First releases of Marabu Design photo etched sets were two small frets with British landing lights in 1:72 and 1:48 scale.

If you are building British planes you have certainly encountered a problem of big and noticeable lights on the wings leading edges, like for example in Hawker Hurricane or Fairey Barracuda, to bring just first two from my mind. For me it was always a problem to scratch build two lamps of the same size and shape. I tried to build some precision lather using a multitool or a driver, but all I get was more-less satisfying external shape of lampshade. It still lacked the internal details.

These two frets of Marabu brings a good solution for modelers like me – an almost „instant” building lamp.

Both frets have approximate size of 3x2,5cm. On the fret dedicated to 1:48 scale we can find 13 lighs of different diameters while the 1:72 scale set allows to build up to 18 lights. There are three sizes provided in each set. This way we can build the following lamps from these sets:

1:72scale
7 lamps in the diameter of 2mm
6 lamps in the diameter of 2,5mm
5 lamps in the diameter of 3mm

1:48 scale
4 lamps in the diameter of 4mm
4 lamps in the diameter of 4,5mm
5 lamps in the diameter of 3mm

There is no cross reference of the PE parts to the sizes of real lights so you will have to do your own search or simply try on the discs and choose the one with best fitting.

Assembling of the lamp is a bit tricky but not difficult. First you have to remember about heating the disc in an open fire for a second. This step is required to de-toughen fret and make is soften. When done and cooled you need to put it on a rubber, or anything else what is a bit elastic and press the disc to spherical shape. The best tool for me is a back end of painting brush or wasted ballpen. And that's it. Before gluing the bulb holder you should also think about adding some bulb inside, for example from the swollen clear sprue but this is just up to you.

Just to quickly sum up I'm very glad of having this set. Using it I can easily upgrade my kits with the noticeable details without wasting much time. These sets are really useful.