Guy Rump
Interesting, following. 👍

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

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.

Robert Podkoński
Taking a seat!

Finn
Interesting, will follow

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

Thomas Kolb Auteur
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.

Moreno Baruffini
Really a difficult challenge

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.

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

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.

Cuajete
Good (hard) job so far, Thomas.

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

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

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

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€ 😁

Thomas Kolb Auteur
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.

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

J35J
Great work so far! following👍🏻

Thomas Kolb Auteur
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!

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

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

Cuajete
Great job with the canopy 👍

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

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

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

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

Bruce Huxtable
Gestation of a Jewel, Thomas 🙂

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Thomas Kolb Auteur
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.

John E
Very nice! Following.

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

John E
Agreed. Excellent.

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

Juergen Klinglhuber
Great work !

Thomas Kolb Auteur
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.

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.

Michael Kohl
I can second Neil to the full.

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

Bozo
Wonderful considering the quality of the original model.

Cuajete
Fantastic job so far, Thomas. I agree with Łukasz. Looks more like a Tamiya kit now 👌
What is Badger Stynylrez primer like?

Thomas Kolb Auteur
Cuajete, 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.

Cuajete
Thank you, Thomas 👍

Alec K
Outstanding work Thomas, amazing amount of tlc you have poured into this build. It's shaping up great 👍

Bruce Huxtable
Well worth the effort, for sure 🙂

Thomas Kolb Auteur
Thank 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.

Zbynek Honzik
Awesome progress in the construction of this little plane, Thomas! 👍

Alex K
Respects!

Guy Rump
Great job! 👍

John E
Very nice work!

Skyhiker
Fabulous job bringing this kit to life. Congratulations.

Nicolas
Great result, can't wait for the "beauty shots".

Robert Podkoński
Good choice, Thomas! The Yak looks great (we are all waiting for more photos)

Bruce Huxtable
Gosh, 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.

Zbynek Honzik
Congratulations on finishing, Thomas! Looks gorgeous this little "quail"! 👍👏👏👏

Alec K
Awesome. I would wager that this is probably the best that was ever done with this kit 👍

Gordon Sørensen
Great final result, Thomas! Well done!

Moreno Baruffini
Awesome!!! No more words needed🙂

Łukasz Gliński
Outstanding! Now I have the reason to bury all my Yakovlevs deep in the stash 😄

J35J
Great work turning this kit into a small gem!👍🏻👏🏼

BAT21
Well done 👍

Juergen Klinglhuber
Fantastic !

Cuajete
The 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!

Gergő Takács
Very nice work! 👍

ForestFan
Excellent job

Thomas Kolb Auteur
My dear mates, your comments and compliments are deeply humbling.

Bernd Grün
You are making a Masterpiece of that bad kit, Thomas! 👌 Congratulation.

Bernhard Pethe
Ich 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. 😉

Thomas Kolb Auteur
Bernhard, 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,

Robert Podkoński
Photo #10: Varia selecta | Album by podkon

Thomas Kolb Auteur
Robert, cool! 🙂

Łukasz Gliński
Hard to see the difference Robert, except for the markings of course

Robert Podkoński
👍
You're absolutely right, Łukasz - Thomas provides us with life-like miniatures of real stuff.

Thomas Kolb Auteur
Undercarriage 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. 🙂

Michael Kohl
Very nice

Patryk S.
Great result! Congratulations!

Vladimír Čereba
Hello. Really beautiful work. Congratulations. I also want to build this model, but it will be a North Korean night bomber.

Rui S
Very well done 👍

Thomas Kolb Auteur
Vladimír & Rui, thank you!