1/48 Revell OS2U Kingfisher

Gallery Article by M.J.Gormley on Aug 28 2015

 

      

I saw this kit and thought it would be a great model to try out some weathering techniques read here in the “tools and tips” section…namely David Rapasi’s article on “Weathering with Dullcoat.” The kit was pretty cheap and no great loss if I completely screwed it up! I thought the parts fit very well although I did incur a couple self inflicted errors. 

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First, I glued the step stairs in the horizontal position as that made sense to me…wrong. They are supposed to hang straight down from the fuselage. Secondly, I had already cemented the fuselage halves together when I realized the wing was supposed to be inserted first. Oh well, the wing went in just fine, thankfully, after removing the alignment pin. The rest went together in short order and was painted the standard three tone N.S.blue, intermediate blue and white scheme. This was built OOB including kit decals. I did however use old roundels from an old P-40 Warhawk for the sides and under the wings as I thought they looked much better than the huge stars and bars in the kit. I cut out the top wing decals from the kit and did use those after a coat of Model Master Glosscoat. I painted the squares on the tail as well. This is NOT an accurate depiction of a real Kingfisher but looks good to me. After decals dried, I tried the weathering with dullcoat with a few…and I do mean just a few, drops of MM flat white. I was very pleased as this technique seems to work great. It is done after decals are applied and panel lines washed to weather the whole plane and to give what I think is a very convincing look. After a coat of Testors Dullcoat the plane was rigged with Easyline, which I am now a huge fan.

Overall this was a fun weekend build and a great subject to try out said techniques without breaking the bank, or hearts if not successful.

Good luck and God Bless!

M.J.Gormley

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Photos and text © by M.J.Gormley