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Odyssey Slipways 1/2500 Coventry Class Starship

By Scott Squibb - images & text © 2006

Scale: 1/2500 - 3¾l;"/95mm long, 2"/51mm wide when built
Parts: 3 resin - Main hull, 2 warp engines
Instructions: Diagram of completed ship with basic assembly
Decals: None
Molding Quality: 9.5
Detail: 8 - Very close to known drawings
Accuracy: 8
MSRP: $24.00 USD (~$26.60 CAN/ € 18.70 EUR) available from Starship Modeler
Overall Rating: 10


[Please click to enlarge]

^ What you get

Image: Top view

Image: Underneath

Image: Coventry-Surya comparison

As with every Odyssey Slipways kit, I have yet to be disappointed in the quality of work that goes into each of his models.

What You Get

You get the primary hull as a separate piece with the pylons already molded to the hull, which is nice since you don't have to worry about messing up the alignment of the pylons/hull/engines. The engines are molding as one piece and are completely new sculpts of the original TOS engines and are nicely done with great attention to the details, especially the “warp grills”. The instructions are very straightforward line drawings showing the placement of the engines to the pylon, pretty simple. There are no decals provided.

Clean Up

As with most OS kits be prepared for some major cleaning as the mold release is quite vicious. Beyond the usual scrub down with resin kits, there was barley any cleanup involved, except for the removal of the pour stubs on the engines with my copy.(be careful removing the stubs close to the engines however, as it can create small holes in the engines) the rest of the kit was flash free, and no visible air bubbles.

Assembly

Construction of this kit is simple: attach engines and you are finished. The only part here that is lacking, is the absence of the lower deflector dish, which can easily be acquired from the 1/2500 3 piece set.

Paint

I used Model Master Acrylic Gull Gray as the base, which is what I use for all my TOS ships. It seems to match how the ship looked on T.V.(at least to my eyes anyway) I also used MM Neutral Gray for some of the accents, and MM Insignia Red for the bussards and MM Metallic Silver for the warp grills.

Decals

The only thing lacking with this kit is decals, as of this time OS does not include decals with his kits. This isn't a big deal with say the Klingons or Romulans, but for the Federation it's a must. So I made my own using Adobe Illustrator.

Last Thoughts

Overall this kit is a great weekend build since it will take no time at all. And it's also a great resin starter kit as there is hardly any major work to be done on this model. You can't go wrong in purchasing this kit, or any other from Odyssey Slipways.

Please note that the opinions expressed in this article are those of the reviewer.
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This page copyright © 2006 Starship Modeler™. First posted on 30 Aug 2006.