Dr Loopy 1,843 Posted October 17, 2021 Report Share Posted October 17, 2021 (edited) I had intended to put this in the usual 'In Progress' spot, but happened to see the Nigel Heath Tribute Build section and thought, well, Nigel liked helicopters a LOT, so why not put it there? Well, maybe because Nigel was such a great modeller would be a very good reason to not put it in the tribute - but he was a good friend, so I will make it my own tribute to the chap. Only there won't be any soldering! Probably 😅. I was shocked and upset to hear that he had died, although I knew that he was having health issues after a very nasty fall. I miss him. 'This' is my next intended online build following the Firefly Mk V - or running along side it may be - Italeri's 1/48 kit of the Bell OH-58A Kiowa (a.k.a. JetRanger in military garb). I started looking at this kit (again) while waiting for the floor polish to dry on the Airfix Firefly Mk V - only to find that instructions sheet (which I know that I had) had mysteriously vanished. By the time that I'd exhausted all the possibilities of its whereabouts (I suspect that it ended up in the paper recycling), the floor polish had set on the Firefly's clear bits, so I'd lost the excuse. Or not. @RWG686 very kindly took some photos of his Italeri 1/72 Kiowa instructions for me: while they differ in minor details, they are essentially the same including parts number, with similar internal painting callouts (in ModelMaster paints - which I have). I currently have seventeen started-but-unfinished kits (eighteen if you include the Firefly) in the Pile(s) o' DooOOoom. And that doesn't count the six unfinished R/C flying models. And the boat... so, adding another kit to the heap? 🤣🙄 I had originally decided to do this one after my 1/72 Western Desert P-40E, seconded by @Grunhertz, but I got distracted... At the time, Richard suggested an Aus Army one. His posted photo has unfortunately suffered from Internet Bit-Rot(TM), so here's a snap courtesy of the ADF Serials website: A17-047 (top, NH90 (or relative) A40-031 below) (now VH-XKH) Strictly speaking, it should probably be called a 'Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation CA-32 Kiowa', or a 'Bell 206 B-1 Kiowa', or... Richard's photo (? - my memory of it was that there was a lot more bush in the background) appears here on 'airhistory.net' now. Anyway, here's the box front and contents minus the instructions: 1. Italeri 2624 1/48 OH-58A Kiowa 2. Parts Frame A 3. Parts Frame B 4. Parts Frame C (clear) 5. Box markings and other transfers 6. External paint candidates for Kiowa. On the face of it the AK paints look the better fit, especially if the photo up the top is any guide, but I will test both sets to see what practical difference there is 7. More Kiowa paints - the two greys are internal cabin colours, depending on which instructions you use. I can remember that the 1/48 kit uses the Light Ghost Grey, at least... When might I start this? Who knows - don't hold yer breath. If the Firefly canopy masking drives me totally up the wall and that ends up on the SoD, it may be sooner rather than later. Edited December 12, 2021 by Dr Loopy 6 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mac1677 2,921 Posted October 17, 2021 Report Share Posted October 17, 2021 Oh this is one to follow 👍 I have the AK Aus paint set, the O/D and tan are great but the black is more blue in my set. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Gorby 12,916 Posted October 17, 2021 Report Share Posted October 17, 2021 Nice choice of kit for the tribute build Doc. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Grunhertz 16,367 Posted October 17, 2021 Report Share Posted October 17, 2021 Good stuff doc 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RWG686 24,887 Posted October 17, 2021 Report Share Posted October 17, 2021 4 hours ago, Dr Loopy said: Only there won't be any soldering! Probably Aha I thought..he is wrong there. He can solder the new high leg skids. Then I see that they are in the kit 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Miggers 6,662 Posted October 17, 2021 Report Share Posted October 17, 2021 (edited) If the good Dr scrolls down this 'ere page,to just below the blue rectangle that says "full history"on it, he will see a slightly smaller green rectangle that says "download" on it,that is the PDF of the intructions. This 'ere page: https://www.scalemates.com/kits/italeri-2624-oh-58a-kiowa--151972 I would have thought that His Grace wouldn't have had the 1/72 Kiowa,but the 206 Jet Ranger instead. Note the "Glasgow" spelling on option B: Edited October 17, 2021 by Miggers 2 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RWG686 24,887 Posted October 18, 2021 Report Share Posted October 18, 2021 On 17/10/2021 at 05:56, Dr Loopy said: A17-047 and here was me hoping all that masking tape was for this 4 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dr Loopy 1,843 Posted January 16 Author Report Share Posted January 16 While I was waiting for the primer to dry on the Firefly, I started on the Kiowa, as time is a-ticking. 