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1/48 Roden OV-1B Mohawk


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I have had this kit for a while now gathering dust. The Mohawk has a place from my childhood. Where i grew up in florida had a Grumman Depot there before Northrop bought them out. Almost every day i would see OV-1s going out for test flights and coming in on approach. F-14s werent uncommon either. The Mohawk stood out to me though. It just had a sleek and menacing appearance.

I have read alot of reviews on this kit from bad to good. Some saying the parts fit was terrible others saying it went to gether fine. So i decided to try it out myself. One thing they all agree on however is the canopy is fiddly. Cant wait to get to that one :thumbsup: So far the build has been pretty good. THe cockpit fell together fine as did the seats. All the parts had a slight mold seam with some flash that needed cleaning off to fit just right but nothing more than most other kits i have seen. The area behind the cockpit has been stuffed with Aves Apoxie sculpt. as was the nose section. I find it better to use a 2 part putty that is nice and dense more than lead weights. The putty can conform and get weight into places a lead weight may not fit. The kit is nice and nose heavy now.

The fuselage needed a slight block sand along the mating surfaces. There was some flash from slight knock out holes intended for other variants. A quick swipe with some 200 grit knocked this off. When glued together the halves matched up perfectly. No filler was needed. I did run a thin coat of Mr Surfacer over the seam though to fill in any minor depressions. The seam was sanded and rescribed and disappeared with no more fuss than a hasegawa kit.

I started fiddling with the canopy. One tip to go on is the A frame controls inside the cockpit. DONT use the locating holes they will mount it too high on the wall and the canopy roof will not fit. Mount the controls so they are flush with the top of the rear wall of the cockpit. Another thing i did was to glue the roof and front screen together and let it set for a few minutes. Once it had set the join was solid enough to handle but flexible enough to allow me to fiddle it in. It now fits with little fuss and will require only a little bead of Micro Crystal Clear to blend it in with the fuselage.

Here is my progress from today Hope you enjoy!

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Thanks guys. I assembled the wings last night. Only word of warning on that is to LOOK at the instructions. the part number call out o the sheet for the wing tip parts is wrong and i forgot what the correct ones are. But if you look at the diagram and test fit alot before you glue you will be fine. No fit issues on the wings. Also if you forget to drill them out for the pylons the holes ,for once, actually line up on external panels. WIng root fit looks decent but i havent glued it yet. Some mild rescribing will be needed on the engine nacells and their upper cowlings. The lines were light due to rodens molding tech.

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Not sure it carried much bombs at all....think it was limited to rocketpods and gunpacks, and if it´d take bombs I don´t think it could carry much more than a few Mk81s.

it could only carry about 3000lb of ordonance and a Mk84 is a 2000lb bomb....there were better aircraft suited to carry bombs.

Great looking build ! got one in my stash as well waiting for me:)

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Not sure it carried much bombs at all....think it was limited to rocketpods and gunpacks, and if it´d take bombs I don´t think it could carry much more than a few Mk81s.

it could only carry about 3000lb of ordonance and a Mk84 is a 2000lb bomb....there were better aircraft suited to carry bombs.

Great looking build ! got one in my stash as well waiting for me:)

I came across 1 picture of all the ordnance it can carry arrayed in front of it. MK-84s were in the line up. Im just looking for shots of the thing actually loaded. I cant find any. Im thinking maybe a combo of rocket pods and MK-82s. Just not a fan of rockets myself. Never did like loading the real things.

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I came across 1 picture of all the ordnance it can carry arrayed in front of it. MK-84s were in the line up. Im just looking for shots of the thing actually loaded. I cant find any. Im thinking maybe a combo of rocket pods and MK-82s. Just not a fan of rockets myself. Never did like loading the real things.

Maybe it was an OV-1C? it could take greater loads....anyways I´m no authority :thumbsup:

Nor am I a fan of rocketpods either...it´s so....so....army :woot.gif:

Gonna be exciting to see how it turns out! best of luck!

Cheers!

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I hear ya. I decided to go with 2 MK-82s and 2 Rocket pods. It seems a more likely load for a close in support role. Now the fun part, scrubbing my memory for the arming wire routing. Been a couple years since i had to rewire a MK-82 with a 904/905 combo.

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Well here she is with the wings and SLAR in place. The wings fit nice and tight. I only had to fill the seam on one side but that is due to my error. Again everything fit perfectly with just a little blocking and truing up. Its the minimal mold seam oon all the parts that give most builders a hassle i thing. On some parts you cant even see it but enough is there to cause errors to creep in. For hte display screen in the cockpit for the SLAR pod. I base painted the screen area in tamiya flat yellow then gave it a good coat of clear red. This gives it a brighter irridescent red orange quality i found in the references available. I think it looks pretty close.

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Thanks, the Mohawk is a well known but under appreciated aircraft. In my searches it did alot of good over in Vietnam.

Underwing stores are built. MK-82s have had arming wire added and an ATU drive on the outside of the conical tail section. The drive is a mini windmill that spins a flex drive to arm the fuze in the aft end of the bomb. Ita a detail missing on EVERY MK-82 slick model i have seen. I have also never loaded a live 82 slick that did not have a 904/905 combo nose and tail fuze. Not sating it isnt done. Just i have never seen it.

The rocket pods had the nubs added for the covers that normally get put on the pods when not in use. The fuel tanks had a raised rib around them that wasnt well defined so i sanded it off and replaced it with some styrene strip

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  • 4 months later...

my first topic here....

nice looking plane. i just bought this kit myself. Roden isn't it??

how's yours going so far since you didn't post for a few months...

did you know the ov 1 B didnt have speedbreaks. The doors were shut and welded for weight reducing...

so i'm going to do that with mine as well.

good luck with yours...

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  • 10 years later...

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