Im planning on building the 1/72 Revell Gato and I was wondering if anyone has any good techniques on how to apply oil canning effect on ship models? I feel like it would improve the general appearance of the sub so any ideas appreciated!

Years ago there was a blog build of the 1/144 Fletcher. The modeler had marked off each panel on the hull and was using a curved blade to carefully scrape out the plastic to create an indentation. He never did finish the build. That is the only instance I can think of that I have seen.

Yes as Russ mention a scalpel will do the trick not come practish but most certainly used for stressed aircraft skin 1/48, 1/32 scale (it's a lot of work but the effort well worth) i guess for the 1/72 boat it will just work fine

You can simulate it with a LOT of masking, and a LOT of very careful airbrushing...ie; lots of practice needed.

I know of 2 techniques,

the one mentioned by Russ and you have shading with paint, but that only works nicely for 1:700 scale models.

the problem with the Revell Gato is that is misses a lot of rivet detail on the hull which is more of a problem than the lack of oil canning in my opinion. I used the Eduard set to resolve that problem.

I seen several demos on you-tube. One video was with a rotary tool.

Here is the thread on how it was done on the Fletcher:

https://modelshipwrights.kitmaker.net/forums/134929&page=1

Cheers,

Thanks y'all this is really helpful! Mat thank you for pointing out the lack of rivets, to combat this I bought a HO scale rivet decal set. ( I know not 1/72 but close enough) I going to add the oil canning because im going to weather the s*** out of this model, and I think it would make it look more interesting.

Ezra, if you are going to do all that extra work, you should consider adding all
the missing flooding vents at the bottom of the hull.
Here is a link to templates you can buy to guide you in adding these missing details.


http://nautilusmodels.com/72-701.htm

Cheers,

Oh yah Joe i saw someone do that on a 1/144 Gato and I thought it looked amazing so its a definite! ( Im doing the platinum edition so im going full out with the details!)