GreenStrawberry USS Defiant NX/NCC-74205 (FruitPACK FP08 1:420)

[Mike]

USS Defiant NX/NCC-74205 (FruitPACK FP08 for AMT)

1:420 GreenStrawberry

 

 

It’s Star Trek time again, this time it’s the USS Defiant from Deep Space Nine, when they decided to give the crew of the space station a bit more robust mobility and add some greater breadth to the story-telling.  The Defiant is a war ship plain and simple, and that’s all it was been designed for.  As well as taking part in season 3 onwards and making an appearance in the Star Trek movie First Contact, it is a chunky little ship and has a bit of a “Voyager” look to some of her shapes, although all strapped to a saucer-style section and without any of the crew amenities that makes ships like the Voyager and Enterprise a home for her crew.

 

The Set

Designed to fit to the 1:420 AMT kit that was first released in the 1990s and has been rereleased a few times, the last time as recently as 2014, but they're a bit thin on the ground at time of writing.  There are a lot out there in stashes of course, and GreenStrawberry have a pair of sets available to improve on the kit's simplified detail.  The FruitPACK brings those together in a cost-effective and attractive box that contains a lot of resin, plus three sheets of Photo-Etch and a small sheet of decals.  Inside the card box you get two sets that cover the Engines & Exterior in one, and Hangars in the other.  Here’s what it all looks like in the heat-seal and ziplok bags:

 

 

Engines & Exterior (08019-1/420)

There are forty-two resin parts in grey, clear blue and clear red resin, plus two sheets of Photo-Etch (PE) part and a thick instruction sheet, plus a load of tiny resin flakes from the moulding process.  There will be a little plastic butchery involved to fit some parts, which is best done before you begin the build, especially as this set just begs to be lit thanks to the translucent resin parts.  Initially this includes removing the circular shuttle-bay panel underneath, some small details, a pair of recessed bays under the nose and eight holes on the upper side.  The bays are replaced by detailed inserts and eight translucent blue plugs fill the holes, while the shuttle bay is left until later.  A few more small details are removed from the snout of the craft and filled with a translucent blue resin part with waffle texture moulded-in and a resin bracing part behind it.  Next are a pair of louvered vents on the top of the ship, which are shaved off and replaced by a resin surround, translucent red centre and four resin inserts in the recesses, plus a set of folded up ladder shaped parts that fit into the area.

 

 

 

In the engine nacelles new “intake” lips are temporarily fitted to act as a template to cut a hole through which the translucent red intake is passed, and the lip is then permanently attached around it.  This is repeated on the other side and joined by a bunch of PE details on each side, and later on some resin parts are added to busy the area up.  Under the rear of the nose there is a scoop-shaped area that is detailed with a new skin plus additional parts that replace all the simplified detail of the kit.  The kit exhausts are excised and replaced by a sandwich of two bay halves with a translucent blue insert between them that acts as a diffuser for a light to tint the whole bay blue.  This will also show up the moulded-in detail and the additional parts placed within the area before fitting.

 

The aft of the Defiant is a bit of a beaver-tail that looks a little unfinished, and this section gets a thorough overhaul with new impulse engine tubes that are recessed, mesh vents and other details.  The rest of the set is used in thoroughly upgrading the detail to the outer hull, with skins, grilles and other details that take up a substantial number of parts.  more parts are added to the aft, and the upgrade is completed by replacing the shuttle-bay doors with a new more detailed assembly.

 

 

 

Hangars (07919-1/420)

This set consists of one fret of PE, a sheet of decals, plus seventeen resin parts in grey, and of course the instruction sheet.  This details the area you might have just covered over with the new doors in the set above, as well as the smaller bays in the lower hull, so remember this and plan ahead.

 

 

 

Construction begins with the main bay in the belly, which is made up in layers to give a thoroughly 3D look, which includes decals for display screens as you go.  They both attach to a bulkhead that is also decked out with decals along with some PE parts and access ladders that are folded up and put in place.  The bay doorway is lined with a PE lip and the doors are folded into shape and placed in the aperture, with a large decal on the inside “stand clear” written around the edge.

 

The smaller bays are made inside the small resin boxes with one end left open while the other is closed up with some small windows left for lights to shine through, into which you fit the shuttle pads and a lot of decals.  There is also a PE part that is added to the underside of the shuttle “tray” that will allow it to be slid in and out, or to fix them in the deployed or retracted positions at your whim.  After cutting out the bays from the kit lower, the bay edges are tidied up by adding a PE surround, then apply the completed bay from behind and add extra detail parts to the surround.  If you really must cover up all that nice detail, a set of finely grooved doors are also supplied, although you’d be mad to fit them unless you made a boo-boo.

 

The final fun part of this set is a few different types of shuttle, including one larger Chaffee shuttle, two Work Bee Units, and two Type 18 shuttles with their weird hovercraft vibe.  They all have decals for their windows, as well as codes and for the type 18s, pinstripes and door lines.

 

 

 

Conclusion

This is very involved and detailed set that is by no means cheap, but if you’re serious about your Defiant model it’s a must have, especially if you’re planning on lighting it, which is very common in Sci-Fi modelling these days.  This provides you with the majority of the parts that will do it justice, needing just the lighting loom to finish off.

 

Very highly recommended if you have or can get a kit for a sensible price.

FruitPACK FP08

 

 

They’re also available separately if you only want one set

 

Engines & Exterior

 

Hangars (07919-1/420)

 

Review sample courtesy of

 

[Basosz]

I have a built up Defiant somewhere... would this update work on a finished kit or do I need to disassemble (and repaint) it?

[Mike]

7 minutes ago, Basosz said:

I have a built up Defiant somewhere... would this update work on a finished kit or do I need to disassemble (and repaint) it?

I'd say you'd be better to disassemble it.  It begs to be lit!

[Basosz]

Indeed. Well something to consider! It's an expensive update though.

[Nocoolname]

Thanks for the review Mike. I actually traded in my 1/420 Defiant in order to get the new tool 1/100 version to be closer in scale to my other TNG kits and shortly afterwards was blown away by this detail set. That said I'm hoping to pick up the set for the smaller version and I'm really hoping its as good as the above.