Yeah, I didn't know either before I joined the board and visited the Trek Art forum. It does apparently mean that you're using parts of different commercially available model kit to build a new model. Aww, thanks, PK! It's a nice image, isn't it? Somehow it reminds me of my own childhood. It also brings back nice memories of early DS9. It's kind of an iconic image for DS9, methinks. I was inspired by one of the caps in the Trek Screencap Game thread in General Trek. I just had to transform it into an animation.
It's when they buy a ton of AMT trek kits and use parts from differant ships to make a new class of vessel, they were quite common in DS9. I prefer to call them what they ''really'' are. The Frankenstien Fleet!
^ A kitbash is where you take a model kit/s and rearrange the parts into a new design, eg sticking Galaxy class nacelles on a Constitution class, that type of thing.