Verlinden 2742 Luftwaffe Fuel Drum Trailer in 32nd scale Review

Verlinden has been listening to our pleas it seems -  For a long time the larger scale aircraft guys have been looking for some airfield accessories in 1/32 scale, and now modern day and WWI stuff is popping up in their product list. We have a look and build one of the latest and undoubtedly one of the most popular add-ons just released by V.P.

Verlinden Productions 2742 Luftwaffe Fuel Drum Trailer

Kit No: 2742

Scale: 1/32

Parts:  20

Material: Cream Resin

Product Link: Right here folks!


Verlinden Productions has sent us their latest Luftwaffe accessory in 1/32 – the “Luftwaffe Fuel Drum Trailer” comes in a little white box with a coloured illustration of the trailer assembled and painted on the front of the box – inside there are one trailer and four barrels to make up the kit which itself is made from twenty parts of cream coloured resin. The resin on offer is bubble free and there aren't any real residue problems that I encountered – Cleaning the resin up wasn’t much worse than cleaning styrene, just a bit stiffer.

There are some instructions on an A4 piece of coloured paper which give you both a numbered layout of the parts and the trailer constructed and painted for a guide. I didn’t really need these much as the construction was pretty elementary – but more on that later…

The parts

The resin on offer is in a little bag to keep the parts together and the smaller parts are held together on little casting blocks which aren’t too hard to remove and not too heavy. I didn’t have to rely too much on my surgery skills to take them off so removal of the parts isn’t a nerve-wracking process like I have had before.

The only tricky part of the removal is the base of the trailer which is backed onto some flat resin. I am pretty sure this is moulded in the best way possible but this just takes a while to remove the extra material between the box steel construction. A sharp knife, some concentration and 20 minutes later and all was clear.

The whole removal of the resin blocks from parts took a relaxing hour and a bit whilst having a tea or two and watching the tele. No stress no mess.

The parts go together pretty easily and the structure of the trailer is pretty strong and easy to make. The only change I made whilst making this trailer was the slight widening of the circular barrel holders.

The wheels have resin block attached to the underside of them and are easily removed and cleaned off without damaging your tread pattern.

The next thing I turned my attention to is the 44 gallon Fuel drums. One end of the barrel has a flat edge (no big resin stump to remove thanks to the maker) and on the other side is clearly printed “Kraftstoff 200l Feuergefährlich Luftwaffe” in a  Germanic font – translated pretty much as 200L fuel – flammable – Airforce. This is easily read and well-cast to make it so legible – it is a shame it isn’t visible on both sides – but then again was it on both ends of a drum normally? I thing they were from what I have found in my research. The thing is where do you inject the resin otherwise? - got me over a barrel on that one....

A Wehrmacht barrel is seen underneath, I couldn't find a more similar Luftwaffe embossing, but you get the idea - this resin is pretty well done. The barrels were undercoated in a zinc colour normally then over in grey or Yellow like the vehicles of the time

These drums sit neatly on top of the trailer in a pair and you are given two spares to help out with the diorama.

The frame of the trailer sits on two main wheels and one small wheel almost hidden underneath the trailer, this enables the trailer to sit on its own level or to be easily moved by a smaller vehicle like a Kettenkrad for example. There is an ice round circle to fit the tow bar of your favourite pulling vehicle whatever that may be – it will be big enough.

The trailer went together after cleaning up the resin within half an hour. The frame and the suspension and the axle’s construction was elementally easy, as was the mudguards and the other parts. There is a pair of tail lights for the trailer as well as small tailgate on the rear of the trailer as well – this all keeps the trailer looking busy and detailed and not like something you cobbled together with some sheet styrene.

As I mentioned earlier the thing I did change slightly was to make both of the drum holding brackets slightly wider to disperse the weight of the barrels more equally so in real life they would be less likely to fall off the sides. It is hard to judge what this trailer would be like in real life as I couldn’t find a picture of one. So you can pretty much do what you want with it – although I wouldn’t stack the drums up too high!

Well there it is constructed – it is a great little kit which only took a morning to complete but once carefully painted and weathered will look great sitting next to your new model of the He 219 you are going to buy very soon. That is my plan – ill paint them up and show you but that will be another article.

On a side note if you like this you should check out their other Luftwaffe kits in this scale – this is a perfect companion to them.

Adam Norenberg

A very many thanks to the people at Verlinden for the review kit we used.