Gladiator Debut (Gladiator Model Done)

[Old Man]

7 hours ago, RichieW said:

Great save, a lot of models end up in the spares box after a catastrophe like that. That must have taken great patience and skill to have recovered the situation. Please do no more flight testing, I'm enjoying this build too much for that!

 

Richie 

 

Thanks, Ritchie.

 

It was definitely a moment for scorching language, but I can get pretty bloody-minded about this sort of thing. Struts I can always replace, what worried me was how long it took to corral the horizontal stabilizer --- that I couldn't replace.

 

James

[AdrianMF]

5 hours ago, Old Man said:

The Gladiator motor is straight OOB Airfix.

Oh, I meant the Jaguar engines. Those are simply gorgeous.

[Old Man]

5 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Oh, I meant the Jaguar engines. Those are simply gorgeous.

 

Thanks, Adrian!

 

I doubt I could do them again, not without a lot of time cross-eyed and cursing, at least. The project they were part of I did botch badly, now they just lay there like so much unused aftermarket, years later.

 

James

[Old Man]

 

This weekend got rigging and a number of trimmings in hand. I'm leaving it sit before looking for touchings up and such. The propeller remains, and a little thing above the center section, looks like a windmill generator. The racks are from the kit, the bombs adapted from a pair which originated in a Matchbox P-12 kit. The kit includes bombs, but they match an Army pattern bomb of greater weight than these carried, and different shape. The Navy 30kg was a teardrop with fins.

 

 

The observer's windscreen is trimmed from packaging for several pencils, with a sort of tube for each. I've found that quite fortuitously, their curve matches just about any 1/72 cockpit front. Rim needs paint.

 

 

That's the most to be seen of the interior before the figures go in. Tail rigging is 34 ga beading wire (about 5 thou) painted. I tried a trick from Bozothenutter in a thread on rigging upstairs, and pulled the stuff between tweezers till it broke. Made it stiff, and a good deal of it straight.

 

The Type 95 is entered in a group build which closes yjis coming thirtieth, so it will continue to take precedence.

 

 

[Old Man]

This one is settled, crew and all on its base...

 

 

 

 

I'll do an RFI thread for both when the Gladiator is settled as well.

[RichieW]

Looks great, the top picture is especially dramatic and realistic. 

 

Richie

[Old Man]

Thanks, Ritchie!

 

I like that first one too. Not sure what went so right, but I'm happy to draw a circle around it and claim a bulls-eye.

 

Hope to get the upper wing on the Gladiator this coming weekend, see how my rigging revival holds out....

 

James

 

Ps: some more pictures in the 'Not My Comfort Zone' Gallery:

 

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Old Man

[marvinneko]

Great back story and some nice modelling in diorama form with those figures. I'd like to do the same with my two "crash" projects. I like what you did modifying the figures, too. Buying fancy new resin ones is tempting but too expensive for my sensibilities and many of them have silly poses anyway.

[Old Man]

4 hours ago, marvinneko said:

Great back story and some nice modelling in diorama form with those figures. I'd like to do the same with my two "crash" projects. I like what you did modifying the figures, too. Buying fancy new resin ones is tempting but too expensive for my sensibilities and many of them have silly poses anyway.

 

Thanks, David.

 

I feel pretty much the same bout the new resin figures, though some I have seen are awful sharp. I bought the Pressers ages ago, I've no idea what's available now.

 

 

James

[Old Man]

I bit the bullet and have decided to use the full suite of standard markings here. I feel reasonably sure that is how they were ordered, and delivered. Over the course of the war, white was minimized on Chinese aircraft, because it compromised camouflage. Only the rudder stripes remained as at the start. Upper surface national markings were often painted over or omitted completely. I can't think of any reason to over-paint the blue and leave the white.
 

So here's where it stands now:

 

 

 

Don't know what I did with the camera, but these show the necessary, at least.

 

Hope to get the wing on this coming weekend.

 

 

James

[Old Man]

Getting pretty close to done here....

 

Airfix gives little locating wells for most of the structural rigging. I cut generous lengths of EZ-Line and attached them to the lower wing.

 

 

Here is the upper wing on, with interplane spacers still intact.

 

 

Here are the flight and landing wires trimmed and attached to their upper wing undersurface locations, with the interplane spacers still intact.

 

 

Here it is with the spacers out, and incidence wires in. Spacers removed with a heated knife (thanks and a tip o' the hat to Nick Millman for the tip). Some touchings =up done as well.

 

 

 

Only rigging left are aileron controls and tail braces.

 

I'm turning now to the figures and base (it's just on something for photographs).

 

Final detailings and touchings-up will go better if I haven't looked at the wee beastie in a while....

 

 

James

 

 

[Old Man]

Getting started up on this again.

