Looking for a Kingfisher kit and have some questions

D

Docbritofmf

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So recently I've been looking to build something a little different, after building a few model battle ships I took an interest in the aircraft they have on board specifically the Kingfisher, being a private pilot in my personal life aircraft fascinate me and the Kingfisher is no exception, I have found that there aren't many existing complete aircraft still around today the most notable is on board a Museum ship.

Looking for a good model kit of the king fisher seems pretty challenging,
I've found this kit which would be pretty cool though I can't seem to find any completed kits to use as reference and the scale seems of for an aircraft 1/200?
1663861634649.png


Most kits seems to be in 1/48 or 1/72 with the latter being more common and the foremost being seemingly a better kit but rare.

Then there is the 1/32 kit which seems to be even rarer how ever there are a lot of detail up kits for this scale

1663861834245.png


1663861877188.png
If anyone has any suggestions or can provide some more insight I'd greatly appreciate it
 
IDK , haven't built any of those .
You'd probably be happiest with that Kitty Hawk kit , the 1/200 kit will be really light on detail .
 
I have built the old Monogram kit, and I like it. But then, I'm a nostalgia builder, too, and still enjoy building classic Monogram kits. This one was first introduced in 1966, and while Hyperscalers would turn up their noses at it as too simple, inaccurate, toy-like, it has raised panel lines, etc, etc, it reflects the next generation of Monogram's detail, after the more toy-like first-generation F4F, SBD, SB2C and TBF kits (though I still build those, too). The Kingfisher stayed in production catalog through the merger with Revell, right up to the demise of the brands in the Hobbico bankruptcy in 2018.

Out of the box, it looks like a Kingfisher, or you can superdetail if you like. There are also aftermarket detail sets for this kit, from cockpits to floats, and decals. And in the 90s, Revell-Monogram added some photoetch detail parts to the kit, and you can find those boxings easily enough on the second-hand market. You can find it on eBay and similar sites, or on dealer tables at shows or club meetings, and for reasonable prices. If I were looking for this, I'd look to pay ten bucks at the most, and I know I'd have one in a very short time.

The old Airfix kit in 1/72 is out there, too. It's another kit that shows its age in terms of design, but, it's another one that can be found readily and builds into a decent representation of a Kingfisher.

I don't know offhand if either Tamiya or Hasegawa ever produced Kingfisher kits. I'd have to look that up.

Lindberg also released a 1/72-scale kit of the Kingfisher, in 1967. Again, many today would turn up their noses at it. But again, you can build it into a nice depiction of a Kingfisher.

It all depends on your individual taste.

The more recent 1/32 scale kits reflect 21st-century expectations in detail and design, and their prices reflect that. I have not built them, because I don't build a lot of 1/32 airplanes. But I have seen them built, and they do finish nicely.

Personally, in my favorite scale of 1/48, I would definitely build the Monogram kit.

Hope that helps!

Best regards,
Brad
 
urumomo said:
IDK , haven't built any of those .
You'd probably be happiest with that Kitty Hawk kit , the 1/200 kit will be really light on detail .
Click to expand...
That's what I thought but I found that scall to be extremely odd for an aircraft model, my assumption was prehapes it was like a detail add on for a battle ship but technically a model kit with in it's self .
 
Yeah , it may very well be intended as an accessory to a 1/200 ship .
It would have only a 2 and 1/8 inch wingspan at that scale .
Tiny !
 
the Baron said:
I have built the old Monogram kit, and I like it. But then, I'm a nostalgia builder, too, and still enjoy building classic Monogram kits. This one was first introduced in 1966, and while Hyperscalers would turn up their noses at it as too simple, inaccurate, toy-like, it has raised panel lines, etc, etc, it reflects the next generation of Monogram's detail, after the more toy-like first-generation F4F, SBD, SB2C and TBF kits (though I still build those, too). The Kingfisher stayed in production catalog through the merger with Revell, right up to the demise of the brands in the Hobbico bankruptcy in 2018.

Out of the box, it looks like a Kingfisher, or you can superdetail if you like. There are also aftermarket detail sets for this kit, from cockpits to floats, and decals. And in the 90s, Revell-Monogram added some photoetch detail parts to the kit, and you can find those boxings easily enough on the second-hand market. You can find it on eBay and similar sites, or on dealer tables at shows or club meetings, and for reasonable prices. If I were looking for this, I'd look to pay ten bucks at the most, and I know I'd have one in a very short time.

The old Airfix kit in 1/72 is out there, too. It's another kit that shows its age in terms of design, but, it's another one that can be found readily and builds into a decent representation of a Kingfisher.

I don't know offhand if either Tamiya or Hasegawa ever produced Kingfisher kits. I'd have to look that up.

