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Kitty Hawk OS2U Kingfisher


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Engine looks great, nice recovery Bill. I never liked Montex or other vinyl masks and have only one exotic set, where no other made one. I will use it as a cutting template for Kabuki tape. Luckily you could keep the canopy clear, even after stripping.

Cheers Rob

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On 1/5/2023 at 7:20 AM, Bill_S said:

I might be tempted to finish it in the USS Arizona colors.

I'll ha

I'll have a peek at your color scheme, to get mine right for my USS Arizona build, albeit about a 100th smaller :D.

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Cheers Rob

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1 hour ago, DocRob said:

Engine looks great, nice recovery Bill. I never liked Montex or other vinyl masks and have only one exotic set, where no other made one. I will use it as a cutting template for Kabuki tape. Luckily you could keep the canopy clear, even after stripping.

Cheers Rob

Rob, I had dipped the canopies in Future; I stripped them chemically - about 10 seconds in household ammonia. Repositioning the Montex masks left small scratches in the acrylic coating.

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With no idea how the front cowl ring attaches to the engine, I decided I would build up most of the cowling first. I was never very good at following directions.

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A little finagling, and the engine fits.

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This means I'll have to cement the whole thing as an assembly when the time comes. On to the floats. I'm going with Navy blue uppers and white lower surfaces. Rather than risk blue overspray on the underside of the plane, I'll paint the floats separately, then attach as a near final step. Undersides have been painted.

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KH calls for a couple of pieces of PE for the upper side of the main float. Parts #16 and #21. Unfortunately, my PE fret only goes up to #20.

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Bill

Nice progress on your Kingfisher and it seems KH went out of their way to frustrate the builder. The P&W looks so good and detailed then the fit/installations issues set in - KH never yields any ground.

I'm so envious on seeing how crystal clear your canopies look after working on them and that there are mask sets available of your choosing. None for the old Monogram kit and I'm over two hours of masking just the front windscreen with just one panel left to do. Of course, I still have the three other sections to do. :wallbash:

 

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Wing floats in progress. I drilled holes in a piece of Evergreen strip to align the inner struts. The bottom surface has a coat of Insignia White already.

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Beaching gear. I'm going with white to show a little contrast against the main float.

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Eight pieces for the prop hub! The surface detail on a lot of the parts is a bit soft to my eye. Not so on external surface detail.

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Lower side of control surfaces. The rudder (not shown) has been done in white; I'll mask and paint red horizontal stripes.

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Main float nearly complete. I'm contemplating drilling out the locating pins (to the bottom of the fuselage) and replacing them with brass rod.

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7 hours ago, Bill_S said:

[…]

 

Main float nearly complete. I'm contemplating drilling out the locating pins (to the bottom of the fuselage) and replacing them with brass rod.

Yes, absolutely needed. The attachment of the main float is very weak otherwise, whereas it’s a key part of the airframe.

Nice progress, Bill.

Hubert

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Looking good!  There's a relatively inexpensive book out there on how to build the kit that might be of help where things make no sense:

https://www.amazon.com/OS2U-Model-Kingfisher-Hoover-Instruction/dp/1729343538/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1XP6MZADJIB9T&keywords=kitty+hawk+kingfisher&qid=1674142262&sprefix=kitty+hawk+kingfisher%2Caps%2C94&sr=8-2

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Locating nubs have been removed and replaced with brass pins. The pin furthest forward had to be trimmed quite short; it interferes with the firewall assembly.

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Prop just needs a wash.

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The last shots of the interior prior to joining the fuselage halves.

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Some seam filling and sanding are in the near future. I got over zealous and forgot to install the IP. Not a big deal; the section at top front has yet to be cemented. A little trimming of the IP attachment and it will slip in.

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I swear, canopy masks are one of the greatest things ever invented!

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Bill

Looking so good and adding the brass pins is a great idea and should add a lot of strength to the float attachment.  Your Kingfisher is looking mighty good all buttoned up, as I can see details KH included that are completely missing on the old Monogram kit: both the interior and exterior. What I wouldn't give for a set of the gorgeous canopy masks 

 

 

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This is one seriously awesome job, Bill.  I have a couple of these in the stash, along with the Big Ed sets for them, and one of these days….

This kit is a true gem, IMHO, a d brings big $$$$ now on the resale market. Funny how it was so trashed when it came out.

Ive seen several of these kits built, and every last one of them was a Nats Award winner. 

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On 1/24/2023 at 10:01 PM, Clunkmeister said:

This is one seriously awesome job, Bill.  I have a couple of these in the stash, along with the Big Ed sets for them, and one of these days….

This kit is a true gem, IMHO, a d brings big $$$$ now on the resale market. Funny how it was so trashed when it came out.

Ive seen several of these kits built, and every last one of them was a Nats Award winner. 

I must confess that I was one who initially cursed this kit, Ernie. In hindsight, it's not that bad if you have a magnifying lamp to view some of the pictures in the instruction booklet. You will soon see a Kingfisher that is NOT a Nats winner!

Painting the stripes on the rudder...

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And the finished product.

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I'm not happy with how this turned out; I used calipers to measure the stripes on the decal. In hindsight, I should have simply measured the height of the rudder and divided by 13 to get uniform spacing. I'm kicking myself for that stupid mistake.

There's nothing like a coat of paint to show seam defects. I had to re-fill and sand the belly of the beast.

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Bill

Nice progress and I'm with Ernie, every time down the road when you look at the Kingfisher, the tail stripes are going to annoy the dickens out of you. I'm forever backtracking and fixing things and sometimes it feels as if I built the model twice.

 

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36 minutes ago, Peterpools said:

Bill

Nice progress and I'm with Ernie, every time down the road when you look at the Kingfisher, the tail stripes are going to annoy the dickens out of you. I'm forever backtracking and fixing things and sometimes it feels as if I built the model twice.

 

 

7 hours ago, Clunkmeister said:

Redoing the rudder ain’t a big deal, Bill. And if it’ll bug you forever, then fix it now.   Nice job so far. 

You guys are correct. Those bright stripes will draw the eye right to the tail. Mr. Color thinner is a fantastic paint remover - it took all of five minutes.

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Pipe cleaners. There are two varieties. Good. And bad.

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I'm using pipe cleaners to try and get a feathered edge to the paint on the fuselage. The white pipe cleaner is good. The blue one will leave a sawtooth pattern. Bad.

I cut and bend the pipe cleaner, then put it between masking tape and the model.

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When spraying paint, I spray up past the pipe cleaner, never down at it. I'm currently waiting for black to dry on the windscreen framing. More pictures tomorrow.

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5 hours ago, Bill_S said:

When spraying paint, I spray up past the pipe cleaner, never down at it. I'm currently waiting for black to dry on the windscreen framing. More pictures tomorrow.

That is interesting Bill, there is no soaking and bleeding?

Cheers Rob

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