Yak-18 - Amodel

1
March 15, 2024
A very, very, very small box that weighs almost nothing.
2
March 14, 2024
Fret 1. The usual Amodel cookie dough quality - flash galore and heavy thick mold gates distorting the actual parts.
3
March 14, 2024
Fret 2. Wings and stabilizers. The elevators are slightly offset and the trims too. That is actually one cool detail!
4
March 14, 2024
Fret 3. I won't be using the skis, but the wheels (fortunately provided in the kit).
5
March 14, 2024
The one piece canopy is heavily distorted and crazed, with lots of warps and bubbles embedded in the very plastic. It is only partially transparent and borderlines to unusability. Unfortunately no third party replacements are available so I am wondering what to do.
6
March 14, 2024
Simple instructions, but then again, this is a simple kit, so not much else is expected.
7
March 14, 2024
Humbrol color callouts provided. You'd better use your own references.
8
March 14, 2024
Decals for one Soviet version, which I won't be using.
9
March 14, 2024
I also purchased a nice PE set. A lot of pretty stuff is provided for the cockpit, but to be honest, I wonder how much of it will be visible from the outside.
10
March 14, 2024
A lot of difficult bends, amongst other the internal canopy frames.
11
April 11, 2024
Wing insides grinded down to a near transparent thinness and razor sharp trailing edges. The insides of the undercarriage bay (the raised rectangle just above the wheel well opening) are thinned down substantially as well. Yes, there is a weird inscription on the insides of the wing that says Hptm, I have no clue what it means.
12
April 12, 2024
Dry fitting to ensure that the "lip" on the trailing edge of the wing near the fuselage sits flush with the top wing surface, or you will have a hard time sanding it into shape.
13
April 12, 2024
To give the model a little interest, I will try to open up that huge airbrake on the bottom of the aircraft, which on the kit is just molded as a boring rectangle. Let's start by drilling a hole through the plastic.
14
March 16, 2024
Starting from the hole, I am using a sharp blade to cut out the opening for the air brake. I am slowly moving towards the edges of the scribed rectangle. Note to self: let's not slip with the blade!
15
April 12, 2024
The rectangle-shaped opening blanked off from the inside with a piece of Evergreen styrene strip.
16
March 16, 2024
That now works as a surface to later cement the airbrake mechanism onto.
17
April 13, 2024
Top wing surfaces cemented onto the lower part,
18
April 15, 2024
That nasty gap between the top and bottom wing halves is filled with dissolved styrene (pieces of sprue dissolved in Tamiya Extra Thin Cement).
19
April 15, 2024
Sanded smooth after 24 hours of drying and the lost "panel" lines rescribed. This process completely eliminated every trace of the gap. The wingtip position lights are sanded off and will be replaced later.
20
April 17, 2024
Before proceeding further with the cockpit, I needed to check what could be done with this crazed, scratched and marred canopy to improve it a bit. Finally I decided to try to just sand it to see if I could get rid of those awful bubbles and pits on the inside. Sanding transparent plastic is scary, but it is not as bad as it seems first.
21
April 17, 2024
A few sessions with sanding sticks and sanding cloths later, it definitely looks better, so it's time to try to bring back the transparency with Tamiya polishing compounds on cotton swabs. The tiny strands in the photo are not scratches but strands from the cotton swab.
22
April 17, 2024
Finally an hour later - what a transformation! The frames are mostly gone, but I intend to represent them with paint anyway. Since I now know that the cockpit will be at least partially visible, let's start with the fuselage!
23
March 15, 2024
Fuselage halves cleaned up - this step alone took more than half an hour.
24
March 16, 2024
The insides of the fuselage halves have some heavy molded and ham-fistedly scribbled details that I will replace with photo-etch, so they need to go. Notice the relative thickness of the plastic!
25
March 16, 2024
I am using my Dremel with a grinder attachment for this, as otherwise it would be super difficult.
26
March 16, 2024
After some follow-up sanding, the offending internal details are gone.
27
April 13, 2024
Inner fuselage struts added to the now smooth sides of the cockpit - a real improvement over the previous scribbled lines. Floor assembled from photo-etch - side consoles, seats, levers, joystick and rudder pedals will be added later. I am using both superglue and Gator's Grip waterbased adhesive - the latter if strength is not essential and I need to be able to juggle the parts in place without the cement grabbing instantly.
28
April 13, 2024
Cockpit floor superglued to the left fuselage half. Don't expect the kit to play nicely without an incredible amount of trimming, scraping, fettling and adjusting.
