Yak-18 - Amodel
A very, very, very small box that weighs almost nothing.
Fret 1. The usual Amodel cookie dough quality - flash galore and heavy thick mold gates distorting the actual parts.
Fret 2. Wings and stabilizers. The elevators are slightly offset and the trims too. That is actually one cool detail!
Fret 3. I won't be using the skis, but the wheels (fortunately provided in the kit).
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.
Simple instructions, but then again, this is a simple kit, so not much else is expected.
Humbrol color callouts provided. You'd better use your own references.
Decals for one Soviet version, which I won't be using.
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.
A lot of difficult bends, amongst other the internal canopy frames.
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.
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.
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.
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!
The rectangle-shaped opening blanked off from the inside with a piece of Evergreen styrene strip.
That now works as a surface to later cement the airbrake mechanism onto.
Top wing surfaces cemented onto the lower part,
That gap between the top and bottom wing halves is filled with dissolved styrene (pieces of sprue dissolved in Tamiya Extra Thin Cement).
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.
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.
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.
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!
Fuselage halves cleaned up.
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.
I am using my Dremel with a grinder attachment for this, as otherwise it would be super difficult.
After some follow-up sanding, the offending internal details are gone.
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.
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.
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!
Cockpit painted, washed and drybrushed. Experienced Yak-18 pilots here on ScaleMates will surely notice that some artistic freedom has been applied. Mea culpa.
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.
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.
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.
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. It is an unfortunate design choice because I think that the characteristic ring of exhausts might be lost while clearing everything up.
Mind the gap. It's quite clear that extensive plastic surgery will also be required with the wing attachment.
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.
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 top exhaust pipe, but I don't think I would have been able to do that with any reasonable quality. Other model builders might be more skilled.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Some panel lines darkened with black paint. I am not too good with this technique, but sometimes I find that it helps breaking up an unnaturally monochromatic painted surface.
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.
Underside sprayed blue and then after a minute generously oversprayed with pure Mr Color Leveling Thinner. It will slightly melt the paint layer which eliminates any orange peel effect. It however also makes the paint coat very delicate for a few days, so its best to wait a few days for the coat to completely cure before it is time for the top surface.
Blue underside masked off and top surfaces sprayed Tamiya XF-89 Dark Green, a reasonable match for the Russian Green paint of the real aircraft. I ended up with some annoying overspray between a few masking tape lines, but it's all easily fixed.
Gloss coat (Alclad II Aqua Gloss) applied with a paintbrush. It doesn't have to be perfect - it's just a utility coat to prepare for the handful of decals that will be added, and to protect the paintwork.
Decaling underway - pretty quick progress since I only have a few decals for this model. The old style stars are from the HAD Models Hungarian National Insignias decal sheet. I struggled for the longest to source the white side numbers - none of the decals in my spare decals stash had the right shape and I knew that I wouldn't be able to mask it properly to paint it. Finally I resorted to leftover decals from a Chinese Harbin Z-9 kit that I needed to cut apart slightly to look like the one available photo of the real thing.
Applying some mild weathering with 502 Abteilung oil paints heavily diluted in AKI Odorless Thinner (turpenoid): mainly just a wee bit good ol' Hungarian dust and dirt to break up the toy-like appearance. And yes, the national insignias are still missing from the underside of the wings, I had almost forgotten them.
Instead of watching the Eurovision show, I decided to finish the model. The slightly thick antenna wires of stretched sprue in this photo were soon replaced with more scale accurate nylon thread. The propeller spinner was often removed by the maintenance crew, so I decided to not struggle with its rubbish fit. And finally - no more parts left in the box to add! Phew! It's definitely not the finest model I have ever built, but it was great fun!
Finished
Finished
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Finished
Comments
84 14 March, 21:47
BozoThank 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
NicolasI'm in. the parts look much better than on my last Amodel kit. Good luck with this little beauty.
