For anyone interested, this website has colour information for most of the USMC camouflage schemes used on the OV-10 between 1955 and 1991.
The website also has camouflage scheme information for dozens of other aircraft as well, well worth checking out in my opinion.
Thanks for the link…some nice info on that one.
I thought it was about time I provided a bit of a verbal update on my build, pictures may follow in a few days.
Basically I’ve been working on mating the fuselage with the weapons bay which slots in underneath it. Blending them together has been taking a lot of work but I’ve finally got them to a finish I’m happy with. At the moment I’m working on taking off the nasty seam running along the back of the weapon bay; this is proving tricky due to the tight fit between the pylons.
Meanwhile I’ve also been working on the two tail booms; I’ve inserted the sections for the wheel wells and airbrushed them white before closing the tail booms together as it would’ve been more awkward painting them closed up. Between the wheel wells and the engine cover is a generous space that I’ve filled with diced up soldering wire to give weight forward of the tail, I’ve airbrushed the glue metal mass black so that nothing can be seen through the engine intakes.
All of my dryfitting tests suggest that the weight won’t be enough though so I may have to glue the Bronco to its base which, on the plus side, means I won’t have to give the wheel wells any extra detailing.
I promised pictures and I have them here.
As I said before most of the work I’ve been doing has involved mating the fuselage and the weapons bay. The mating left two large gaps between the fuselage and the gun pods.
You can see the area I’m talking about, the two dark links above the gun pod. Because of the depth of the gap I couldn’t use filler so I used super glue instead. I carefully applied in in layers and used Wet & Dry to sand it smooth and into shape. I also used the new Liquid Green Stuff from Citadel to fill in any pits and tiny gaps.
It’s very handy to have around, you can apply it with a brush and just wash the brush off with regular water. It dries quite strong and doesn’t crumble on contact like some fillers and putties. I’m growing quite fond of it.
To anyone building a Bronco; on both sides of the fuselage, below the cockpit, there are a series of rectangles that represent boarding steps. These fold down give the pilots a step up into the cockpit but they’re only present on one side of the cockpit on the real aircraft. The proper side proper side is the opposite to the side shown in the picture above and so I’ll be removing those rectangles.
The underside of the fuselage also required\requires a lot of work. First of all the weapon bay needed to be blended into the fuselage which took some work but was achieved with super glue and Liquid Green Putty again. Wet & Dry is also fantastic to work with, I only regret I never tried it until now.
I’ve also been working on removing the nasty seam between the pylons on the weapon bay. It’s a tight fit and I may have altered the shape of the middle pylon but once the fuel tank goes over it, it won’t be very noticeable.
While working away on the fuselage I decided to fit the tail booms together. First though I airbrushed the wheel wells white and applied a gloss coat as it would’ve been awkward once the booms were closed up. With the booms closed up there are some lumps and bumps to be removed that are correct for the OV-10A but not the OV-10D. There are also some seams to removed along the length of each boom, top and bottom.
With the tail booms together there is a nice space in front of each wheel well that the engine cover will fit over. I filled these areas with diced up soldering wire to give some weight forward of the tail. I don’t think it’s going to work through, the tail is very heavy and the undercarriage doesn’t look particularly strong. I seemed to have misplaced the nose wheel as well, sneaky bugger that it is.
I’ve also, as you can see, fitted the tail booms to the main wing and fitted the rear wing as well. The fit isn’t to bad but you need to real careful as the booms can easily shift while the glue is setting and the entire setup can be thrown off. I used multiple clamps to secure the booms to the wing while the glue was setting but even so I think the one boom may have set slightly off to the side, but only slightly. If it has I can’t fix it without damaging the wing so I’ll have to leave it as is.
There will be plenty of more work involved blending everything together. For example the engine covers didn’t fit to the booms perfectly and some shaping is necessary. There are some gaps between the boom and the wing to filled and shaped and also the boom needs to be blended into the wing on the upper surface as well.
The Bronco is really taking shape though and I’m looking forward to getting some paint on her. Now, I just need to track down that pesky nosewheel.
Unfortunately guys I’ve only found out I’ll need to move apartments within the next couple of weeks and so I’ve had to pack the Bronco away. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back to it yet, I don’t even know what sort of modelling space I’ll have when I move to be honest but I’ll make do I’m sure.