ICM's 1/32 scale
Yak-9T

by Brett Green

I’ve just finished ICM’s 1/32 scale Yak-9T.

This is a nice kit with a high level of detail and generally excellent fit.

I had read a couple of reports about tricky fit at the wing root, so I glued the upper wing halves to the fuselage wing root before adding the full-span lower wing half. The result was a perfectly gap-free join.

I used a number of Eduard upgrades including their ZOOM photo-etched fret, STEEL harness straps, masks and 3d printed resin exhausts.

Paints are AK Interactive. They performed really well - fast drying and a hard satin finish. They sprayed nice fine lines freehand using AK’s proprietory thinner. I was very pleased with them.

The colours looked good to my eye too, although I would probably lighten the Dark Grey next time.

The only thing that lets the kit down are the decals. They look great on the backing sheet but they suffer from two fatal flaws - the decals disintegrate on the backing sheet after soaking, and if you are lucky enough to get them off the backing sheet in one (or two or three for that matter) piece, the decals stick firmly in the first place they touch.

I brushed Microscale Liquid Decal Film onto the remaining decals with varying degrees of success. They still stick, but they are less inclined to disintegrate.

In the end I had to sand back a large area on the rear fuselage, then repaint and replace some of the decals with white numbers from my decal drawer.

I will make sure I use after-market decals next time I build an ICM kit.

Apart from the decals, this is a great kit.

I’ll be writing this one up for a big article in Issue 143 of Military Illustrated Modeller magazine.

Model and Text Copyright © 2023 by Brett Green
Page Created 19 June, 2023
Last Updated 19 June, 2023

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