Aero base 1/160 brass Fokker Dr.I

[LAV25]

Something a little outside of the box for this site. I was at a model shop in Kyoto a couple weeks ago, looking for a new car to work on. They didn't have anything to my taste that day, but I found these little photo-etched brass kits.

I got a Fokker Dr.I for about $25USD. It's a 1:160 scale kit, doesn't require any trimming, gluing*, or filing. I thought that it'd be pretty easy to put together. It wasn't. It's tiny tiny tiny, and my fat fingers had trouble lining some of the parts up. This isn't a criticism, just a discovery. Here's a picture of the whole, unassembled kit, next to a quarter I scrounged up:

Not a whole lot to say about the assembly, I'll try and get a couple pics of the instructions up but my camera battery died before I thought of it. Basically, you use an Xacto knife to carefully pop the pieces free of the main sheet, and then bend using a tweezers. The kit includes a practice piece, so that you can get a feel for how the brass bends, and how many mistakes you can make before it breaks. I managed to do it more or less cleanly. Here's a pic partway through the assembly:

If you've ever fancied a career in watchmaking, this is a good starter. There's no gluing (*a dab of glue is recommended and necessary to keep the wheels on), everything is held together by folding tiny little tabs of metal.

All done (the kit includes the base it's pictured on):

Thanks for looking

-Michael Valentine

[Harry P.]

Leave it to the Japanese to come up with kits like this!

I don't know how you managed to work with such tiny pieces, but the end result sure looks good!

[Scalper]

That is a neat little thing. looks really tough.

[Wagoneer81]

Mr. Valentine, You, sir... are da man!!! That's an insane little kit! Well done!

[Dr. Cranky]

Beautiful, just beautifully done.