Drummin along the Mohawk... Rodan 1/48 Grumman OV-1A Mohawk

[LorenSharp]

Since there is still a little time left, I'll see if I can squeeze in one more build before they lock the doors and turn out the lights.

 This time, a Grumman OV-1A Mohawk by Rodan

I don't have box anymore but I do have the nifty painted poster that came with the kit.

 Along with all the other bits.

And for good measure, Eduards P/E sets and  a set of Quick Boost bang seats.

Somebody cue the Stones " Paint It Black" and lets Rock and Roll!..

 

[Col.]

Another interesting and less common subject Loren

Don't think I've ever seen this kit built so will be watching your progress and looking forward to your thoughts on it.

[LorenSharp]

Thanks Col. I wanted to do this in another build from last year but couldn't get it added in time.

So far it hasn't been too hateful as Eastern European kits go. It does have the soft plastic and flash that you'd find on a low pressure injection limited release  kit, like from Special Hobby. Some of the locator pins had a problem with lining up here and there. The after market  P/E and resin have helped to improve the look a lot. But their addition did make for some tight fitting as well.

First thing finished was the resin bang seats. I did remove the molded on harness' and replaced or added detail with the cockpit P/E.

Then started putting the smaller P/E bits together.

[dnl42]

Oh, very nice! Not one of the common Ironworks birds. 

[LorenSharp]

The kit  instructions don't really say how much weight to add to prevent tail sitting. So I added a couple of 7g wheel weights behind the cockpit but still more of less over the nose gear bay.

If I need more I can add steel shot to the nose at the end.

The cockpit bulkhead had some noticeable gaps at the fuselage join  so after carefully gluing the halve together( the locator pins were next to useless. ) I filled in the gaps in the bulkhead and masked off the join down the two sides and used filler for the slight gaps.

These I let dry over night before tidying up.

[LorenSharp]

Once dried and sanded I repainted the bulkhead and added the little bits. And of course it was a very tight fit. Then finished sanding down the rest of the filler.

[LorenSharp]

Next up was giving the glass pieces a coat of Future/Kleer. After the coating has cured I'll add those pieces and get the fuselage ready for painting and begin work on the wheel wells and exterior parts to add some more detail there.

[MickE]

Great looking cockpit.

[LorenSharp]

Thanks MickE.

[LorenSharp]

HAving let all that dry and set and also finishing up another build, I started adding the P/E to the wings and fuselage.

Turning the gear bays into something a little more substantial.

Followed by attaching the wings and adding detail to the speed brakes.

And various other little bits like the tail antenna and bits on the fuselage and wings

[dnl42]

The 1st image looks fine, but the rest are showing up as "Page Not Found Oops! Looks like you followed a bad link."

 

BTW, love your choice of subjects! Is this your "Grumman year"?

[LorenSharp]

I let that dry over night. now its time to do some pre-shading.

Followed by a coat of dark olive drab and a misting coat of faded olive drab here and there to show some wear.

I'll let tis dry then give everything a gloss coat before masking off the wheel wells and anti-icing boots.

[LorenSharp]

Just now, dnl42 said:

The 1st image looks fine, but the rest are showing up as "Page Not Found Oops! Looks like you followed a bad link."

 

BTW, love your choice of subjects! Is this your "Grumman year"?

Temporary issue, I forgot to resize the images before uploading. they were too big. I had to delete, resize and then re upload. Refresh the page and it should be apple pie all right.

I think Grumman and Northrop the way it's sizing up,

[Geo1966]

This is coming alone really nicely Loren. The pe makes a massive difference, but i am sure it wasn't easy.

 

George

[LorenSharp]

On 5/29/2023 at 5:29 AM, Geo1966 said:

This is coming alone really nicely Loren. The pe makes a massive difference, but i am sure it wasn't easy.

 

George

Thanks George. Honestly, I didn't add all the P/E in the sets. the really teeny-tiny stuff I bypassed. I had a hard enough time trying to see the bits, let alone attaching them AND making them stick.

[LorenSharp]

Speaking to sticking on teeny bits and making them stick, Time to finish this puppy up.

The P/E set give you a set of exhaust nozzles. But, you have to roll them into shape. The best guide I had for making them into some type of round shape was my X-Acto knife. 

