Tupolev Tu-2 'Túzok' - ICM

I have never heard of this manufacturer before, but the Sabre Kits version is just a repackaged ICM kit, with two different, additional 3D printed propellers and a new decal sheet provided. All the other parts are wxactly the same as in the ICM kit. I intend to build everything straight out of the box without any major modifications or additions, but with a different decal set. 

Fret 1. As you can see, the fuselage is the old version of the Tu-2 with three small round windows in the back and not the later version with one single, larger window and a wider fuselage section. There are no panel lines but rows of tiny rivets. The fuselage also has a slight scalloping surface to represent the thin metal sheet stretched over the inner structure. It's all beautifully done, but might be wasted as it is so shallow that it will probably not be visible under the primer and final paint coat. 

Fret 2 - wings and engines. Here are the three-bladed propellers that fit with the provided fuselage. Three crewmembers are also provided: a reasonably detailed pilot and rear gunner, and a bizarrly crouching radio operator with an only vaguely human shape. It's fine, I won't be using them anyway. 

Fret 3 - engine nacelles and stabilizer. All details that are usually represented with panel lines are here lines of rivets and various plates molded onto the parts. It all looks very scale accurate, but I am worried how the details will survive the upcoming filling and sanding sessions. 

Fret 4 - undercarriage and smaller details. Everything seems surprisingly well molded although there is a lot of flash present everywhere.  

Fret 5 - transparencies, loosely rattling inside the box without any protection at all. Damit folks, how much would it cost you to add an extra plastic bag? 

The main canopy is unfortunately badly scratched - it almost looks like a crack. I am not sure I can repair it, but hey, let's just pretend that it's a cracked window of the real aircraft. After all, they were not far from scrap metal when Hungary received them from Sztálin bácsi. 

In this "Limited Edition" kit, two very crisp 3D-printed four blade propellers and spinners are provided - unfortunately four blade propellers were not used together with the old style three-window fuselage provided in the kit, so these parts are sadly not usable. 

This is what the box art describes as a "detailed decal sheet". Ho-hum. It contains markings for two aircraft: a Polish number 8 and a Hungarian number 10. Unfortunately none of these two aircraft can be built from the parts in the box, so other side number decals need to be sourced. 

Instructions are concise and clear - at least if you have built a few plastic model kits before. But there is a lot of room for complete show-stopper errors here if you are not careful.  

Not a very complex scheme: Russian green over light blue with just the tiniest splash of color. The Polish version has a bit of red on the fins and the spinner, and the Hungarian ones had different colors on the spinners. On the white 04 that I intend to build, the spinner was painted red on the left side and sky blue on the right side. Not sure why, maybe they replaced the spinner from another aircraft, ran out of red paint, or somebody just wanted to have fun? 

All the parts on all the frets are coated with some sort of thick, oily residue. This is of course the release agent from the molding process that will make the sprue trees separate from the metal molds, but on this kit, the oil film is so thick that it almost looks like the parts have been covered with engine grease. Fortunately it comes of quite easily using liquid hand dishwashing detergent and warm water, and then some additional cleaning with IPA alcohol. 

Frets laid out on the kitchen table to dry completely. Wifey thinks I have lost it, I cannot say I blame her. 

Let's start with the rather rudimentary flight deck! There are two potential pitfalls right here. First of all, do not add the rudder pedals yet, as they will make the fit of the instrument panel much more difficult. They can easily be added once the fuselage halves are attached. The second pitfall is even more dangerous. The long bars on the sides of the cockpit are the front reinforcement spars for the wings. You should attach the front spar at this stage already, but if you also attach the rear spar (shown in the photo), you will not be able to join the fuselage sides later.  

Flight deck assembly cemented to the right fuselage half. The main wing spar was strengthened with a piece of styrene to avoid accidentally breaking it off at some point during assembly, as the plastic is a bit uneven in composition and very brittle. I also had to shorten the joystick as it was much too tall. 

Pilot’s office painted and weathered and equipped with some spare PE seat belts, since none were provided in the kit. Very little will be visible with the canopy in place, so there is absolutely no point in overdoing it. The wing spar is carefully inserted through the left fuselage wing opening, and the fuselage halves are then joined. The halves are slightly warped, so I cemented the parts together step by step, working my way from the front and towards the back, constantly dry-fitting the various fuselage parts to ensure that no fit issues will occur later. 

The rear wing spar inserted through the fuselage's opening for the wings and cemented on, and then the various fuselage parts added. I must say, I am so far pretty impressed with the fit, everything sits exactly where it should. Some filling was necessary around the nose and around the spine, but nothing particularly alarming. However, the plastic reacts a bit weird on sanding - it is stretchy and slightly rubbery. 

The kit provides a few bombs if you would like to display the bomb bay open, but then you would need to craft the inner wall structure and the bomb release mechanism, as out of the box, it is pretty much just an empty space in there. I personally decided to have the bomb bay doors closed as I didn’t have any sources for the bomb bay detail and I don't think the Hungarians even had any bombs to haul around. I tried to use the transparent plastic parts for the three small windows in the back, but the plastic doesn't look very realistic so I will replace them with Micro Kristal Klear after painting instead. 

