AFV Club has provided very nice detail-up version of the Knox Class Frigate. It’s the standard kit plus a resin upper hull, a large PE sheet and resin diorama base.

• One light grey sprue
• One large photoetch sheet
• One resin lower hull
• One resin base
• One small decal sheet
• Two instruction sheets (one for the kit and one for the PE parts)

The basic kit is very rudimentary, so the addition of the PE and Resin parts make this a very interesting kit to build. A couple of the areas where you need to remove details that will be replaced by PE parts will need filling, for example on part 20.

The PE instruction sheet is very well presented and detailed. I also suggest you heat treat the PE parts before starting to form them as they were very fragile and will break at the fold lines. The other area to be careful is the steps on the ladders as these snap off easily.

The first thing I did was to remove all the details that will be replaced by the PE parts as there are a lot to be removed. Once this was complete, I sprayed all the parts a gray all over.

You must be careful to ensure you remove the parts and surface details for the PE to be installed correctly. Also, some holes must be made to line up with some PE details.

The amount of PE seemed very daunting when I started as the main ship is very small and very few parts, but I found the PE Parts assembled very well and added so much needed detail to this ship. So, in the end I really enjoyed the kit and it looked great with the PE additions.

The resin hull I found did not sit correctly in the resin base with the ship on top, so I had to do a lot of sanding and shaving the surface to get the correct look once mounted. The base is an awesome addition and look great.

The final part is touching up the painting and added the few decals.

The kit was a great build although I found the PE sheet a bit fragile and the Resin hull a challenge to fit. These are minor issues when you see the final result.

Thanks go to AFV Club for providing this kit to review and IPMS USA for allowing me to review it for them