by Christoffer Rees

This is WARP Models’ Deep Space Freighter, sometimes referred to as the Merchantman or something like that. This is the ship seen early in Star Trek III. Klingon Valkris commissioned the freighter for a small job to make contact with Commander Kruge to deliver stolen information concerning the project Genesis. After discovering that Valkris had seen the information herself, Kruge promptly destroyed the ship after brief goodbyes.

The kit comes in 3 pieces and the hardest part is getting the pot metal antenna thing on each wing to adhere to the resin. Once those are in place and then breaking them off several times trying to hide the seams, assembly is done. Engines were drilled out just to make them deeper. Some heat stretched sprue was used to detail near the aft area where the kit lacked, or just had to be cleaned out because of mold damage always prevalent with a resin kit. Painting is a purple-gray-green cocktail for the base color, with black and all the metallics I had at my disposal for detailing. A mauve wash, a black wash in some parts, red lights and some brown dry brushing finish off the painting.

Image: Detail, under the bow

Image: Top/rear detail

Image: Bottom/rear detail