The set doesn't give a "lip" to get both sides to attach easily. Nope that would be too easy wouldn't it? Super glue won't set with any strength, so that means I'll have to solder them together with a butt join. Now as you can imagine ,might get a touch toasty on the fingers holding this together while soldering. Use a clamp you say? well almost works, but there's a pointed ridge won't do. so I came up with using some florists wire to bind everything on the form.

That made soldering a lot easier,

My soldering prowess is not the greatest, but this has come out a whole lot better than I had hoped.

I just had to use my Dremel to smooth out some of the solder.

And then see if they'll slip onto their respective holes. Yep, success!

[LorenSharp]

Next came attaching the wheels and seeing if this will stand correctly or be a tail sitter.

Unfortunately it was initially a tail sitter. It was going to take another 48g on top of the 14g I first added to get it to sit correctly. What to do? I had just decided to hang it up when done and not worry about it. Just prop it up to get the final pictures. Nope not happenin'. I took the exhaust pipes out that I just added and filled the engine nacelles. That added about 11g per side, still not enough. So I bit the bullet and removed the nose piece, canopy, then carefully pried and separated the fuselage just enough to remove the cockpit assembly. I added 14g of weight in the form of 2 more square wheel weights and plugged both sides of the wheel well open spaces, put everything back together then filled the cavity underneath the deck with another 8-9g of bb shot. Sealed all that up and Voila'! It now sits in it's proper military manner.  All that done it shoould be clear sailing and rapid progress to completion....... nothing like jinxing myself. I don' t know if it was my error (probably) or a mislabeling in the instruction sheet, but one wing tip marker light went on like charm the other side,.... welllll.

 A bit of a gap I'd say. Of course the fret that had those and additional wingtip parts I had chucked out in the trash days earlier So I used some plastic strip that was the same width and boxed the top, bottom, and side. Let that dry and sanded down to a relative smoothness..

Right before this I also added the  decals, which just started to shatter a little so be fore going any further I gave the sheet a couple of good coats of clear lacquer to stay sealed. Worked ok until I got to the dive brakes. and didn't want to conform nor separate at the splits. I took the national insignias off those parts and used some spares I keep just for emergencies like this. The blue was darker that the kits  decals . I should have removed the emblem off of the top wing as well but the decals softener, stripped the paint off the dive brakes requiring me to re-paint those before attaching the new decals. I didn't want to ruin he top wing paint so it's still the original decal, a bit lighter than everything else. As far as I'm concerned the jungle heat and humidity fade the top paint. That's my story and I'm sticking to it...

[LorenSharp]

So with all that AND the decals added here's my progress to this point. And another observation.

The instructions where the wing walk lines are show not much of a shaded difference , but the area inside the black lines is supposed to be dark gray. Had I caught that before hand I could have painted those areas before adding the lines, but the kit decals are so fragile and tape, kabuki or other, would pull them up even after several coats of clear lacquer, so  this is the way it will stay. but I could add the last bit to the landing gear.

and the last of the little's.

Since I don't have to hang this bird up and since it is a turbo prop. I set the blades in the "feathered " position.

Removed the tape from the canopy windows and attached the doors.

 

[LorenSharp]

And there you have one more for the Gallery..

I had hoped to get a few more done before the end of the GB, but I've got to get a backlog of BIG projects off the bench before the  FAA GB, So those will have to wait until a later date. I want to thank @Scargsy and @Col. for putting this little soiree on. I'll have my finals in the Gallery shortly, Not bad I got 3 done out of the 6 I had hoped to do. But no matter they'll get built somewheres along the line. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy and Model on!

[Pete in Lincs]

It's an odd looking beastie, but one I've always been fond of. 

I've never seen the kit built before and yours looks great. 

[LorenSharp]

Thanks Pete. Glad you liked it. It does have a "Lexx" look about it.

[dnl42]

You did an excellent job on this, it looks very good! 

 

And I love me a Grumman aircraft! 

[LorenSharp]

Thanks!

[Pete in Lincs]

On 6/5/2023 at 5:49 PM, LorenSharp said:

It does have a "Lexx" look about it.

And that was a weird and wonderful series. I enjoyed it though. You're right. Very Lexx.