TOKO 1:72 NIEUPORT 11 "BEBE"

Reviewer: Bill Powers  (Jwp968@aol.com)

The Experimental Industrial Technologies Plant no. 46 (a.k.a. TOKO) has released another in its series of WWI kits, to the delight of all WWI modlers.

The Nieuport 11 is molded in very soft grey plastic and is exquisite in its detail and delicate reproduction of what was a very delicate airplane. The interior has the wooden frames molded into the sides and are accurate in location and thickness! The ribbing reproduction is probably to scale, before you snicker, take a look at it! Even the wrinkles where the fabric puckers on the horizontal stabiler has been reproduced.

The model scales perfectly in dimension but there are some disagreements as to shape of wingtips and rake on the top wing. My early set of Harry Woodman plans fit the model perfectly, but the later set of plans from Woodman has a different rake on the top wing and the wing tips are slightly different. Only an expert will know!!! and you can say they fit Harry's early plans.

The engine is primitive, but no moreso than any WWI in this scale. I rebuilt mine.

The struts are accurate in size and they fit! Be careful cutting out the inverted Vee cabane strut. I used stretched sprue to replace the struts for the horizontal stabilizer and the gun mount because the kit's were too delicate to survive cutting off the sprue tree. The overwing Lewis gun has a cooling tube attached which is probably inaccurate and should be removed and the gun barrell and gas tube redone in thin brass rod or sprue. I do have a photo of a SE5 with the Lewis sporting this tube, but the perfectionists will protest.

The kit includes the rockets, but they are soooo delicate that I didn't attempt to use them.

The pieces fit together with no problem, even without locator pegs on the fuselage halves. The struts were so accurate, no trimming or thinning was necessary. I do suggest the mounting holes in the top wings be enlarged to match the pegs on the struts and the pegs be "cleaned up" so they fit into the holes easily. The glue joint of the front cabane struts is weak, so I added .005 plastic plates to tie strut to fuselage, which was actually done on the real plane. I glued the Vee strut to the fusleage and wing struts to the lower wing, then place the top wing onto the cabane struts. I checked alignment, eyeballed, then glued to cabane struts to the top wing with crazy glue. Then I glued each wing strut to the top wing. Mine lined up perfectly.

I used fly tying thread for rigging. Remember the "drag" wire from the fuselage to the wing strut.

There are a few "bad" items. The windscreen is solid. I cut a square in the solid piece and glued a "tiny" square of clear 0.005 over the outside. The landing gear is not accurate but it is delicate. I replaced mine with .020 brass rod. There are no opennings for the rudder and elevator cables, so I drill these with a no.80 drill bit. The upper elevator control cable goes through the stabilzor to the control horn. The propeller is not perfectly accurate but it'll do. Lightly sand down the nuts and propeller plate. Paint the entire propeller a dark red/brown then use a brass or steel "wash" to highlight the nuts and plate.

The kit decals provide five schemes: two French, two Russian, and one Ulrainian (TOKO is located in the Ukraine), plus the small stenciling on the under wintips. The decals went on with no problems and responded to Solvaset. I use a little soap in my decal water to lubricate the surfaces and allow the decal to slide.

The kit builds into a beautiful model, is well engineered and so simple.

I built mine to compete in the IPMS Region 3 Convention, so I detailed the interior, built a new engine and landing gear. The model took second in class!

This is the fourth WWI kit from TOKO and two more have been released. The Pfalz is the best kit, there are four bays to rig, but it has an exquisite engine and radiator. The Siemens is beautiful and simple like the Nieuport and comes with wings, struts and decals for either the DIII or DIV version. I'm building one for the IPMS Nationals. The Snipe is a beautiful kit of an ugly airplane that has four bays to rig. The lozenge pattern for both the Pfalz and Siemens are inaccurate, both in color and orientation of the pattern BUT at least you are given the decal !!

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A couple of images of Bill's superb finished model