By Chris Cork
The Testors 1/48 scale R3C-2 kit is elderly, and the version built here is a �90�s re-boxing of what is probably a �70�s kit. It is moulded in a light grey waxy plastic with minimal flash. The positions of decals (or transfers as we Brits prefer to call them) are marked as pronounced raised detail and need to be sanded off before construction.
The kit is simplicity itself, but presented what turned out to be several knotty problems, all of them associated with painting. There is no cockpit detailing and I left it bare, preferring to concentrate on the finish and the rigging. The tiny cockpit transparency is thick and overscale and needed considerable surgery to get a decent fit.
Noting the waxy plastic I gave all the kit parts a thorough wash in warm soapy water � which made no difference at all to the adhesion of the paint. I used Chinese rattle-can aerosols bought in the local bazaar which fortuitously were almost exact matches for the colours of the original. The gold went on well, but the blue and the orange would not �key� to the plastic and peeled off when the mask was removed even after a weeks drying. The fuselage eventually had four complete re-strips before the fifth and final coat which was reasonably satisfactory. The orange tailfin had four re-strips and was eventually brush painted. Floats were brushed with Lifecolor acrylics, Olive Drab and Neutral Grey, which went on without a problem.
Rigging biplanes, even simple ones, can be a nightmare. This was. The main bracing wires are made of surgical steel, an experiment I will not be repeating as they were impossible to tension as the pictures reveal, and are bent all over the place! The rigging from the underwing outboard attachments to the floats is of invisible mending thread and that from the upper wing to the forward pontoon and the inter-wing bracing, are all made from heat-stretched sprue
Transfers settled down well with Micro-sol and Micro-set. Apart from the surgical wire, which really does spoil the look of the completed model it is an attractive little kit of an unusual subject � and the only kit of this subject available globally. Recommended for biplane beginners.
Digital photos with Fuji Finepix A345
Happy modeling!
Chris Cork, Bahawalpur
