Mirage Hobby 350803, HMS Spiraea Flower-Class Corvette, K08, Ship

Good Kit of rare subject but even at this scale smaal parts were impossible for my Old Hands.

This is the second kit I have purchased of the Flower Class that I have acquired, the first being a gift from my family. These kits are of out standing quality and I fully recommend them.

Very neat, like the photo-eteched parts, good value

When I saw this kit advertised I was very happy because I am a big fan of the Flower Class Corvettes and this one sounded just perfect because of it's smallish size. I am a reasonably experienced modeller although my eyesight is not as great anymore. However, this ship gave me headaches and on a number of occasions I almost called it quits. The plans were often vague as to where some parts actually fitted, and they were on the small size too. Trying to cut parts off the thick sprues resulted in many parts being damaged or flying off into the distance, some items should never have consisted of multiple bits to glue together and sadly my depth charge racks were the biggest casualty; they broke irreparably. As I got closer to completion I found I had lost a lot of interest, the kit compared to kits by Airfix or Revell did not make the grade as far as I was concerned. I attempted the brass etchings but gave up on them too and once I was finished I put the ship aside and did not bother any further with it. An extremely good modeller will have a blast though, I have seen some customised versions of the kit and they were really spectacular. And, .I believe you can buy many of the fittings such as guns as separate brass fittings to go with the ship, but mine will never get that far. Had this kit been better I would have had a whole fleet of them, but sad to say I am considering consigning her to a forgotten shelf where she will gather dust. I was very disappointed in this kit from a modelling aspect. However, if you are a Flower fan and don't have space for the Matchbox version you can give it a bash, I just hope your's turns out better than mine .