Thanks to the weather, I had a nice four day weekend and took some time from writing the reviews. But it's time to get back to work, so let us jump back into it with a review of the Cozmo Heavy Industries 1:2500 scale Condor class. This is another one of C.H.I.'s Romulan cargo haulers and although these types of ships are not my normal thing, this one looked kinda cool to me.
C.H.I.'s eBay Advertisement
This ship has never appeared on screen and is right out of the mind of Jay, who owns and operates C.H.I. What really sold me on it, besides the sleek look for a cargo hauler was that it looks to be a TNG era ship.
The kit comes in 12 pieces and includes a very hefty looking stand base. Two of the pieces are cut PVC pipe which will end up becoming the main part of your cargo containers. This ship measures in at 14cm when complete.
Since it looks TNG like to me, I opted to go with the often seen green color scheme of that time period for my model.
Cleanup of excess resin was not to bad. Given that these are newer molds, there is less excess to deal with. Trimming the parts off the sheet was easy to do as well.
Assembly of all the parts was a breeze and didn't require a lot of patience to put them all together.
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 and he has hinted on FaceBook that he may be closing down that site.
I find Jay to be a very approachable garage kit maker. He has a regular day job and uses the business to not only allow him to make new ships for himself but to also help fund his love for the hobby. 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. He loves to talk about the hobby and has lots of good advice about the hobby if you ever ask him for it. He will usually answer any questions you send to him within a day or two.
C.H.I.'s eBay Seller Profile: CLICK HERE
C.H.I.'s FaceBook Page: CLICK HERE
C.H.I.'s Website: CLICK HERE
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 which is why I don't have a lot of behind the scenes information about the kits like in my other reviews.
Jay recently shared on his FaceBook page about his stance on stands. In it he wrote, "Everybody does theirs different. I use .055" piano wire and not everybody has that size drill bit. Plus, that tiny wire would put a hole in the bag and get lost. I have also seen people use clear rod, or use the base as a badge to apply to a larger stand." So there you go. And as I've said in other articles, I have yet to see a resin kit that comes with a rod.
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. I've found that there are all sorts of neat ships out there that no one has made a pre-built or pre-painted model of, so, in an effort to expand my ship collection 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. If this means that I warn away a first time builder from a particular kit, then they will need to be OK with that approach.
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.
The kit comes in 12 pieces and includes a very hefty looking stand base. Two of the pieces are cut PVC pipe which will end up becoming the main part of your cargo containers. This ship measures in at 14cm when complete.
Since it looks TNG like to me, I opted to go with the often seen green color scheme of that time period for my model.
DeepSpace Pat's Paint Scheme
Cleanup of excess resin was not to bad. Given that these are newer molds, there is less excess to deal with. Trimming the parts off the sheet was easy to do as well.
Assembly of all the parts was a breeze and didn't require a lot of patience to put them all together.
Instead of gluing the cargo containers to my ship, I decided to try something that I had done with my Kestrel class ship. Doing some careful measurements, and figuring out a good balance point on the ship with the containers "attached", I installed two support rods for the ship.
Because I have done this, I am able to display the ship with or without containers AND if I want, I can even swap out the stock containers with other types of containers.
The kit does not come with rods. If you have read any of my other C.H.I. reviews, you will know that Jay feels that everyone has different tastes in what they want for a support rod. And quite frankly, he is not the only garage kit maker that does this. I have included a link down below on a quick and somewhat easy D.I.Y. article on making your own rods.
Painting the ship was relatively easy. There are no tiny difficult parts to paint and to tell you the truth, I probably put more work into making the base look pretty. There are supplied decals that come with the kit. At this point in my model building career, I was not comfortable doing decals so I left them off.
Conclusion
Even though there are a lot of parts for this ship, it really was not super complicated to build. Because of this, I would probably recommend it for first time modelers and first time resin kit builders, as long as they follow the simple tips I've included in the links down below. In the end, you will end up with a really neat looking ship that you won't find through any other supplier.
I hope you found this article as useful and informative as I did while writing it. Please feel free to leave any comments, questions or suggestions below.
So, for now, "Live Long & Prosper!"
Additional Links To Photos Of My Collection:
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.
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 and he has hinted on FaceBook that he may be closing down that site.
I find Jay to be a very approachable garage kit maker. He has a regular day job and uses the business to not only allow him to make new ships for himself but to also help fund his love for the hobby. 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. He loves to talk about the hobby and has lots of good advice about the hobby if you ever ask him for it. He will usually answer any questions you send to him within a day or two.
C.H.I.'s eBay Seller Profile: CLICK HERE
C.H.I.'s FaceBook Page: CLICK HERE
C.H.I.'s Website: CLICK HERE
Jay recently shared on his FaceBook page about his stance on stands. In it he wrote, "Everybody does theirs different. I use .055" piano wire and not everybody has that size drill bit. Plus, that tiny wire would put a hole in the bag and get lost. I have also seen people use clear rod, or use the base as a badge to apply to a larger stand." So there you go. And as I've said in other articles, I have yet to see a resin kit that comes with a rod.
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. I've found that there are all sorts of neat ships out there that no one has made a pre-built or pre-painted model of, so, in an effort to expand my ship collection 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. If this means that I warn away a first time builder from a particular kit, then they will need to be OK with that approach.
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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