of the age of the kit, mine did not have a stand base with it.  The finished ship measures in at around 12cm.

 
 
 
 
DeepSpace Pat's Paint Scheme

NOTE: The eye hook is NOT part of the kit.  As I mentioned before, this particular one did not have a stand base.  I installed the eye hook because a majority of my models are hung up on a book shelf to conserve space.  

The kit required a bit of cleanup as far as excess resin and sprue was concerned.  Since the shapes were fairly simple though, this clean-up did not take too long, nor was it difficult to accomplish.  The upper and lower parts of the saucer fit together perfectly with out the need of any grinding or sanding of the two touching flat sides and I consider that a major plus for the kit.  I've had some kits from various garage kit makers that required some major sanding and puttying in order to get the pieces to fit together.  This was not one of those kits.  

NOTE: If I remember correctly, my kit was the last one that Jay was able to produce from his molds as they had gotten pretty worn out.  This is probably what accounted for the overly excess resin that I encountered.  This ship is on Jay's rather large "To Do" list as far as getting his molds retooled.  I look forward to one day following his work over on FaceBook for that project.

Painting the ship was real simple and although I didn't use them at the time, C.H.I. does supply some very helpful decals of some key areas of the ship.  The addition of these decals would really make your ship look good.

The hardest part for me with this kit was gluing her together, particularly the nacelle struts and nacelles.  She was one of the first resin kits I built so this had something to do with that issue.


If you are new to building and gluing resin kits, be sure to check out my helpful hints about it later on in this article.

Conclusion

This is a very cool and unique kit to add to your fleet.  It is very rare to see this ship design anywhere so adding one to your collection would be a bonus.  Once you clean up the excess resin, it makes for a very nice model to build.  However, given the nacelle and nacelle strut construction, I would not recommend this kit for first time resin kit builders, and definitely not for a first time model builder in general.


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



Helpful Hint Articles
Washing     Warped Parts     Gluing     Filling The Gaps     Making Stands     Decals



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.

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.

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.

No comments:

Post a Comment