 

I decided my original intent to have the pilot clambering aboard did not work, would not congeal with other figures into a scene. So what I've got going now is a seated pilot, with someone from the ground crew in attendance on the wing. Another figure will be standing by at the starter crank.

 

Getting a pilot in the cockpit at this point took some doing:

 

 

Here's look at the pilot and aide about midway through their coloring:

 

 

Pilot is the one provided in the Gladiator kit, extensively altered. A certain wonkiness about the legs was necessary to get him in, and does not show once he is. The groundcrewman is the figure originally intended as the pilot, slightly altered.

 

Here the figures are tacked more or less in place with windscreen and hatch for sighting purposes:

 

 

 

 

The groundcrewman is poised to close the hatch for his officer. The pilot's left hand rests on the throttle controls.

 

Next will be the base.

 

 

James

[Old Man]

Have the base in hand:

 

 

 

The next groundcrew figure, posted to the starter crank, is just about sorted.

 

Here is is, next to an example of the figure he was concocted from:

 

 

Here he is in color at his perch, looking to his right at the pilot. I'll be fiddling his feet a bit for final set, and if I decide it's too precarious, I'll put somebody bracing him rather than make a ladder; it's old China, after all.

 

 

 

 

There will be a round of touchings-up before I install the pilot and glass-work and get onto the next figure on this.

[Old Man]

When doing some last minute bits on the 'starter' figure, I dropped it, snapped off both arms and lost one. I took this as a suggestion i could do better rather than as a disaster, and set to work on the standard figure.

 

 

 

I put a twist in the waist, put on new arms, got the feet better sorted.

 

Here it is in color, with the touchings-up mostly done:

 

 

 

I do think he'll want somebody to brace him as he wrenches at the crank, though he does balance up there in still air....

 

 

James

[Old Man]

The model is done. Display will still require two figures, but the last little fiddly bits are done on the Gladiator itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Much as I liked contriving the fellow at the starting crank, I'm doing without him. He's poor composition, takes center stage in shots aimed at the nose itself. I will contrive a pair of ground-crew waiting at the chocks, still, before I put up a full thing with the Japanese end of the first air fight the Gladiator was in.

 

 

James

Edited March 26, 2024 by Old Man
to reduce file size

[Mike]

Sorry to butt into this thread but I noticed that some of the pics were loading slowly, so I ran a check.

 

I tested some of the pics, and although a few were small in size, others were up to 1.2mb in size, which is pretty large when posting up on the internet, even in today's relatively fast broadband.  You should be aiming to save your files to around 2-300kb maximum, give or take a bit.  To accomplish this, you can reduce the size of your pics, as anything over the recommended 1024 x 800 or 1280 x 800 maximum we advise is wasted bandwidth and your own storage space usage.  Most people view these pics on phones, tablets and 1080p screens, so huge photos of 2048 x 1536 px for example will have to be shrunk down by the forum software, creating unnecessary load on the server and delay for the user, as well as the extra bandwidth that it uses up on the wider internet on its way here (far more than what's necessary).

 

The downsides of this from a viewer's point of view is the waiting time before you can view the pics, and some people might get bored and click away, especially if they're not lucky enough to have fast broadband for whatever reason.  From the server's point of view, it's wasteful of bandwidth, storage size, and it's wasteful of the server's processing resources due to the reduction in size, which means a slower experience for all of us.

 

This isn't meant as a "telling off" BTW, more of a bit of useful advice to help you as well as help us.  If you can size your pics to the recommended limits, we'll be really happy, and so will the members

[Old Man]

2 minutes ago, Mike said:

Sorry to butt into this thread but I noticed that some of the pics were loading slowly, so I ran a check.

 

I tested some of the pics, and although a few were small in size, others were up to 1.2mb in size, which is pretty large when posting up on the internet, even in today's relatively fast broadband.  You should be aiming to save your files to around 2-300kb maximum, give or take a bit.  To accomplish this, you can reduce the size of your pics, as anything over the recommended 1024 x 800 or 1280 x 800 maximum we advise is wasted bandwidth and your own storage space usage.  Most people view these pics on phones, tablets and 1080p screens, so huge photos of 2048 x 1536 px for example will have to be shrunk down by the forum software, creating unnecessary load on the server and delay for the user, as well as the extra bandwidth that it uses up on the wider internet on its way here (far more than what's necessary).

 

The downsides of this from a viewer's point of view is the waiting time before you can view the pics, and some people might get bored and click away, especially if they're not lucky enough to have fast broadband for whatever reason.  From the server's point of view, it's wasteful of bandwidth, storage size, and it's wasteful of the server's processing resources due to the reduction in size, which means a slower experience for all of us.

 

This isn't meant as a "telling off" BTW, more of a bit of useful advice to help you as well as help us.  If you can size your pics to the recommended limits, we'll be really happy, and so will the members

 

Good lord, Sir.

 

I had no idea. I'll see what I can do.

 

Thanks for the tip.

 

 

James