Yak-12 - Amodel

So, what's in this tiny box? 

Fret 1 - The main fuselage parts. 

Fret 2 - The wings. The fabric effect looks quite nice and realistic. 

The side doors and that triangular cargo door should be easy to open up if one is inclined to display the cockpit fully open.  

Fret 3 - Pretty much everything else. 

Obvious signs of a low pressure molding process, with the expected softness, clumsy mold gates and sink marks here and there. But it's not too bad at all - not the usual Amodel collection of plastic blobs. 

The molds seem to be originating from some (to me unknown) Ukranian manufacturer. Master 44? 

The transparent fret. 

Some distortion is present but it looks worse in this photo than in real life. 

All the windows are to be cemented inside the fuselage openings without any edge framing whatsoever - hm, I guess it will be quite tricky to get a decent bond without getting any cement on the window panes. This might very well be the biggest challenge of the whole project. 

Two versions can be built from the decals: a standard Soviet military version and a Polish civilian ambulance aircraft. The printing of the decal sheet looks okay, but my experience with Amodel decals is not the best, so I would try to avoid them. Also, I would definitely not be tempted to use that blue stripe decal, as you would still need to paint the rest of the blue areas (the nose and the fin) and finding the exactly matching blue color may be quite difficult. 

A slight print misalignment can be seen if you look carefully, but not too bad. 

The usual Amodel leaflet instruction sheet - I think I can manage even without it. Color callouts for the Humbrol range is provided. 

I also purchased a PE sheet while I was at it. A lot of interesting stuff can be added if one is not afraid of some plastic surgery. 

Let's start with the cockpit floors! The rather basicdetails, including the rear seat bench, are all carefully sanded off, to be replaced with more accurate PE details.  

The new floor is in place, minus the seats and pedals. The foldable rear seats will be in the folded position to allow room for some generous cargo space. I might add some stuff in there, I am not yet sure what. 

There is little point in detailing the cockpit if it cannot be seen, so the doors and the cargo bay door were cut open using a new modeling knife blade, to be replaced with the PE doors later. Be warned, the plastic is quite brittle and breaks easily, so it is important to work slowly and carefully. 

I didn't expect the cockpit floor to fit perfectly without a lot of sanding and fettling, and I wasn't wrong. It can be done, it just takes some work and a lot of subsequent dry-fitting. 

The two seats are pretty crude, but have the right basic shape and can be improved with the help of the PE set. There are however some deep sink marks in the middle of each seat that needs to be filled with some putty. 

The seat framing is improved by using some heat-stretched sprue bent into shape, and the PE parts. The legs of the seats are extremely fragile, so it's not easy to coax the cockpit assembly into the fuselage without losing parts.