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Building an Upgraded Kingfisher

Panel Lines and Painting

A number of raised panel lines were lost when sanding the lower fuselage. My technique for replacing them is simple. Place 2 lengths of masking tape side by side about 1mm apart where you want to replace a line. Then take some Squadron putty and smear it along the gap and let it set. Once set you can remove the tape and give the putty a quick sanding with 400 grit. You can see the lines a little in the photo but don’t worry-they’re all there.

Since I had the Squadron Vacu-formed canopy I used the kits canopy to mask the interior for painting. The first area painted was the upper wings. These are gloss yellow and this wraps around the leading edge to about 8 scale inches. I then masked for the fuselage stripe. This area was first painted white and allowed to dry completely. Then a coat of insignia red was applied over that. Once that was dry the stripe itself was masked in preparation for the aluminum paint. I masked the wing upper surface with masking tape and paper shields and the lower wraparound area was taped off. For some reason I always begin with the lower fuselage? There was no exception here. At this point the floats are not permanently articled and the main float was painted separately. Once one side was dry I turned it over and painted the other ( Wow, what a surprise!) The no skid on the float was supplied as black decal trim film and the prop warning stripe was placed. Now the float was permanently attached to the aircraft. The float beaching gear is from Monograms kit and keeps the painted plane off it’s float. The cowl received the same treatment as the fuselage stripe and was painted aluminum at this time also. Once the aluminum has dried I removed the kit canopy and the masks from the wings and red areas. The entire kit was given a couple of coats of future to seal, gloss and blend everything together. Once the Future has dried for 2 days I began applying Aeromaster’s decals. What can I say? Aeromaster makes some of the best decals available and I had absolutely no problems with them at all.

Copyright ©2002 - Text and Photos by Mike Taylor (modelguy2) . All Rights Reserved.