1/48 Testors OV10D Bronco by Mike Phillips

The kit is the older Testor's OV-10A. Out of the box, this kit isn't much. Not a bad kit, there just isn't much in the way of detail. I added the Paragon OV-10D conversion kit to the basic model. This is the second time I have built this conversion. The first time was my first attempt at converting a kit and the first time using resin/photoetch parts. This is a hard kit to try out your skills at resin parts! It didn't come out quite like I hoped. Dave Aungst's OV-10 article on Hyperscale encouraged me to try again.

The model is brush painted with Model Master Acrylics for the brown and sand colors, and Model Master Enamel for the undersides. My airbrush wasn't quite up to the task of painting this one ( or maybe I wasn't up to the task of airbrushing it!). Decals are from Super Scale. The fuel tank is a modified ESCI tank from their A-4 kit, the Zuni pods are from the Hasegawa weapons set, and the Sidwinders are from my spares box with pylon spacers made from half round stock. Landing gear bays were made with sheet stock The antennae are made from guitar string. And now I come to what I am most pleased with myself about.

The "Disco Light" IR jammer on top of the wing. I really couldn't think of anything to make it out of that was the right size, so I had finally decided to use a section cut out of a 1/2 cc hypodermic needle syringe. As I was pulling the plunger out of the syringe, it made that "pop" noise, which made me look at the rubber stopper at the end of the plunger. It was shaped about as close as you could hope for, and was what I felt to be pretty much the exact size I needed! A little paint and there you have it!

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I learned a lot about new techniques building this kit. Patience being the biggest. This kit took a lot of sanding work to make the conversion fit, and I spent a lot of time working with putty, sandpaper and primer. I even tried re-scribing some panel lines that were lost, which is something I've never done before either. I did some scratchbuilding too.