29
April 19, 2024
PE details added one by one, levers and stuff. Not everything fits nicely and some details are pretty pointless as they are just too small. In this macro photo everything looks monolithic, like carved from stone, but in real life it all is super cute!
30
April 20, 2024
Cockpit painted, washed and drybrushed. Experienced Yak-18 pilots here on ScaleMates will surely notice that some artistic freedom has been applied. Mea culpa.
31
April 20, 2024
Fuselage halves attached. Easy peasy, but the fuselage is slightly twisted, so the vertical fin is about 15 degrees offset to the right. We'll deal with that in a moment.
32
April 20, 2024
Don't forget that little transparent piece. It is secured with plenty of superglue from the inside - I don't want to accidentally push it into the fuselage and end up with a Yak-shaped maracas.
33
April 21, 2024
The warped fuselage makes the wing attachment (here dry fitted) look awful, so this definitely needs to be fixed. Slowly twisting the fuselage under running scorching hot water does the trick as long as you are careful and don't break the plastic.
34
April 20, 2024
There are ill-fitting parts, and there is this guy. The front part of the engine cowling is slightly overscaled and doesn't even try to follow the contours of the fuselage. Amodel, what on earth were you thinking splitting that characteristic ring of exhausts vertically like this?
35
April 21, 2024
Mind the gap. It's quite clear that extensive plastic surgery will also be required with the wing attachment.
36
April 23, 2024
Those hideous gaps filled with pieces of styrene strips and copious amounts of Tamiya White Putty. Sanding it in shape unfortunately also eliminated that corrugated stepping area. I will have to reproduce it with paint.
37
April 23, 2024
Nose part resculpted with multiple applications of putty and then carefully sanded to sort of resemble the right shape. I pondered for a while whether or not I should try to open up the missing top side aperture for the exhaust pipe, but I don't think I would have been able to do that with any reasonable quality.
38
April 27, 2024
The fuselage to wing join on the underside also needed a lot of filling and sanding. I know, it all looks filthy and nasty, but most of the gunk is just sanding dust.
39
April 23, 2024
Model cleaned from dust and Badger Stynylrez Primer sprayed on the nose and wing joins to unify the surfaces and reveal minor filling errors. It's faaar from flawless, but given the starting point, this is probably the best that my skill set will allow. Once painted, it should look okay enough. Well, if you squint a little.
40
April 27, 2024
Air brake assembly superglued inside the underwing aperture. The instructions are sadly inadequate, so I needed to find my own way to add these parts. Wrong or right, this was what I came up with.
41
April 27, 2024
A few more PE details, such as radio and battery boxes and some wiring from lead wire added. I'm afraid that's all you will ever see once the canopy is on.
42
April 28, 2024
Canopy attached using Gator's Blend acrylic cement. Surprisingly, you can actually see the cockpit underneath. Frankly I did not think that it would be possible when I first started. I decided to not use the provided PE internal canopy frames, I figured that it would be almost impossible to ensure that the painted canopy frames would match the PE frames underneath.
43
April 28, 2024
Canopy masked off with the KV Models masks, and model prepared for priming. As the molded-on frames had been sanded off, I can hope that no paint seeps in under the masks.
44
April 29, 2024
Model sprayed gray with Badger Stynylrez primer, using my H&S Evolution airbrush at 25 PSI. As you can see, I left the wheels and propeller off to add them separately after the main paintjob. The same goes for the external stringer wires on the underside of the stabilizer (you can see them on the upper side, fabricated from stretched sprue - extremely delicate stuff). I also added some brake lines on the undercarriage struts from lead wire.
45
April 29, 2024
Some panel lines darkened with black paint. Sometimes I find that it helps breaking up an unnaturally monochromatic painted surface.
46
April 29, 2024
The underside duck eggshell blue color is mixed from various Tamiya acrylics: XF-2 Flat White (10ml) + 15 drops of X-23 Clear Blue + 6 drops of X-25 Clear Green. A strange combination but it looks reasonable to my eyes.
47
April 29, 2024
Underside sprayed blue and then after a minute generously oversprayed with pure Mr Color Leveling Thinner. It will slightly melt the paint layer and eliminates any orange peel effect. It however also makes the paint coat very delicate for a few days, so I need to wait a day or two for the coat to completely cure before it is time for the top surface!

