My Monogram Models Collection

A Monogram Fan's Homage to Monogram Aircraft Models...

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Vought OS2U-3 Kingfisher

When I was younger, I thought that the Vought OS2U Kingfisher was one of the most unusual looking aircraft I had ever seen. Because it had floats, a wheeled dolly, and bombs under the wings, I fell in love with it. Now years later, I am building this intriguing aircraft again, with the some of the same awe as years ago.

In the beginning…

Opening up the box, I discovered that there are not a lot of parts to this kit, very similar to the P-47 Razorback I did a while ago. The parts are typical for the time period, with raised panel lines, This is picture 1 of the Kingfisherand molded in navy blue, even though this kit is a recent reissue. There are two different versions that can be built, the regular float plane version, with the above mentioned wheeled dolly so it can be displayed on a flat surface, or the wheeled land plane version, which means that the main float has to be removed from the fuselage halves. There are also two100 lbs bombs that go under the wings, a pilot and rear gunner figure (the gunner has no legs below the knees), and a .30 caliber machine gun for the rear gunner. The one thing I did notice with this kit is the thinness of the plastic. Some of the kit parts almost seemed to be too delicate to put together. I have noticed this on a few other reissues that I have built over the past few years, most notably the ME-109E kit. After initial review of the instructions, the construction began.

Construction…

Construction began, as always, with the interior sections. The cockpit area is a large seat area, almost like a tub, with a joystick. This assembly has some modeled in details, such as seat belt, shoulder straps, and head rest. The rear area has the round machine gun ring, as well as a small seat. There is also a radio direction finder, and I guess, what is supposed to be the radio. All of these assemblies, as well as the interior sidewalls got a coat of Pollyscale Interior Green. I painted the direction finder loop black, as well as the grip on the Joystick. The Pilots headrest was painted brown, and I added some red to a few knobs to give the cockpit a little contrast. You could also add a decal with dials for the cockpit, but I did not in this case, since you will really not see it anyway once the canopy is in place.

While all this paint was drying, I removed the main fuselage halves and roughed up the matingThis is picture 2 of the Kingfisher surfaces in hopes of a little less putting of the seams later on. I also assembled the wheeled dolly, as I had decided to do the float version of this aircraft. After all the interior paint had dried, I glued the interior sections to the right hand fuselage half, and then put the halves together. The two halves need a little bit of seam work, as the interior section is a little too wide (a good reminder to always dry fit first before applying glue). The top portion came together OK, but the bottom actually need some filling material to close the gap. This was hard for the main reason that the center float was in the way, and the reinforcing cross members were right in the middle, thus limiting what you could do with sanding. Since I was in an experimenting mood (I am also currently making on of the wonderful new 1:48 scale tanks that Tamiya is now putting out), I decided to use Microscale Krystal Kleer ® as a filler for the lower fuselage seam. I had read about this way of seam filling a few years back, and decided to give it a try. The Krystal Kleer worked very well on the seams that I needed to have filled, but I did have a little trouble on the lower fuselage. Again, I think that this was because of the position of the main float, and not the filler material, since the Krystal Kleer worked fine on the wing root and stabilizer areas.

Painting and mistakes…

After the seam work was done, I washed the model with warm water to get any dirt and plastic residue off, let it dry for a day, and then proceeded to brush paint Pollyscale Railroad Color Flat Aluminum all over the model as an undercoat. This was mistake number 1. Since I do weather my aircraft, I decided to try this method on this build. I noticed that it did change the appearance of the paint somewhat, and when weathering, I had planned to use 1200 grit sandpaper to show This is picture 3 of the Kingfisherpaint peeling at the edges, as well as paint fading due to sun and ground crew boots. It turns out however that this method of weathering is much harder to do than it looks, and actually turned to using a silver prismicolor pencil instead.