Lindberg also released a 1/72-scale kit of the Kingfisher, in 1967. Again, many today would turn up their noses at it. But again, you can build it into a nice depiction of a Kingfisher.

It all depends on your individual taste.

The more recent 1/32 scale kits reflect 21st-century expectations in detail and design, and their prices reflect that. I have not built them, because I don't build a lot of 1/32 airplanes. But I have seen them built, and they do finish nicely.

Personally, in my favorite scale of 1/48, I would definitely build the Monogram kit.

Hope that helps!

Best regards,
Brad
Click to expand...
Thanks I'm new to alot of this I have some experience from child hood and, I attempted a few ships recently everything from basic to detailed and what I've found is if I'm looking for detail stick to the bigger scales as my hands and skills don't handle the finer tiny parts as careful as I'd like, I tried to reproduce a ship I served on the USS Kearsarge in 1/700 with a photo etch upgrade set and man was that a night mare I got it done but I fought with it for months and in the end still wasn't as happy with it as I wished it could have been.

PXL_20220830_190728411.PORTRAIT.jpg

After that ship I bought some model kits that were on clearance from hobby lobby so I could build some practice like this USS Missouri PXL_20220922_212755846.MP.jpg
That I tried my hand at razzle dazzle.. though I learned after words things would have went much smoother if I learned some tricks I now know before I assembled it. The kit its self wasnt that great it was a weird 1/534 scale and the parts lacked alot of detail but it was 4.50 on clearance so I gave it a shot.

Aircraft I was assuming would require similar upscaling for ease of building but then again I have a feeling I still have alot to learn.

Some of my bucket list kits are the Kingfisher, the Super Scooper, The 1/350 USS Alaska CB1 (the detail up kits on that set are double the cost of the model) and the USS New Jersey Tamiya kit 1/350
 
urumomo said:
IDK , haven't built any of those .
You'd probably be happiest with that Kitty Hawk kit , the 1/200 kit will be really light on detail .
Click to expand...
urumomo said:
Yeah , it may very well be intended as an accessory to a 1/200 ship .
It would have only a 2 and 1/8 inch wingspan at that scale .
Tiny !
Click to expand...
It's gotta be an accessory or the scale is in Inches or something funky I wish I could find some more info about it out of curiosity but Google only revealed two results and both were limited to that photo and not much more.
 
Docbritofmf said:
...After that ship I bought some model kits that were on clearance from hobby lobby so I could build some practice like this USS Missouri View attachment 93730
That I tried my hand at razzle dazzle.. though I learned after words things would have went much smoother if I learned some tricks I now know before I assembled it. The kit its self wasnt that great it was a weird 1/534 scale and the parts lacked alot of detail but it was 4.50 on clearance so I gave it a shot....
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's the venerable Revell USS Missouri kit. It was released all the way back in 1953, and generations of modelers have built it. The odd scale came about because at the time, those kits were scaled to fit in standard-sized boxes for distribution. And those box sizes had more to do with how many kits fit into a shipping box, and display shelf dimensions, than with a standard scale. Standard scales became more common, as the 8-year-old boys who built the Missouri in 1953 grew up and as modelers, demanded more refined detail than they did as kids ;)

By the way, the kit's flat bottom has nothing to do with dragging the model across a carpeted floor. When Revell developed the kit, the Iowas were still commissioned, active-duty vessels, and details about the ships under the water weren't readily available.

Still, as you've shown here, it builds into a nice model of the Missouri. I built it when I was a lad, though as the New Jersey. One Missouri boxing included a little replica of the plaque commemorating the surrender ceremony, too.

I recommend the other classic Revell ships, like the North Carolina/Washington, and the Yorktowns, in any boxing. They're fun builds, even if the kits are simpler than today's kits.

Best regards,
Brad
 
the Baron said:
Yeah, that's the venerable Revell USS Missouri kit. It was released all the way back in 1953, and generations of modelers have built it. The odd scale came about because at the time, those kits were scaled to fit in standard-sized boxes for distribution. And those box sizes had more to do with how many kits fit into a shipping box, and display shelf dimensions, than with a standard scale. Standard scales became more common, as the 8-year-old boys who built the Missouri in 1953 grew up and as modelers, demanded more refined detail than they did as kids ;)

By the way, the kit's flat bottom has nothing to do with dragging the model across a carpeted floor. When Revell developed the kit, the Iowas were still commissioned, active-duty vessels, and details about the ships under the water weren't readily available.

Still, as you've shown here, it builds into a nice model of the Missouri. I built it when I was a lad, though as the New Jersey. One Missouri boxing included a little replica of the plaque commemorating the surrender ceremony, too.

