ICM I-16 Type 24

This is my first ICM 1:32 scale kit. I build their 1:48 scale I-16, 25 years ago. I am very excited to build this. I have always loved the way this little fat plane looks, and excited to build a ICM kit.  

I picked up the Eduard PE set for the cock pit and landing gear bays. I realized while building this kit, I don't like PE very much.  

Still not liking PE. The pedals are suppose to have a strap that goes around the foot. I lost both of these PE parts as they flew right out of the tweezers and landing in no mans land.  

I do like the instrument panel PE parts. I think this looks very nice, even though I only put about a 3rd of the PE parts on the I.P. All and all, I am very happy with the cockpit. 

After watching a YouTube video I realized that the knob on the left should be painted yellow. I don't really care all that much, as I am still liking the way this came out.  

I don't think that is a fire extinguisher to the left of the seat, and if it is, I don't think it was painted red, but I felt like the cock pit needed more color, so I painted it red.  

I just realized how messy my bench is. Those are all my sons Bones figure boxes under the desk.  

If you zoom in to the seat, the instructions said to paint the seat flat black and light grey. I did this, but the flat black just sucked in all the light and made the cockpit look like a black hole. I mixed some flat black with light grey and highlighted the tops of the seat cushion. I am very happy with the results.  

This is the first time I have built a full engine. I really like how this turned out. 

I am very happy with how this turned out. I used Tamiya gloss black to prime all the parts. I used Vallejo Metal Color aluminum for the engine and Vallejo burnt exhaust for the pipes. The center is Tamiya gunship grey. I also used Mig engine grime wash to finish it. 

This was the only part of this kit that I had a difficult time with fitting. The engine connects to the body with 5 legs that come of the back of the engine, and even though they line up great, it is still pretty fiddly trying to get everything to stay once glued. Also I had some of the exhaust pipes in the wrong spots. 

The cowling is in 3 parts. The top and sides need to be glued on after the front. I also fount this difficult lining up everything. I was able to work them together with a minimum gap, which I was able to fill with some AK modeling putty. After working these three parts for a while I am happy with the results, but they didn't want to sit together very well.  

Here is a photo of the small gaps I had before using the putty to fill them. 

I loved building airplanes. I hate building landing gear, but I always build them with the gear down. Most of the models I build, its the landing gear that I wind up destroying the kit with. These went together very easy and I had no problems with them at all.  

Some more photos of the gaps I had to fill. 

I had a Eduard PE set for the landing gear, but I just went with the original landing gear. After working with the PE for the cockpit, I learned that I don't enjoy working with PE very much. I am very happy with the original landing gear anyways. I think they look great. 

Primed with Tamiya gloss black. I really like priming with gloss black. I am going to do a natural metal finish first to chip down to, so gloss black it is. 

Super happy with the metal finish. I used Vallejo metal color aluminum. It sprayed on super clean and no fusses. I love Vallejo metal color airbrush paints. I do not thin them at all, and they do not have the bad smell that you get with other metal paints. 

I guess you can still see the gaps I filled. Oh well, I will have to better next time. 

Disaster! I wanted to do some hairspray chipping, so I sprayed a very light single burst of hairspray and it instantly eat away at the paint right down to the plastic. I was so disappointed, as the metal finish I felt was one of the best paint jobs I have ever done. It took me about 3 day to figure out what I wanted to do with this moving forward. 

I decided to skip the chipping and sprayed the green and blue color scheme. I painted the top Tamiya dark green XF61 and the bottom Tamiya light blue XF23.  

This is my I-16 next to my sons Tamiya 1/35 scale Sherman. The Sherman is painted Tamiya olive drab XF62, and I felt like my plane was too dark.  

I thought the Tamiya dark green was too dark, so I sprayed some Tamiya deep green XF26 to highlight some of the flat surfaces. The photo does not really do this justice, but I feel like it really improved the overall look of the plane. 

Painted and added the tires. Some of the best landing gear I have ever made. Like I said earlier in this build, I normally mess up my models attaching the landing gear. 

The decals went on very nice and flat. I used micro set and micro sol setting them. I now need to spray another clear coat to seal them in.  

Next is another clear coat, then a wash and oils. Plus some exhaust stains. 

Added some Tamiya smoke X-19 for the exhaust stains. Its very light, so I might spray a little flat black.  

Its not as dark as I would like, but I added some Tamiya smoke X19 coming out of the exhaust. I might go over it lightly with some flat black. 

I'm calling this one done. I lost the gun sight, so I just glued the canopy on and called it a day.  

This was my first ICM model to build. I really enjoyed everything about this kit. The plastic is very nice to work with. The parts are very detailed, and clean. No flash, or sink marks. The overall kit is simple and not heavy on a lot of parts. I am very excited about ICM 1/32 scale planes now. I am looking forward in building my next ICM kit which will be the I-153 winter version.