ajmm

Yes fit is good and overall a lovely little kit. But fiddly as expected. The pre cut vinyl masks are helpful for the pattern and the canopy has a decal for the frame which is a nice touch. Overall I don’t remember there being any issues. I did a build thread on KG144 a while back when I built mine. Here’s mine fwiw. Hope that’s helpful.

So have I! Looking forward to this and I hope it’s the beginning of a successful line of kits for you.

Yes that does make sense. All too familiar! On the fury I’m also building I’m facing a similar self-perpetuating issue in that black and white checks are incorrect for 43 Squadron, with them having just black checks until quite late. Still, almost all manufacturers produce black and white checks. Fortunately black checks are easier to self print than yellow diamonds!

Catching up on this forum after an absence and wow, what a build. Amazing work. Really spectacular and thank you for your build notes. Very helpful.

Nothing short of spectacular. Amazing!

Thank you all very much indeed for the kind comments, they are greatly appreciated. 😀 Ian - thank you. Interesting! Yes I did see some references with yellow diamonds, but in the end turned a nelsonian eye, didn’t try too hard to find out which was correct and went with the kit decals instead! Looks like I need to acquire your (?) book in your signature for future builds. How did the blue confusion arise do you know?

I decided to have a crack at one of these a few weeks ago. Not sure why but I think the re-release of this kit from Mark1 in December triggered an impulse somewhere. This comes from the Malta boxing. N5525 flew with 802 NAS when it was based at HMS Grebe (or what is now Alexandria Airport) when HMS Glorious was stationed in the Eastern Mediterranean in 1939. The black tail indicates it was a Squadron commander's aircraft. The record is slightly hazy but I think it was then boxed up and dropped off at Malta with a bunch of others when HMS Glorious was recalled to the North Sea to take part in the Norwegian Campaign in early-1940 (where Glorious was sunk). It was never actually re-assembled but was used as a source of spare parts to keep the handful of other Gladiators flying in defence of Malta. I built one of these Malta Gladiators at the start of Covid lockdown in 2020. This is the first Gladiator I've built since then. I decided not to do the full photoetch treatment I did with the previous build, but added a few external bits a pieces from the spares box, like the step (quite proud of this - made out of 1:700 ship railings). There were a few bits about the last Gladiator I built that bugged me afterwards, which I have rectified, or tried to, here. First was shaving down the canopy rail fairing behind the cockpit - this is very pronounced as it comes in the box, giving the tapering rear fuselage a curiously boxy shape. So I sanded this right back to what reference photos suggested was about right. Second was replacing the kit-supplied cabane struts with plasticard. Less telegraphpoleish. Otherwise I made all the the other changes I made then, including shortening the undercarriage and main wing struts, and closing the cowling opening a bit. Rigging was Uschi Van Der Rosten thread. Gladiator rigging is quite complex but it was satisfying to finish it. Painting was fairly simple. I painted the areas not to be silver and then sprayed AK Dull Aluminium over the rest. There are some superb photos of this aircraft in flight, taken mine armament and before it was delivered to 802 NAS (see above) but which show all the stencils. I used Shelf Oddity's excellent set of Hurricane stencils. The rest of the kit decals worked nicely. And with another Alex resident from three years later. And there she is with another pre-war RAF biplane, the (by comparison) extremely dainty Hawker Fury. Thanks very much for looking. I really enjoyed this build - a satisfying end to 2023. Happy new year to you all! Angus

This is stunning. Very inspiring.

Sets an immensely high bar for these kits from now on. Wow. What a stunning pair. Beautiful work all round and open canopies is the cherry.

Looking great! Tuning in after a few weeks and these are really looking the stuff. Fantastic work.

Looks fantastic despite your challenges. I too found the decals troublesome (unusually, as Mark1 decals are usually the highlight of the build and behave beautifully and of v high quality). I have the Dremel Stylo which is the poxy little one they do for engravers. It is light and much more controllable. Glad you got the crankcase sorted in any event.

Fantastic! Those are looking exceptionally good. Two is twice as good as one, it turns out. Interesting about the props, I didn’t even notice that. Oops! In case you find yourself going cross eyed with the rockets, I bought these on shapeways for an Aden hunter I built some years ago. It’s a shame shapeways prices are still so high but at least you know the option is there if you need it!

I too have this conversion set and have built several of this very nice kit. Watching with interest - thank you for the fulsome and helpful notes.

Looking good! I finished one of these a few weeks ago and found the same issues as you so far. I did a WIP here in case you find it helpful though I quite appreciate half the fun is figuring out your own solutions! Looking forward to seeing yours come together.

Fantastic paintwork. Very impressive in any scale.