Comments

59 14 March, 21:47

Guy Rump
Interesting, following. 👍

14 March, 23:06

Bernd Grün
Modeling the hard way. I'm in! 👍

15 March, 07:44

Bozo
Thank you for this box opening, difficult model, it's very heavy and thick. I will look carefully at your assembly but I pass my turn for the purchase of this reference.
Good luck.

15 March, 07:57

Robert Podkoński
Taking a seat!

15 March, 07:58

Finn
Interesting, will follow

15 March, 16:43

Nicolas
I'm in. the parts look much better than on my last Amodel kit. Good luck with this little beauty.

15 March, 18:13

Thomas Kolb
Nicolas, no it is terrible. The parts resemble something from a child's toy vending machine. Everything is warped, bent, drowned in excess plastic and nothing really fits together. I am not sure that it can be built to any reasonable standard, but I am willing to try.

16 March, 09:39

Moreno Baruffini
Really a difficult challenge

16 March, 10:19

Nicolas
Hello Thomas. I know how bad Amodel kits can be. I just wanted to express that your kit is still one of the less bad ones compared to some I own. So far your project looks promising in any case. Good luck and above all a lot of patience.

16 March, 14:19

Alec K
Taking a seat. Fingers crossed you persevere with this, from all appearances, difficult kit 👍

17 March, 00:36

Marius
You're courageous Thomas. I inspected this kit too some time ago, since this is such a cool looking aircraft in my view, but I gave up because of that canopy. The sample I saw had an even worse canopy. With all those cockpit details, maybe you can improvise an opened canopy out of vacuformed parts from other similar aircraft. With the open canopy, mismatches will be less obvious.

30 March, 09:07

Cuajete
Good (hard) job so far, Thomas.

30 March, 20:05

Alec K
That cockpit is looking great, your efforts are worth it 👍

11 April, 12:22

Michael Kohl
That will be fun to watch overcome those hurdles.

11 April, 15:46

Marius
If it ain't a plastic blob in the box, it ain't fun.

11 April, 16:59

Łukasz Gliński
Brave choice! Still, not the worst kit of that airplane 😋
Jakowlew Jak-18 (Waku , 1:72)
Actually you could use its canopy - seen one online today for around 6€ 😁

11 April, 18:35

Thomas Kolb
Mariusz & Łukasz 🙂 I am not trying to be brave, this is the only reasonable kit of the Yak-18. That Waku thing would give me nightmares. I just cannot stand vac-formed stuff.

12 April, 06:47

Gary Kitchen
This one already feels like a journey worth taking a seat for. 👍

13 April, 11:37

J35J
Great work so far! following👍🏻

13 April, 17:05

Thomas Kolb
Yesterday I spent some time investigating how I can improve the canopy and discovered that most of the bubbles and the roughness is on the inside surfaces. So I took a deep breath and sanded everything, both on the outside and inside with sanding sticks and Mr Hobby sanding cloths and then polished back the transparency with Tamiya polishing compounds. Everything cleared up pretty well, so the canopy is now actually perfectly usable!