After I pained the whole aircraft aluminum, I let it dry for at least 3-4 days under cover. After the aluminum paint had dried, I painted on the bottom color, which is white in this case. This was the only area that I deviated from my normal painting methods. I could not get the paint to look right. It was way to thin. After 4 coats of Pollyscale RLM 22 white, I finally decided that I would use a spray can for the bottom of the aircraft.

The company I decided to go with was Tamiya, and the color was actually the correct one, USN Insignia White. It laid down great. The only problem with this method is if you have to do any touch up to it, as I wound up having to do, you might have to do some masking. So I had to be kind of careful. Also make sure that you wear a mask and have good ventilation when using the Tamiya spray paint. The propellant will have you gagging in seconds after you begin to spray.

I let this coat dry for about 3 days. After this, I painted the Intermediate Blue color on the fuselage sides using my normal method (and it went down beautifully) after letting this color dry for a few days, I did the topside USN Sea Blue. Again, as with the Intermediate Blue, this color laid down beautifully as well. While the main aircraft colors were drying, I painted the outrigger floats, the bottoms white, and the tops Dark Blue as on the main aircraft. While all of this was drying, I painted up the wheeled dolly that had been assembled earlier. I painted the dolly grey, with the tires being painted grimy black.

It was at this point that I made my second mistake on this kit. I did not put the engine front pieceThis is picture 4 of the Kingfisher on the fuselage when I painted the aircraft, so I had to paint again the tri color scheme. This is where a spray can does not come in all that handy. I had to mask off the whole front of the aircraft, and I still had overspray that got onto the upper half of the wings. This was not too big of a problem, since I was going to fade the wing tops anyway. But the more paint you add, the less detail will show, and this was starting to happen. Finally, I had the paint job the way I wanted it to look, and I let everything dry. After drying, I laid down a few coats of Testors Glosscote from the spray can, and got the bird ready for final phases.

Decaling and Weathering…

I had planned right from the beginning to make this Kingfisher a land based bird, since I really wanted to do a real good weathering job on it (I actually got the inspiration from the Squadron Signal Kingfisher in Action book). I broke out the Aeromaster Kingfishers PT III decals. Having found the deals I wanted to use, I proceeded to cut, and soak. Now I have been using Aeromaster decals for a long time, and always have liked them, but this is the first time in 33 plus years of modeling I have ever had any decals break apart on me in the water at all! I was quite surprised. After trying a few different combinations of decals on this sheet, I discovered that they all would break apart in water. So I broke out older Monogram decals that came with this reissue, and they laid down great. They even reacted well to Microsol and Microset. After letting the decals dry and set for a day, I laid another coat of Glosscote, then a layer of Dullcote over that.

After the Dullcote dried, I faded the upper surfaces of the aircraft with a wash of white paint. I then dirtied up the underside of the floats, as well as the fuselage. I then did paint chipping on high wear areas, as well as leading edges. One last wash of Grimy Black over the whole model, and everything (Except the canopy) was sealed with one final pass of the Dullcote.

Canopy Lines and Final Assembly...

The last thing I had to do was canopy line painting. I hate painting canopy lines, always have. In fact, I toyed with the idea of sanding smooth the canopy on this kit, and just painting it black, but This is picture 5 of the Kingfisherthen you would not be able to see the cockpit, which looked nice on this bird. So, using a toothpick, I painted the interior green color first, then the USN Sea Blue as a top coat. I picked up this toothpick painting tip from a Model Review on the Modeling Madness website, and it worked pretty good.

After letting the canopy lines dry for a day, I attached the canopy using the Krystal Kleer. After that, I attached the antenna wire, painted it black, and put the finished product on the shelf.

Conclusions...

Like the P-47D Razorback model I did a few years back, this kit really does not have a lot of parts, but it builds up into a pretty impressive aircraft. Assembly was a little difficult, due to the main float, and I have to figure out in the future what I want to do with painting any larger white surface using my Q tip style of painting, since I do not like the spray can method. But overall, I have an aircraft that I really like the looks of, even after all these years.

Until next time...

 

 

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