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Royal Australian Navy Kiowa 1/48 Scale


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Evening Guys. Next up on the work bench whilst waiting for some more TSR2 information and the appropriate Eduard brass is the Italerii Kiowa which I shall be doing in the colours of the Royal Australian Navy with the help of Hawkeye decals and the Red Roo book on the type in Australian service by Gary Byk. This book is probably the best one stop reference for the modeller on any subject I have ever come across. In addition to the requisite history the book has diagrams from the manual, full colour scheme decals shed loads of photographs and proper colour chips. Anyway here are the traditional box top and sprue shots. There were many small variations on the scheme so it may or may not look exactly like the drawing but it suffices to give the idea. Hopefully she will be done in time for Telford so I supose I'd better go and start cutting plastic.

Martin

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Right the first update. I often like to get any problems that are worrying me with a kit over and done with at the start. in this case drilling out the doors so I can add pins and have them glued in the open position was bothering me so this was where I began. I used diabetic needles to get both the fineness and the strength I was looking for. I then discovered that the kit's floor and bulkheads were undersized and needed replacing; firstly because I obviously don't want any unsightly gaps and secondly because the cabin area is rather flimsy and needs them to fit snugly in order to gain strength from them. All a bit odd as i have had one of these kits before and the fit was fine.

Martin

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  • 3 weeks later...

Slow progress recently due to a nasty respiritory infection :wacko:. Still I have managed to get the instrument panel to fit, completed the seat bases and made a new fuselage roof. I intend to fit an engine and have opened up one of the appropriate access panels so I suppose I don't have much choice now do I? Anyway here's the pics.

Martin

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martin, looking foward to seeing this one done, looks like you are going to town on the interior, if so the RAN ones had sound proof quilting applied to the roof rear wall and central pillar. And also the vents need to be modified to properly replicate the CAC built machines rather than the louvres the kit has

here is one I made last year , hopefully to inspire you, hopefully yours will turn out better than mine as I was far from happy with the final finish

RANkiowa1.jpg

I found the best match for the RAN blue was Humbrol 15 Midnight Blue. Good to see aussie stuff being done

Regards

Bruce

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Thanks for the heads up on the quilting, I was wondering about that one. Pleased though as I like doing quilted interiors. Not all the RAN Kiowas were CAC built so I will have to decide on a particular machine before altering the vents and louvres, or not. This will have to be decided by which particular machine I have the most pictures of. BTW nice effort with your Kiowa.

Martin

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No time like the present so I got right down and did the quilting. One of the great things about this forum is that there is often someone who will flag up an issue before you go too far with things and this is a classic example. Previously either somebody would have pointed the issue over the quilting out at a show or a club meeting or not at all and the model would have ended up wrong.As it is 1/2 hour with the plastic card and things are back on track: magic! Incidently no one can be more surprised than me that I managed to hold the model still enough to get the required picture!! Getting close to having all the main elements of the model fitting well and in place now. Then the real fun of doing the fine detailing can begin.

Martin

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Martin, that looks sensational, how did you achieve it? Also another pic for you

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Australia--...2d036636a3a594c

http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.sear...2d036636a3a594c

I'm pretty sure you will find all our RAN kiowas were CAC built, so had the vents rather than the louvres on the cowls, not all had low skids fitted though! As you point out the variations between individual machines was quite big. Looking foward to seeing progress. your work is very neat and precise

Regards

Bruce

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Martin, that looks sensational, how did you achieve it? Also another pic for you

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Australia--...2d036636a3a594c

http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.sear...2d036636a3a594c

I'm pretty sure you will find all our RAN kiowas were CAC built, so had the vents rather than the louvres on the cowls, not all had low skids fitted though! As you point out the variations between individual machines was quite big. Looking foward to seeing progress. your work is very neat and precise

Regards

Bruce

Thanks for the extra pictures. The quilting was done from the centres of disposable plastic plates from the local supermarket. Kiowas A17-001 to A17-012 were built by Bell and exported to Australia fully assembled.A17- 005 and A17-006 were operated by the RAN coded 892 and 896 respectively; hence my caution before weilding the scalple. Mind you if I had details of that badge on the cabin door that could well influence my decision.

Martin

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Progress so far today before it got too hot. I cut out the portside engine bay door so I can crack on with the rst of the model pending my decision about which style of door to fit. It will also make making the doors easier by doing them on a flat surface. I have fitted the electronics bay which I may or may not go ahead with, I can't decide if it will detract from the overall shape of the machine or not. Opinions welcome. I also assembled the tail boom and taped the thing together to assess how much weight will be needed to avoid a tail sitter. Approximately 15g as it turns out. Anyhow as I said its too hot now so I think it must be beer time. :beer:

Martin

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Right guys an update on the past few days efforts. I finished off doing the cabin rof quilting, started adding structure to the engine bay and having discovered that I had made the seat bases seriously undersized, replaced these I have got the transmission housing in the correct place and today began fine detailing the cabin. This was complicated by my discovering that I had run ut of my smallest Reheat instrument bezels and the subsequent realisation that you can't but them any more :shithappens: so the smalest bezels had to be made by twisting fine wire round a suitably sized drill bit and cutting off the wire, a technique I havn't used for over twenty years. Still it all came back after a few tries and the carpet moster was well pleased as it was eating the results at about the rate of three to one. I hope it has serious gut rot now. here's the pics.

Martin

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Main rotor assembles and fitted. The control arms in the kit were very badly moulded and had to be replaced. A few ejector pin holes need to be filled and a little extra detail is required on the rotor head.

Martin

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Great to see this coming along Martin, you are doing a great job, very tidy work and an excellent idea for the quilting I will be using on my RAN Huey next year

Regards

Bruce

Now there's a plan! Don't Revell/Monogram do a Huey of the right mark? It would look great alsongside my other Fleet Air Arm and Commonwealth naval air arm stull. I think I can feel another addition to the stash comming on. I'll just tell my wife that this one is your idea. :wicked:

Martin

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  • 2 weeks later...

Lost my motivation for a few days but had a bash this afternoon. I discovered that I had assembled the rotor head wrongly so I took the opportunity to reinforce it with brass rod whilst I was correcting it. That won't do any harm as I like to do quite a few shows. I also got started on the engine. The hardest part was lining up the exhausts. I'm not sure whether I have the engine mount right or not but seeing as it can't be seen when all the accessories and plumbing are in place I'm not that bothered.

Martin

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  • 3 months later...

Well my first actual modelling post for three months. I felt so depressed at having to give up the IPMS Comp Sec's job I didn't feel like doing anything. Still I have been feeling the urge again over the last week and apart from that have felt like doing some mnodelling as well! (oooh errr Mrs!). So I have been getting some more done to the Kiowa I only have to make a battery for the avionics compartment, detail the inside of the doors and make new engine bay doors and I will be ready to paint the internals prior to assembling the maqin airframe.

Martin

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