USS Defiant
This is the USS Defiant from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I like the ship, but the show leaves a little to be desired (in my opinion). Still, the ship was neat, and I wanted to include it in my 1/1400 scale fleet.
I got it from John F. Green Models, who is now closed, sadly. It's a Spaceboy Productions model, molded in all resin. It comes in three parts, the two warp nacelles and the main body. Construction is a piece of cake, a little super glue and you are set. I liked that. It seems fairly accurate, and in scale, but there are a few problems. The lines on the ship are way to deep for the scale. I understand putting grooved lines for the panels, but they were a little excessive. It did, however, make it easy to paint. The other problem was that it didn't come with decals. Fortunately, McDaniel Models came to the rescue. He scaled down the AMT/ERTL Defiant decals to the right scale. They worked great.
The version that I have is the first release that Spaceboy did. They made a mold of the Hallmark ornamant, and sold copies of that. It was pretty decent, but the surface texture was rough and it wasn't completely accurate. They later re-tooled the model and it looks really nice. I would have waited to get that if I had known about it. You used to be able it at TM Lindsey's website. They ran into some trouble with a few hurricanes, so they are temporarily out of business. Hopefully they will reopen soon.
Putting it Together
As for painting, I thought I'd have to put a primer coat on it since its resin, but not so. I was able to paint the base coat of Light Ghost Gray on with no problem. It may have had something to do with the surface of the model. Like I said, it was kinda rough, and I even sanded it down some. Then I painted all the panels by hand. I used reference pictures from a Japanese book called Star Trek Mechanics. That book is an outstanding reference for any semi-serious Trek modeler. It's getting harder to find now days, but let me tell you that it is worth every penny you pay for it.
After adding the decals, and painting the base, it was done. It's a nice addition to my fleet. Overall, it's an ok model. I wish I had gotten the re-tooled version though. I've seen pictures, and it looks nice. Hopefully TM Lindsey will open again and we'll be able to get it.
