Typ: Biplane â€Udet U12 Flamingoâ€
Scale: 1:24 (I Rescaled it to 1:32)
Publisher: Schreiber Bogen
Design: Alvar Hansen
This is a good step-up model, its easy and straightforward to build. The print and fit is excellent and there are no real tricky parts to make. I wanted my model in 1:32 so I scanned and rescaled it and printed it on 170g cardstock with my Canon ip4000. It turned out good but not as crisp as the original so if you going to build it in 1:24 don’t work from a copy. Anyway its always a good idée to make a copy if something’s goes wrong BUT DO NOT SHARE IT WITH OTHERS! (I got coffee stains on one wing and forget a part when making the propeller.) If you can’t make a copy then buy two sets, they are cheep.
The construction diagrams are easy to follow but some parts are not clearly shown so it’s easy to forget parts, I did that twice but luckily it didn’t matter. So take care in checking the numbers of parts used in each step. The fuselage aft cockpit is unsupported so it should be stiffened with an extra layer of cardstock to keep shape. I thought the wing angle would be hard to get right but you get parts to make jigs and these will help you get the right angle. The overall detail and appearance is good except for the control sticks and exhaust pipe that is represented in 2D so I made new parts using plastic rods in different diameters. The wheels are nice but needed to be rounded so I fitted the wheels to my minidrill and turned them using sandpaper to get a nice rounded shape.
I used four different glues on this kit, Uhu universal for large parts, PVA glue on small parts and parts that needed some shaping like the propeller, thin superglue for some plastic parts and superglue gel for attaching the wings and undercarriage. The only “fancy†tool I used was the minidrill but a basic toolkit should be sufficient to build this kit.
The only thing left to do is rigging and some touching up with paint. I really enjoyed building this kit and it looks great in my cabinet. I will certainly build more models from Schreiber Bogen and the Ford trimotor is next.
MVH Hakan Bostrom
Here are some pictures that show the parts I made and the finished model.