I added the rear gunner's seat and tried to make it look really worn and rusty. Again, not a lot will be seen with the canopy on except what's closest to the glass roof, so there is no point going to town with the details. Notice the extremely shallow rivet lines on the fuselage - I doubt that anything will be visible through the primer + paint coat. One could re-rivet everything, but I am not nearly skilled enough for that. 

I completely deviate from the installation instructions here and instead of assembling the wings and engine nacelles in one go, I will start from the inside and work my way outward. First the inner sides of the wings are cemented to the fuselage, scraping and sanding everything a bit to ensure a near seamless fit.  

The wing top and bottom halves are cemented together. Some ugly steps are unavoidable around the edges of the flaps, but can be disguised with some dissolved styrene and putty and then carefully sanding everything together. There should be a small line between the flaps and the wings, but not nearly as pronounced as on the kit. also note that the ailerons are not attached yet, I will wait with these until the wings are in place. 

Wing mating lines carefully sanded to match the fuselage and then cemented on using Revell Contacta cement. I must say, the joins are surprisingly precise and only a little bit of liquid putty (Tamiya White Putty dissoved in Mr Color Leveling Thinner) is needed for a perfectly seamless fit. But man, this plastic sure does not like being sanded - it scratches super easily so every sanding session needs to be followed by a lot of polishing. 

The inner part of the wing is cemented on - the fit is again almost perfect. The wing structure for the undercarriage is then added. I used superglue for a strong joint as the beams are slightly bent. Here’s another potential pitfall: those X-shaped struts will form the base of the undercarriage, so make sure to have a perfectly symmetric alignment, or you will end up with crooked landing gears later! 

The engine nacelles are assembled separately. Some putty is needed to disguise the slightly rough join line. 

Nacelles added to the wings - the fit is quite reasonable, but needed some dissolved putty for the seams. Never mind the white residue on the model in the photo, it's just a bit of sanding dust and discoloration from the dissolved putty and will not be visible through the primer.  

Ailerons added. I didn’t bother doing any offset as they only moved very little on the real thing. 

The fit of the engine nacelles is a bit difficult and requires the parts to be squeezed together quite forecefully while the cement cures. This is so far the most challenging part of the build. Some filling and sanding is required and unfortunately some of the lovely surface details will have to go. 

Engine nacelles added and faired in with some Tamiya White Putty. This was quite a dirty and time consuming task! 

Starting to assemble the empennage - the fit is great and only needs a little bit of dissolved putty in the cracks. 

Everything is quite messy and dusty, but I am slowly getting there and the sprues are starting to become empty. 

The undercarriage is a bit fiddly to get right and requires some cutting and scraping of the various struts and stuff before it all goes nicely together into the bay. I pondered if I should try to add some additional details in there, like the bottom of the gear well or the rather well visible blue gas canisters, but in the end I just reverted back to my original plan to build the model out of the box, so I left everything as it is.  

Starting to attach the canopies. The transparencies were greatly improved by polishing them with Tamiya Polishing compounds, but the plastic is still very thick. However, the fit is surprisingly accurate - hardly any gaps anywhere. The onboard guns are fixed with superglue on the inside to minimize the risk of them becoming dislodged. The barrels will be replaced with aluminium tubes once the model is ready for priming. 

Transparencies masked off. Unfortunately the KV Models mask for the flight deck glass house does not fit the actual part at all, so I needed to do a lot of corrections with Tamiya masking tape following the molded-on frames. Quite time consuming and annoying. 

Model primed and unified with Badger Stynylrez primer, using the H&S Infinity airbrush with the 0.4 mm needle and 25 PSI. Just as I suspected, the fine riveting more or less vanished under the primer coat, rendering the surface almost smooth, which is a bit disappointing. 

Underside sprayed with my own mix of light blue (3 ml of Tamiya XF-2 White with 15 drops of X-23 Clear Blue and 2 drops of X-25 Clear Green). I deliberately tried to vary the intensity of the paint coat to break up the uniform appearance and to give the model a bit of a worn look. After one minute of drying, the surfaces are generously oversprayed with pure Mr. Color Leveling Thinner to slightly melt the paint coat. I find that this method makes the painted surfaces a bit smoother, as long as it doesn't start running and I don't touch the surfaces for at least 24 hours. 

When the blue is completely dry, Tamiya Masking Tape is used to mask off the borders of the light blue areas before the green top upper surfaces are sprayed. Quite a lot of masking needs to be done so it is a bit of a time-consuming, but also strangely relaxing task. 

Top surfaces sprayed Tamiya XF-89 Dark Green, and a few areas between the panel lines carefully oversprayed with the same color with a few drops of XF-76 Gray Green mixed in to break up the monochrome appearance. 

The Hungarian Tu-2's were notoriously worn and filthy, so let's start adding a lot of streaking dirt on the undersides using AKI acrylic pencils. I am still experimenting with this technique, but the good thing is that if I goof up, I can just respray everything with blue.