Robert Podkoński
Taking a seat, of course!
(Perhaps the transparencies and propellers from this kit would work:
Soviet Tu-2 Bomber (HobbyBoss 80298, 1:72))

Thomas Kolb Auteur
Thank you Robert! The three-bladed standard propellers in the kit are actually fine, it is the transparencies I am a bit worried about.

Łukasz Gliński
Me 2, must watch this - wondering how good/bad this kit is

Dave Flitton
Watching!!

J35J
Me 3, this will be another great build to follow.

Cuajete
Me 5!
I still don't understand why they haven't released a more updated tool for this model yet.

Moreno Baruffini
Thomas, you are a specialist in reminding me the models I started and non finished (yet)! Super inspiring, and a great build to follow for sure!

Thomas Kolb Auteur
Dear friends, thank you for your interest. I am a bit curious myself how this model will turn out - I have read some pretty nasty things about it in reviews, but I am not sure it's so bad. It certainly looks very intricately designed, not your usual shake 'n' bake kit for sure.

Gergő Takács
Thomas, you are doing always the same project what I want to do in the future with the same kits. 😀 I'm always taking a seat and save your work for motivation.

Finn
I'm in

Łukasz Gliński
Thomas, your tutorial is priceless! 👍

Mr D
Like this 👍👍
Big fan of soviet n russian stuff, will have to look up history on this one as new to me.
Interesting subject, Nice 😁

Cuajete
Good start, Thomas. Thank you so much for your tutorial 👍

Thomas Kolb Auteur
I must say, I am pretty impressed with this kit so far. At first sight it looked like an Amodel kit, but everything is very cleverly designed and all parts fits together beautifully without any problems. The only gripe I have is with the plastic itself - it's very soft and stretchy and definitely does not like to be sanded.

Nicolas
Nice start, joining.

Живко Джаков
I'm here too. I have one in a box and we only see each other with it 🙂

Cuajete
Great job so far, Thomas 👍
I never bought this kit because I thought it would be difficult to deal with.

Thomas Kolb Auteur
Cuajete, I must say, I am pretty impressed with this kit so far. At first sight it looked like an Amodel kit, but everything is very cleverly designed and the parts almost fall together by themselves without any problems. The only gripe I have is with the plastic itself - it's very soft and kind of stretchy, and all sanding needs to be followed by polishing to result in a smooth surface.

Cuajete
Thanks, Thomas. I'll have to consider buying the latest ICM box 👍.

Cuajete
Good progress, Thomas 👍

Mr D
Looking good 👍, the canopy is fine, be ok when all printed up, fits fuselage well, the canopy on the Revell FW-190 l did was horrendous!! Would be good for bathroom privacy glass 🤣.
What glue do you use to fix canopy??

Thomas Kolb Auteur
Mr D, Thank you! I used regular Revell styrene cement (the blue one with the needle tip). Just added a string of solvent around the fuselage edges and then placed the canopy on. I normallt use water-based cement for transparencies to avoid fogging, but if you are careful, it's not a problem to use solvent based cement.

Mr D
Brilliant thank you 👍👍

Thomas Kolb Auteur
Using the precut masks would be so much easier if they actually fit the model... But the flight deck glasshouse parts seem to be designed for a different kit, so I am back to using Tamiya masking tape.

Guy Rump
Looking great! 👍

Cuajete
I agree with Guy 👍

Mr D
Always the tedious part !! But looking like nice mask job.
I usually put a masking fluid over joined parts if l can, lve had paint blow under before.. as it doesn't stick to it's self that good.
On the Beriev I'm doing now, l masked most individual windows out, but the big curved window at front was bit fragile!! So I'm going to use my mega fine Nail liner brush to carefully paint frame in.
Like the underside colour, good luck on next steps 😃👍👍

Mr D
You be fine a quick visual check before paint you be fine.
I wet the tooth pick a little, it prevents scratching n seems to come away quicker.

Thomas Kolb Auteur
Mr D, thank you for the tip! I am not very experienced with these large multi-pane windows, as I usually build more modern aircraft models. I sincerely hope the paint won't blow in under the masks, but I guess I can always repair minor errors with a wooden cocktail stick to remove accidental paint streaks on the glass or a brush to paint any missing or incorrect frames.

Mr D
Nice, the filling n correction work paid off🖌️👍... coming on 🙂👍

Cuajete
Great, Thomas! 👍

Thomas Kolb Auteur
I haven't given up on this project, however, I noticed that several of the joins cracked open for some reason (the model is made of some kind of weird plastic that doesn't respond well to ordinary solvent based cement), and in order to repair it, I decided to strip off all the paint to re-cement and re-fill everything. It was an incredibly disgusting process, so I needed to put the model on the shelf of shame for a while so I could regain my strength to restart it again. I have now done all the required repair work, so it's time to prime and spray it again.

Jennifer Franklin
Late to the party but looking forward to the finish line.

Moreno Baruffini
Dear Thomas, I'm sorry to hear this, I hope you can finish this model without any further problems!

Bozo
Ouch, rough kit. Come on Thomas,

Don't give up
'Cause you have mates
Don't give up
We know you can make it good
(Kate bush and Peter Gabriel)

Łukasz Gliński
Hope you're going to go back to it as I did with my IAR 👍
Do you mind sharing where the cracks appear, for the sake of future builders?

Thomas Kolb Auteur
Moreno, Bozo, Łukasz, thanks for your kind encouragement, I certainly intend to finish it! Well, the cracks appeared pretty much everywhere where I had used Tamiya Extra Thin cement. The only places that stick together is where Revell Contacta cement was used directly on the mating surfaces. Capillary action simply does not provide enough solvent to run in between the surfaces, because of the nature of the strange plastic used by ICM. I think they used too much plasticizer in the mixture. Too little and the styrene becomes brittle, too much and it becomes a bit like rubber.

Cuajete
Cheer up, Thomas. You can do it! 💪

Jennifer Franklin
Hold on there Thomas! Like Cuajete said, you can do it.