1. Kiowa cockpit bulkheads, sitting on a sanding plate. Best way that I've found to sand off filler blobs on flat surfaces 2. Speaking of filler blobs - a few ejector pin marks to fill 3. Some more Kiowa a.k.a. Jet Ranger cockpit bits 4. Not a jet-ski 5. Partial cockpit mockup 6. Faulty primer (Testors Model Master grey primer from a rattle can) application removed using white spirit. I must have help the nozzle too close as it went on in blobs. And not stirred the MM Olive drab enough or allowed it to settle out, because the 'flat' enamel' remained glossy and sticky 7. Tamiya primer sprayed over the cleaned-up bits - much better Having to re-learn some lessons with regards to paint, very annoying. I've spent a bit of time trying to find acryllic colour matches in my collection, but nothing has shown up so far. I've got six days to finish this, before it turns into a pumpkin. 4 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Gorby 12,916 Posted January 16 Report Share Posted January 16 Nice start Doc. I wouldn't worry about the GB deadline, it should be about enjoyment. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dr Loopy 1,843 Posted January 23 Author Report Share Posted January 23 (edited) On 16/01/2022 at 19:10, Gorby said: Nice start Doc. I wouldn't worry about the GB deadline, it should be about enjoyment. Thanks, Gordy, sage advice :). I've obviously taken it as the GB deadline has receded into the past. (Golden (variegated) sage) Comfreyting, in fact (Comfrey )in a pot)) But enough of such seriousness, I should get hopping along now (Hop vine (bine)) 1. MM Light Ghost Gray [sic.] emanel, plus Tamiya Rubber Black acrylic on instrument panel hood 2. MM Olive Drab enamel on seats Well... Curious as to the instrument layout of the wee beastie, I had a look on the internet of some photos - and found this one which shows the interior of the Aust Army aircraft as black - not the 'light ghost grey of the Italeri instructions. I really need to get more organised when it comes to building models... OH-58 Kiowa reg A17-010 at Avalon air base in March 2009, photo with kind permission of its photographer Brett Pulford. See this link for the full info. Note the black interior and fleece seat covers. Also note the large box structure to the left of the instrument panel. So, things are going to change, paint-wise https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/6589181 3. Test fit of cockpit structure in port fuselage half 4. Kiowa fuselage halves 5. Another cockpit test-fit, with the two fuselage halves this time. Note the splodges of Mr Surfacer 500 forward of the main rotor shaft hole. I'm not going to have to worry about the ragged edge to the instrument panel hood shortly 6. Various bits painted with Tamiya acrylic Rubber Black 7. Closer up view of the blackened cockpit bits. I'm not going to worry about the uneven black - "weathering" ;). A few spots that I miss though, they will get tidied up when I do the anti-torque pedals Instruments transfers on next, followed by various other (pre-painted this time) control gubbins. Before applying the MM enamels and Tamiya acylic again, I added a 5 mm ball bearing to each of the jars and gave them prolonged shakings by hand over a number of hours. That seemed to fixed the previous problems (see my previous post) quite effectively. Edited January 23 by Dr Loopy Housekeeping 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Gorby 12,916 Posted January 23 Report Share Posted January 23 Excellent progress Doc. Are those plants from your garden - if so it looks like you have a nice garden. 3 hours ago, Dr Loopy said: I added a 5 mm ball bearing to each of the jars That's exactly what I do to my Tamiya paints. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Grunhertz 16,367 Posted January 23 Report Share Posted January 23 Instructions are notoriously bad with cockpit call outs generally, but this is looking good doc 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jessie_C 8,852 Posted January 23 Report Share Posted January 23 8 hours ago, Dr Loopy said: the interior of the Aust Army aircraft as black That's for night vision goggle compatibility. Light grey shows up as much too bright washed-out green in NVGs so part of the conversion process is to paint the insides black. I'm betting that way back when the Earth was new and so was that kit, the light grey was correct. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dr Loopy 1,843 Posted February 17 Author Report Share Posted February 17 On 23/01/2022 at 18:40, Gorby said: Excellent progress Doc. Are those plants from your garden - if so it looks like you have a nice garden. That's exactly what I do to my Tamiya paints. They are indeed from the garden. I'll pop up an overview snap in a bit. re paints! On 23/01/2022 at 18:57, Grunhertz said: Instructions are notoriously bad with cockpit call outs generally, but this is looking good doc Thanks @Grunhertz On 24/01/2022 at 00:04, Jessie_C said: That's for night vision goggle compatibility. Light grey shows up as much too bright washed-out green in NVGs so part of the conversion process is to paint the insides black. Ah, thanks for that @Jessie_C, that makes sense. I've smothered the back seat with 'Anthrazit Grau' to shut it up accordingly. Always a good thing to shut the back seat up! On 24/01/2022 at 00:04, Jessie_C said: I'm betting that way back when the Earth was new and so was that kit, the light grey was correct. I've been busy with other things, and making only very occasional and very short forays with the Kiowa. 