Gladiator in Norway

[Torbjorn]

I have touch-ups and decals to go, so hopefully I will be able to finish. I'm alone this weekend, so plenty of time to waste on hobbies.

[Torbjorn]

Managed to finish, posted in thread. Unfortunately I was so stressed to finish I didn’t take many pics.

 

My first attenpt at rigging and whoever said rigging is easy isn’t doing it my way.  Will describe how, for future reference.

 

I had first bought fishing line, 0.1mm according to the box but upon inspection rather like 0.3 - way to thick. Used sprue for the support stays and hair for the moving parts. Tried first with liquid cement, but I ended up ruining the paintjob and loosing many wires (2 rigged, 1 snapped , etc). Went over to CA and that worked like a charm, at least where I had predrilled holes straight through the wing (remember this - note to self). Used clamps to tighten wires, while glue eas setting. 

 

Painted the sprues with gungray, gave realistic looking results. Tip do next time: paint BEFORE you rig, or at least fon’t wait until all wires are up. The lady in the house is black-haired, so I used silver to touch up the wires to rudder and ailerons.

As for decals, since I got no aftermarket whatsoever due to failure of the mail service, I had to improvise. Using the kit decals I got the code letters, and buying a compass, to cut with, gave the outer blue rings for the fuselage roundels. The shade is wrong, but could be dulled with a layer of thin paint. The white was sprayed and the red dots were cut with a punch from dull-red fin flashes from another decal sheet with (as was the upper wing roundels - the kit version have the bright colour type).

 

 

Skipped much of the stencils (of which Airfix supplies plenty) since they are in my opinion too stark and would have stood out too much (why don’t anyone make gray/diffuse stencils?) and I had no time to subdue them with paintjob- which I don’t know how to anyway.

 

I’m happy with the outcome, Airfix has  become truely terrific duering my absense from the hobby. 

 

Unfortunately the sun went down so I had to take pics with my crappy cold LED light. But maybe they better represent the cold winter sun that shone in winter 1940.

 

 

 

Edited July 23, 2018 by Torbjorn

[dogsbody]

Nice! I really like the way you've painted the exhaust collector ring. One of the better that I've seen.

 

 

Chris

[Rabbit Leader]

This Gladiator has really turned out wonderfully well. You should be proud of your efforts. Thanks for sharing all your ups and downs during this quickish build however it’s always nice when it finishes on a big ‘Up’. Overall a lovely momento to the RAF and the Norwegian campaign. 

 

Cheers and well modelled.. Dave 

[CliffB]

Congratulations on bringing this one in

[Torbjorn]

15 hours ago, dogsbody said:

Nice! I really like the way you've painted the exhaust collector ring. One of the better that I've seen.

 

 

Chris

 Thanks, I did spend a lot of time on it. Should have made the demarkation between heat-coloured and cold parts of the metal less sharp, otherwise I’m happy how it turned out. An interesting solution to exhaust collection.

15 hours ago, Rabbit Leader said:

This Gladiator has really turned out wonderfully well. You should be proud of your efforts. Thanks for sharing all your ups and downs during this quickish build however it’s always nice when it finishes on a big ‘Up’. Overall a lovely momento to the RAF and the Norwegian campaign. 

 

Cheers and well modelled.. Dave 

Thanks! I could have planned better, not doing everything the last week, but glad to finish on time.