17 April, 17:11

Robert Podkoński
Good to know that, Thomas. Great job! (I have an A-model Yak-18 in my stash too 😉 )

17 April, 17:17

Bruce Huxtable
Watching and learning lots 🙂 Soo much to do on this tiny plane! Good luck with all the following steps 🙂

17 April, 17:26

Cuajete
Great job with the canopy 👍

17 April, 18:03

Moreno Baruffini
I'm really honoured to follow this masterclass!

17 April, 18:39

Marius
That's a good save with the canopy. Whar kind of sanding cloths are you using? Can you attach a link maybe?

17 April, 18:51

Thomas Kolb
Marius, sure: super-hobby.de/produ..27b6870bf273914ab934

17 April, 20:12

Thomas Kolb
My good mates, it is no masterclass by far, just a ridiculous amount of time and work for a tiny model kit.

18 April, 16:46

Bruce Huxtable
Gestation of a Jewel, Thomas 🙂

18 April, 19:26

Simon O'Gorman
This is a fantastic transformation - great comments as you go too. Learning loads here.

19 April, 17:13

CaptGPF
Wow! Watching to see how you transform this kit into a gem!

19 April, 17:33

Cuajete
Thomas, all the improvements look incredible. You're doing a great job with this plastic mess 👍

20 April, 19:30

Nicolas
It remains interesting. Looking great so far. 👍 Shake and bake kits are good for relaxation, but if you have successfully assembled such a difficult kit, you can be proud of it. Good luck for the remainder.

21 April, 13:39

Patryk S.
Joining in, I have the Korean War version in plans. Great work so far on this difficult kit!

21 April, 20:31

Ellis Smith
Ugh, that looks hard work but you have done an amazing job so far!

23 April, 17:33

Bruce Huxtable
It's coming along nicely indeed! Inspiring work, Thomas 🙂

23 April, 17:58

Cuajete
Good (hard) job so far, Thomas! 👍

23 April, 18:45

Zbynek Honzik
Incredible work so far! Taking a seat. 👍

23 April, 19:02

Thomas Kolb
Thank you for the encouragement, my dear mates. With this horror nose surgery out of the way, I can finally proceed to the rest of the project, which from here on seems more of a standard build process.

23 April, 19:08

John E
Very nice! Following.

23 April, 22:45

Łukasz Gliński
My goodnes, looks more like a Tamiya kit now 👍

27 April, 20:10

John E
Agreed. Excellent.

28 April, 02:38

Robert Podkoński
Looks perfect already. You've done a fantastic job, Thomas!

28 April, 05:48

Juergen Klinglhuber
Great work !

28 April, 15:15

Thomas Kolb
Thank you my dear mates! The model is now primed and waiting for its first paint coat. Light blue underside and green top. Pretty boring, but well, that's how they looked.

28 April, 16:18

Neil Patrick
Spectacular outcome from such a horrible looking box of bits Thomas. I do love to see such unpromising material turned into a fine model and it looks like this will be another! Inspiring and a rebuttal for those who moan about kits that have relatively minor accuracy issues.

29 April, 07:47

Michael Kohl
I can second Neil to the full.

29 April, 10:44

Gordon Sørensen
You have managed to turn a Amodel kit into something that looks great, Thomas! Looking forward to the final reveal!

29 April, 13:22

Bozo
Wonderful considering the quality of the original model.

29 April, 13:26

Album info

The Yakovlev Yak-18 was used in the Hungarian People's Army as a trainer under the name 'Fürj', meaning the "quail" (the bird) - a bit more appealing than its NATO code name 'Max'. Hardly any photos exist of the aircraft in the original Hungarian livery, but I had the opportunity to see the last remaining one in the Szolnok aviation museum in Hungary a few years ago. It would be a rather easy build - if it wasn't for the poor mold quality requiring substantial cleanup or scratch making of most parts. I am at this point not 100% sure if I will be able to finish this project, but I am willing to give it a try.

Yak-18 'Fürj' - A-Model

47 images

1:72

In progress

1:72 Yak-18 with ski gear (Amodel 72195)

1:72 Yak-18 / Yak-18(M-12) (KV Models 72967)

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