15 March, 18:13
Thomas KolbNicolas, 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
NicolasHello 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 KTaking a seat. Fingers crossed you persevere with this, from all appearances, difficult kit 👍
17 March, 00:36
MariusYou'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
Łukasz GlińskiBrave 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 KolbMariusz & 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
Thomas KolbYesterday 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 PodkońskiGood to know that, Thomas. Great job! (I have an A-model Yak-18 in my stash too 😉 )
17 April, 17:17
Bruce HuxtableWatching and learning lots 🙂 Soo much to do on this tiny plane! Good luck with all the following steps 🙂
17 April, 17:26
MariusThat'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 KolbMy 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
Simon O'GormanThis is a fantastic transformation - great comments as you go too. Learning loads here.
19 April, 17:13
CuajeteThomas, all the improvements look incredible. You're doing a great job with this plastic mess 👍
20 April, 19:30
NicolasIt 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
Thomas KolbThank 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
Thomas KolbThank 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 PatrickSpectacular 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
Gordon SørensenYou have managed to turn a Amodel kit into something that looks great, Thomas! Looking forward to the final reveal!
29 April, 13:22
CuajeteFantastic job so far, Thomas. I agree with Łukasz. Looks more like a Tamiya kit now 👌
What is Badger Stynylrez primer like?
1 May, 19:13
Thomas KolbCuajete, this is simply the best primer I have ever used. Easy to spray, sticks to both plastic and metal, levels out to a perfectly smooth surface, dries quickly and becomes very resilient to handling after a day. But it's a bit thick so it needs a rather high airbrush pressure and also a large needle. Also if it dries up inside the airbrush, you will have a very hard time cleaning it out.
1 May, 20:12
Alec KOutstanding work Thomas, amazing amount of tlc you have poured into this build. It's shaping up great 👍
10 May, 13:06
Thomas KolbThank you gentlemen for the encouragement along the final steps of this project! While this may never be a show winning model (mainly because of the botched nose area), it is turning into a quite a cute little replica.
10 May, 15:18
Robert PodkońskiGood choice, Thomas! The Yak looks great (we are all waiting for more photos)
12 May, 07:55
Bruce HuxtableGosh, she cleans up nice! All that work on the canopy really makes all the difference, plus the nose job of course 😉 I admired the subtle weathering too. Congratulations on your creation.
12 May, 09:01
Zbynek HonzikCongratulations on finishing, Thomas! Looks gorgeous this little "quail"! 👍👏👏👏
12 May, 11:03
Alec KAwesome. I would wager that this is probably the best that was ever done with this kit 👍
12 May, 11:52
Łukasz GlińskiOutstanding! Now I have the reason to bury all my Yakovlevs deep in the stash 😄
12 May, 14:11
CuajeteThe tenacity with which you have made this tough kit is an example to follow, Thomas. It was worth not seeing Eurovision to be able to finish this project. Very good result and great work done in mastering this prohibited plastic.
Congrats!
12 May, 18:33
Bernhard PetheIch bewundere immer Deine schönen Modelle. So auch dieses und aus einem Bausatz, ich kenne ihn, ein so schöne Modell zu machen. Respekt.
Eine Sache sie mir noch erlaubt zu sagen, das Hauptfahrwerk steht zu weit nach vorn. Kann man aber bestimmt noch ändern. 😉
13 May, 10:03
Thomas KolbBernhard, thank you for the compliment and the constrictive criticism. Yes, you are absolutely right, the main gears should be about 20 degrees less forward. I might try to fix that,
13 May, 10:10
Robert Podkoński👍
You're absolutely right, Łukasz - Thomas provides us with life-like miniatures of real stuff.
13 May, 12:49
Thomas KolbUndercarriage removed and re-cemented at the correct angle and also at the correct length (it was originally too long). Thanks to Bernhard who was kind enough to provide some useful feedback on this. 🙂
13 May, 13:10
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.
