Description
This is a full-color 1:144 3D print of SPAD 12 444 of Sous-Lieutenant Gabriel Fernand Charles Guerin of Escadrille SPA 15. Guerin started in the infantry and transferred to the air service in August 1916. After being assigned to Escadrille 15, he gained frequent air victories, culminating with his twenty-third on 19 July 1918 (plus ten probable victories). On August 1 he suffered a fatal crash during takeoff. It is believed he flew this SPAD 12, but it may have been a different pilot at SPA 15.
No painting is necessary — this model comes printed in full color, ready to use. The model does not come with a flight stand, maneuver deck, or plane card. You can find an unofficial plane card for this plane in this paint scheme in the gallery on this page.
Plane statistics and gaming information may be found at https://linen.miraheze.org/wiki/SPAD_12.
Shipping: Shipping varies from about US$7 to US$15 per order, depending on the destination country. See your cart for an exact number — the prices may vary with currency fluctuations. Orders over US$300 may get free shipping.
Taxes: Sales tax — where applicable — will be added for U.S. shipments. Value-added taxes (VAT) may (or may not) be collected by your postal carrier on receipt, which is known as “Delivery At Place”. Unfortunately, since my printing and shipping partner has no way of marking shipments as VAT-paid, this website cannot collect VAT on your behalf.
Customs: Most orders should be small enough to avoid customs duties, but you may want to check your local regulations. If duties are due, they may be collected by your postal carrier. E.U. customers may be able to avoid duties by keeping their order under €150.
No refunds are available, because your order is custom-printed when it is received. There is no inventory or stock to which it can be returned.
Reprints are available for planes damaged during shipping. See https://www.greatwarplanes.com/refund_returns/ for details.
Grey Resin: Models printed in Grey Resin material are printed with sprue-style supports while they are printed. The supports are removed in the factory before shipping. But be aware that some of the supports might be missed if they are mistaken for plane parts, and some of the attachment points might need smoothing before painting. I have seen good results — with almost no visible leftovers — in test prints. But this may not be universal because it depends on whoever is operating the printer the day your miniature is printed.
Bent Wings: Due to the need to protect miniatures during shipping, the miniatures may arrive with wings that are not perfectly straight (or, in the case of wings with dihedral, at the right angle)¹. If the warping is too severe, or if correcting it results in a broken plane, you can apply for a reprint as outlined above. To correct modest warping, you can heat the model with hot water or with a blow-dryer until the wings become pliable, straighten them, and then cool the model with cool water or room-temperature air. (I have used the blow-dryer method with good success.) I do not know what temperature is best — you’ll have to experiment, starting on the low side and using only gentle pressure. You just want to make the model pliable without it melting (too hot) or breaking under gentle pressure (too cool). Please use the normal precautions you’d use with any operation with hot water, air, and plastic.
Since — as you have gathered — you can bend the model when it’s under high temperature, I would suggest avoiding leaving your prints in a very hot environment such as a locked car under the summer sun.
Propellers: Propeller blades are especially vulnerable to breaking during shipping, and I cannot guarantee they will arrive intact. If you receive a model with a broken propeller blade, you may be able to use super-glue to fix it. Or you can trim off the other blade (leaving only the hub) to simulate a spinning propeller. That may be a more accurate look for a spinning propeller anyway. Some people use transparent plastic disks to simulate a spinning propeller. You can find the propeller diameter for many planes on the Wings of Linen wiki — just divide by the scale (144) for the scale-model diameter.
¹ This was especially true during a period when the planes were shipped in a clamshell-plastic case, which should no longer happen.