1. LH pilot’s seat painted but see below 2. Instrument panel transfers on 3. Looking back at the cockpit photo, the front seats (unknown colour) are grey lambswool, so...first attempt at adding a ‘lambswool’ cover to a pilot seat using Mr surfacer 500 applied with a toothpick. Just a general impression aimed for here. You can also see where I might be heading with the seatbelts in future... 4. Thoroughly-shaken (not stirred ) MM 1734 ‘Green Zinc Chromate' primer in the transmission ‘differential(?)’ bay and the aft storage compartment 5. ‘Transmission diff’ in place, apologies for the poor photo(s) 6. One treated seat and some exceedingly badly painted seatbelts 7. Masking tape masks for the 'lambswool cover' on the other (captain's) pilot seat 8. Mr Surfacer 500 splodged on with a toothpick More to follow...at some point... Cheers, Dr @@. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jessie_C 8,852 Posted February 17 Report Share Posted February 17 55 minutes ago, Dr Loopy said: transmission ‘differential(?)’ bay We helicopter people call that the main gearbox. There's also the intermediate gearbox at the far end of the tail boom and the tail rotor gearbox at the tail rotor. Kiowas/206s don't have an intermediate gearbox because the tail rotor is on the tail boom, not up on top of the fin. For general information, in helicopters the pilot sits on the right. That's because the pilot needs to hold the cyclic in their right hand, leaving their left hand free to operate the various switches and levers on the instrument panel, centre console and overhead console. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dr Loopy 1,843 Posted February 18 Author Report Share Posted February 18 21 hours ago, Jessie_C said: We helicopter people call that the main gearbox. There's also the intermediate gearbox at the far end of the tail boom and the tail rotor gearbox at the tail rotor. Kiowas/206s don't have an intermediate gearbox because the tail rotor is on the tail boom, not up on top of the fin. For general information, in helicopters the pilot sits on the right. That's because the pilot needs to hold the cyclic in their right hand, leaving their left hand free to operate the various switches and levers on the instrument panel, centre console and overhead console. Thanks for the info and corrections, @Jessie_C. Now that I remember it, I have seen (firefighting) helicopter pilots hanging out the starboard doorway. Slug Productions present the next sluggardly instalment of slow building... 1. Cyclic sticks added 2. Collective lever(?s?) switched about from the incorrect kit instructions (see cockpit photo above) 3. Painted front seats - seatbelts yet to be fixed 4. Belt masks removed, oh dear. That wool isn't overscale neiver, ist it guvs? 5. I tired using this brush but it was too furry 6. As you can see, not good - brush too fluffy 7. Red ‘buttons’ on cyclic stick(s), see cockpit photo above. I'm becoming more careless and slapdash - part of it is my eyesight but it's not the only reason... That'll do for this post. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dr Loopy 1,843 Posted February 18 Author Report Share Posted February 18 OK, I went wild and put up a second post without the intervening day that I had planned - just to get it out of the way. 1. First masking tape belts - too wide. I mucked about with decreasingly narrower strips until I got what I thought looked right 2. Thinner tape - done 3. Other (pilot’s) seat done 4. Belt up in the back! Still very rough, but i'd had enough of this by this stage. The bench seat was darkened to fit in more with the back interior. This is probably totally wrong, but I don't have a photo of the area behind the pilot 5. All seats glued in place - the belts won’t get painted - unless there's a Great Squawking and Clucking(TM) along the lines of "YOU MUST PAINT THEM OR ELSE", sort o' fing 6. Piece of styrene car body filler from the bits box, for the LH cockpit box (see cockpit photo above). This will be a very basic representation approximation More whenever... 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dr Loopy 1,843 Posted August 4 Author Report Share Posted August 4 I seem to be back on the forum again, but if I can’t control myself wrt the tempting kits that I keep seeing, it may be a somewhat short-lived reappearance 😬. I haven’t got any further with this (or the Firefly) - in fact, the situation is currently this: Kiowa bits until recently: Clean-up. Yes I know, how can you tell? - but believe me, it was worse. A lot worse. I had to tidy up to make some new reeds, then an elbow started acting up, so no new reeds anyway (and that is a real problem 😬) To protect the Kiowa bits - which were already being subject to random and unintentional mistreatment - I popped them all in a nice sturdy little box and squirrelled 🐿 that safely* out of the way. Mr Snappy helped. Note the little proto-black box in the box, still needs slimming (see below, and further below) There are some projected alterations to this end of our house that we have under development, and this room will be enlarged and soundproofed (eventually) so that I can practise the bat-register top of the oboe range without driving my co-inhabitants to necessarily-preventive measures involving the use of a heavy blunt instrument (possibly our daughter’s bassoon 🤣). That