History

OK all I can tell you is that the Friese 16 ton crane was a German portable field crane of World War two rated to 16 ton. No history is supplied.

The Kit

Well this is a beauty, more a photo etched kit with resin than a resin kit with photo etch. The package follows the same style of the rest of the range, with a red faced card backing holding via staples two open topped clear bags a black paper backing sheet and then the instructions.
The resin which is in one bag consists of eight pieces, the two wheel boggy units, the winch block and transverse motor unit. No air bubbles are present and the detail is superb, some very minor flash will need to be cleaned up on the bogies and the resin parts cut away from the casting blocks.
The photo etch is etched by Hauler and is a marvel, my first thought on seeing the PE was Oh my God but after studying the PE and the instructions it almost calls out to be built as it looks a lot easier than that first impression. The PE consists of 21 parts and these go to make up the two up rights which are 5 parts each, the winch chain, hand chain and the main gantry section.
I’m not convinced by the open topped bags as once the package has been opened the parts are free to fall out, a supply of ‘zip-loc’ style bags is recommended.

The Instructions

These are clear and precise and printed on a double sided sheet of A5. The build sequence is broken down into five stages with two sub-stages in stage one. With the detail of this kit it will pay to study the instruction sheet though, and some form of folding device is almost a given requirement to build this.

The Markings

No markings are supplied and no colour scheme mentioned. This could depend on which service used the crane but as my search for details came up blank I cannot draw a conclusion.

In Conclusion

A great kit, which, although it scared the life out of me on first seeing it put me at ease once I had seen the instructions. Lack of any colour direction could cause a problem if the modeller has no reference material. This is not a kit for the novice.
Picture of the completed crane from the Brengun website.

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