I recommend the other classic Revell ships, like the North Carolina/Washington, and the Yorktowns, in any boxing. They're fun builds, even if the kits are simpler than today's kits.

Best regards,
Brad
Click to expand...
Thanks I've been trying my hand at weathering and stuff but having a difficult time getting the hang of it. I recently purchased a walker bulldog tank kit by Tamiya and I gotta say I was very impressed by the quality of the kits parts nice and clean and fits together well with the exception of a seam between the top of hual and the lower section. If Tamiya kits are all of this quality they will definitely be on my purchase list for the future.
 
" By the way, the kit's flat bottom has nothing to do with dragging the model across a carpeted floor. When Revell developed the kit, the Iowas were still commissioned, active-duty vessels, and details about the ships under the water weren't readily available. "
LOL
What ?
That's called a waterline kit .
There was no super secrets on the Iowa class below the waterline .
 
Docbritofmf said:
Thanks I've been trying my hand at weathering and stuff but having a difficult time getting the hang of it. I recently purchased a walker bulldog tank kit by Tamiya and I gotta say I was very impressed by the quality of the kits parts nice and clean and fits together well with the exception of a seam between the top of hual and the lower section. If Tamiya kits are all of this quality they will definitely be on my purchase list for the future.
Click to expand...
I have built several tamiya kit's now and all of them have been very good, little flash and fit together well. Few little bit's that need a slight adjustment but overall very good.
Pantherman
 
urumomo said:
" By the way, the kit's flat bottom has nothing to do with dragging the model across a carpeted floor. When Revell developed the kit, the Iowas were still commissioned, active-duty vessels, and details about the ships under the water weren't readily available. "
LOL
What ?
That's called a waterline kit .
There was no super secrets on the Iowa class below the waterline .
Click to expand...
I would assume by 1953 there wasn't but I do believe there is some fact to what he is saying battleships during the war experimented with different styles of torpedo protection and armor belts which they did try to keep on a need to know basis, early torpedos hit the side of a ship and detonated or at least tried to the success of early war torpedos had a dud ratio of something like 1 out of 3 and the ones that did find there target weren't that successful unless they hit specific areas of the ship, later war torpedos were more successful but still not great against armored ships but we're good against ships like cargo haulers troop transport and merchant vessels.

Battle ships had torpedo belts called blisters a voided space over the inner hull so side hull hit would hopefully not penetrate which lead to developing torpedos that exploded under the keel of a ship causing maximum damage.

So hiding the details of the hull structure and propulsion system would be a goal. A good example of this in current times is the screw of modern subs which is always covered when in port at times were the sub is sitting for a long enough period of time for a satellite photo to. Be taken.

Idk if this all applies to the model kit in the 50s but that might be partial truth to the situation
 
Torpedo blisters were on early dreadnaughts .

The Iowa class were extensively photographed during construction and out of the water in drydock after the war .
The Iowa herself was drydocked in San Francisco in January 45 .
Revell didn't include a full hull because it was a waterline kit like the majority of kits .
 
urumomo said:
" By the way, the kit's flat bottom has nothing to do with dragging the model across a carpeted floor. When Revell developed the kit, the Iowas were still commissioned, active-duty vessels, and details about the ships under the water weren't readily available. "
LOL
What ?
That's called a waterline kit .
There was no super secrets on the Iowa c7lass below the waterline .
Click to expand...
Sorry, momo, but take a closer look at the photo. It's a full-hull kit, not a waterline kit. Revell didn't produce ships with a waterline-model option till they brought out their 1/720-scale ships.
You can look at Thomas Graham's "Remembering Revell Model Kits", p. 16, for more info on this topic.
 
Oh , so it's just a poor kit that was produced to sit squarely on a shelf .
It has screws ?
I can't see the stern in that photo or the one on Scalemates .

There was TONS of photos of the entire hull of the Iowa class ships long before 1953 .
 
Unsurprisingly the contents of that book are not available on the web .
I'm not buying a 30 dollar book on Revell .
Does it say on page 16 that they produced the kit of the Missouri that way because they didn't know better or is page 16 covering the transition from " full hull " to waterline offerings ?
If it's the later , why do you say that Revell didn't know what was below the waterline in 1953 ?
Where is your source for that ?
 
The kit I built didn't have screws but just a rutter and the hull lacked an apparent armor belt but the Iowa's did have armor belts and a while they weren't true blisters they did have void spaces, I know this for two reason one I've seen inside that void space volunteering on a museum ship, and two there's a good YouTube channel for the Battle Ship New Jersey in which the historian and curator goes over the ship and the rest of the Iowas in great detail.

Idk the reason for the kit missing the lower half but wether or not the reasoning was secrecy or lack of effort is both interesting to me
 

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