ICM 1/72 I-153

[John Thompson]

Nice work, John,
what have you used for the rigging?
Regards
Massimo

Thank you, Jason and Massimo! I used nylon monofilament fishing line for the rigging; I believe it was 6-pound test. Next time I think I would use 4-pound.

John

[John Thompson]

Is anyone else building this kit? I'm on my second one, and still having problems with brittle plastic. I'm having to rebuild or replace parts of the landing gear with heat-stretched sprue. Seems ICM's styrene mix needs more plasticizer. 

John

[learstang]

John, I've done a lot of prep work on mine (removing parts, then cleaning them up), and I did have a part break on the landing gear. I also fear for the delicate tubing used on the cockpit, which I haven't gotten the nerve to clean up yet, and will do whilst still on the sprue, to decrease the chance of breaking. The small parts are rather delicate, it seems, partly because of the plastic, and partly out of a desire to keep them scale on the part of ICM - commendable, but that does have its drawbacks. Sometimes having parts a bit overscale does make them easier to work with.

Regards,

Jason

[AC26]

Is anyone else building this kit? I'm on my second one, and still having problems with brittle plastic. I'm having to rebuild or replace parts of the landing gear with heat-stretched sprue. Seems ICM's styrene mix needs more plasticizer. 

Hi John!

I'm half way building mine. I totally agree with the poor quality of the plastic! I have not touched the landing gear yet but I had to scratch half of the fuselage tubing.

I straightened the back of the pilot seat so that it fits between the fuselage tubing. Maybe not 100% accurate but looks much better than the original. For the lower part of seat I removed the sides, filed away the ejector tower and made new sides from card to better match with the modified seat back. I sourced the seat belts from the Kuivalainen I-16 etches.

Next step will be joining the upper wing to the fuselage. After that wing - fuselage seam seems to need some filling. I'm just thinking what to do with the ailerons. They seem to be circa 1 mm too narrow from the lower surface when compared to the ICM I-15bis and photos.

Cheers,

AaCee

[John Thompson]

Thank you, Jason and AaCee! I didn't bother with the cockpit framing after breaking the first frame I removed from the sprue into 4 or 5 pieces - it's almost impossible to see it after the fuselage is closed up anyway. The idea to modify the too-narrow kit seat is a good one, though! I didn't realize the ailerons might be too narrow, but I'll probably just ignore them.

Cheers!
John

[John Thompson]

Here's my second one in the pre-war scheme of AII Aluminum and AE-9 pale grey; I used a set of Moskit exhausts which I squirrelled away a few years ago, a GoNzA cowling face photoetch set, and some parts from an ICM I-15bis whose upper wing was too poorly molded for the kit to be usable:



I used an aerosol can of Armor Coat aluminum anti-corrosion paint for the base colour on the fabric surfaces and some WEM AE-9, lightened with Humbrol flat white, on the metal surfaces.

John

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi John,
it's a nice model. Which parts did you use from an I-15bis?
Regards
Massimo

[John Thompson]

Hi John,
it's a nice model. Which parts did you use from an I-15bis?
Regards
Massimo

Thank you, Massimo! From the I-15bis, I used the tailplane struts, the main wheels, the pilot's seat, cockpit floor, and joystick - I think that was all. I also used the tailplanes from the ICM I-15. I know, it sounds like I waste a lot of kits, but the parts I used came from the spare parts box, so far. I might not be able to say that about the next one I build, though! 

John

[John Thompson]

Earlier in this thread, there was some discussion regarding brittleness of the plastic in this kit. I wanted to try using the RS-82 rockets that are provided, either for another I-153, or maybe some other VVS aircraft. The RO-82 launch rails are extremely delicate. I tried every cutting tool I could think of - fresh scalpel blade, X-Acto saw, very fine sharp-edged file - my success rate for removing these parts from the sprue and cleaning up the parts was 0 for 8, or 0%.

I then tried brushing the parts while still on the sprue with a light coat of lacquer thinner, then letting it dry for a couple of hours. This seemed to soften the very thin plastic enough (without damaging the detail too much) that I was able to do the next 6, using a new scalpel blade, with no breakage - 100% success rate!

I used ordinary hardware-store lacquer thinner; probably any solvent which "melts" styrene (MEK, toluene, whatever) will work.

If anyone comes up with a better method, I'd sure like to hear it.

John

[learstang]

Very nice Chaika, John! Great to see one built up.

Regards,

Jason