I-16 Type 10 – Eduard

Eduard came out with their I-16, much much better than the Classic Airframes one – which I sold off. Life is too short for hard to build kits. This will continue my building out of Chinese Nationalist planes from the 1930’s.

I actually purchased the ‘overtrees’ boxing, which only has the plastic – no decals, no photoetch, and no instructions. The instructions you can download from their website and since I was going to do a Chinese Nationalist I-16 with my own decals, I wouldn’t miss their decal sheet anyway. The price is substantially cheaper than the weekend edition.

The cockpit was pretty much straight from the box with the addition of Eduard Steel belts. Used a silver wire to ‘hang’ the belts as seen in reference photos. The instrument panel was dry brushed with silver. Honestly, the opening of this kit is really small, not much can be see.

This is really a very simple kit, no drama in building with very good fit. The only except may be where the wings meet the underside, needed some sanding to smooth things out. The plane was finished with Tamiya Light Blue and Olive Green. The white and blue bands in this case was painted on as I had no decals for that.

The metallic band around the engine was my newly discovered tool, Mylar film tape. Very convincing way to do this detail. The engine itself mostly hidden, so besides a basic paint job, nothing else was added. Quick simple and fun.