won’t be for a while yet so I can theoretically continue to muck about with models in it, otherwise I really should rename it the Temporary Pretend Plastic Modelling Environment. I initially got held up with making the black box (see previous post), having got too scared to make a mess of what was already intrinsically a messy process. That had a negative feedback effect and so here I am. I am tempted to get it going again, though. And the Firefly. But don’t hold your breath… It has re-occurred to me yet again that I do seem to write a bit like @Gorby only not nearly as funny, that really is just sheer coincidence. Honest, guvs and guvesses 😅. Cheers, @@ * As safe as anything is in this slum 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Gorby 12,916 Posted August 4 Report Share Posted August 4 Glad to see that you're tempted to start again, but there's no rush Doc. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RWG686 24,887 Posted August 4 Report Share Posted August 4 Glad to see you back and that you are already prepared for a future 'Maritime ' group build with that Shackelton. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dr Loopy 1,843 Posted August 4 Author Report Share Posted August 4 What Maritime GB? Where? Never heard of it. Wouldn’t know it from a bar o’ soap 🤣🤣🤣. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RWG686 24,887 Posted August 4 Report Share Posted August 4 5 minutes ago, Dr Loopy said: What Maritime GB? Where? Never heard of it. Wouldn’t know it from a bar o’ soap There's a challenge for @Mad Steve. a model group build with a link to soap. Thread drift at its best. Kiowa to C-118 in 3 posts. 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dr Loopy 1,843 Posted August 4 Author Report Share Posted August 4 (edited) More like a handbrake turn! I’ll pay that one! 🤣🤣🤣 Of course, there’s the not-totally-unfounded accusation that Airflicts kits are made from said substance 😬🤣, so there’s annuver link right there, guv. Edited August 4 by Dr Loopy 1 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mad Steve 16,003 Posted Saturday at 05:54 PM Report Share Posted Saturday at 05:54 PM I was thinking the same thing Doc 😬 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dr Loopy 1,843 Posted Tuesday at 06:58 AM Author Report Share Posted Tuesday at 06:58 AM (edited) OK. 1. I'm a member of an oboe trio (in which I actually play the cor anglais). We had an instrument comparison day at the last rehearsal. Mine is the the leftmost one (I think! Waddya mean, how come I don't recognise my own instrument?). What's the relevance, I hear at least one person mutter? Nothing! Nothing at all! Just thought that you might be interested to see what the Recalcitrant Monster that I keep banging on about looks like: 2. Kiowa bits (and a Firefly runner) until a big clean-up (well, big for me) recently 3. I sort-of swept the board clean to make some desperately-needed oboe reeds, but then my elbow went (not as a result of the tidying). As I'm playing cor anglais in the next concert (concert version of Puccini's Le Bohème), that isn't as urgent. Cor reeds are! 🤣🤣🤣 The bench is still a mess, but not nearly as bad as it was. Various reed-making items laid out in forlorn hope... 4. Kiowa status - (a bit) shelved. Slightly-trimmed cockpit box visible. I put the bits in a small sturdy box to prevent damage while I supposedly thrashed around with the reeds before they got broken (see snap no. 5), and/or the Floor Monster got 'em. 5. Back on the bench. If you squint hard enough, you'll see in the background why the Kiowa got squirrelled away out of harm's way - the Firelfy is now minus all of its prop blades (rolls eyes) - there's another chore to look forward too... 6. New OM-1 Camera - replaces my OM-D E-M5 Mk II (the MkIII was a large number of steps backwards, so I cut to the chase - er, after waiting several years). This is apparently the last camera to bear the Olympus moniker - It's now 'OM System' after being split off from the parent company a year or more ago. Presumably Olympus still makes microscopes... Right, lots of padding there, to disguise the fact that up until this point, I've done next to nothing on this languishing kit. I have, however, had the following idea. 7. After having got the box back out and retreiving the lump of car bog that I was going to shape into the cockpit black box, it occurred to me that I might have some square Evergreen plastic tube of the right diameter. I don't (way too big), but I do have this: Evergreen 4 mm angle 8. The actual plastic. It will be 'about' a millimetre too narrow on one side once two bits have been glued together to make a box, but I can add some bits of plasticard sheet to bulk it out to square. The final width of 5 mm is only an estimate from a photo seen above, anyway. I'll fill it with some milliput or glue a couple of scraps of thickish plasticard to put a top and a bottom on the box. I think I've also woprked out a non-scale but musch easier method of attaching the box to the IP console - a short piece of brass tube, the right-sized drill bit and some superglue. So, a little progress, in fact. Not much, but better'n nuffin', innit? Cheers, @@ Edited Tuesday at 07:31 AM by Dr Loopy 6 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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