Tnarg

Aviation Megastore lists quite a few 1/32 Gladiator decals. They have one Belgian sheet shared with the CR.42 from Dutch Decal, plus Kora sheets of Gladiators from Latvia, Lithuania, China, Soviet, Luftwaffe and another Belgian sheet. If the kit doesn't have enough options, these should help. Tnarg

It is so amazing to return to your youth and recapture that kit that was lost. I really like that you aren't trying to make if uber accurate, scratchbuilding all the details to fix any flaw the internet has brought to your modern attention. You are just going back in time to have the fun that you lost. Please make sure that you fly it around the room making "taka taka taka'" sounds. You can skip the bb gun target practice if you want, or at least take a few photos of the completed model before you bring the Spitfire out with guns blazing. Tnarg

This looks like a very wise choice for anyone building the kit. Tnarg

Not sure why I missed this one, but I am super impressed with your weathering. The plane looks a lot bigger than a 1/32 scale model, and that weathered and worn finish makes a huge difference. Tnarg

There should be a specification from the manufacturer as to the rigging set up. There were a variety of rigging "wires" or "tie rods" that were specified by their thread sizes at the ends of the wires both in American Standard and English specifications. I have seen call outs for the sizes on some plans (Westburg's for example) for US planes (Boeing and Curtiss) as well as some internal specification numbered wires for the Grumman F3F series, but no cross references to standard dimensions for that plane. I found this chart on the web... hope it is OK under "fair use" to post this. This shows the dimensions of the rigging used on British aircraft of the pre-WWII period. American and Metric (mostly German) aircraft had different specifications. British Standards Part Number Thread Size Nominal Width in Inches Maximum Width in Inches Minimum Thickness in Inches Maximum Thickness in Inches Minimum Cross Sectional Area (Sq. Ins.) Maximum Cross Sectional Area (Sq. Ins.) Minimum B/Load N/A 4 BA 0.192" N/A 0.048" N/A 0.0071 0.0085 1050 lbs N/A 2 BA 0.256" N/A 0.064" N/A 0.0126 0.0142 1900 lbs N/A 7/32" BSF 0.301" N/A 0.075" N/A 0.0174 0.0191 2600 lbs N/A 1/4" BSF 0.348" N/A 0.087" N/A 0.0233 0.0250 3450 lbs N/A 9/32" BSF 0.404" N/A 0.101" N/A 0.0314 0.0338 4650 lbs N/A 5/16" BSF 0.440" N/A 0.110" N/A 0.0372 0.0400 5700 lbs N/A 11/32" BSF 0.496" N/A 0.124" N/A 0.0473 0.0508 7150 lbs Note that this covers full size dimensions, and needs to be reduced by 1/32 etc. for your scale. RB productions made some of these which could work for WWI and interwar subjects: 9/32 and 1/4 BSF and 2BA and 4BA sizes in 1/32 scale. As to which ones were used on the aircraft... I don't have that data. Tnarg

And hope for one of those with floats and Swedish colors, or Estonian or Danish... maybe Santa could help? Tnarg

No details yet, but hoping for Latvia, Sweden/Finland, Lithuania and Norway.... and put it on skis please. Tnarg

As someone who has paid for plastic parts to be made (for our business), my best guess as to the canopy issue is that someone got confused on the instructions as to which part of the mold to texture and which to polish. That is an easy thing to mess up, on either side, even with a lot of checking of the instructions or files. They should have caught this in the check of the first pulls from the molds, but who was on that task? Did they understand every bit of the design? Many times the one who created the design isn't the last one to check the result, which leads us to this sort of situation. It ian't a big deal to polish out the mold, but it takes money. Would that investment yield more sales or not? How many more? This isn't a means for a patron to obtain a thing of beauty that they have obsessed about for years (WNW, for example), with few limits on the quality imposed upon the artisans, this is a business who often cuts their losses and runs to the next shiny object. They made it good enough to get our money, and need to pay the people and make some more. At some point, we have to pay for more quality if we want it. Nobody likes that. My business partner worked with a contractor on his house who bid in the normal range. They put in a beautiful sink and a great countertop, but the electrician stood in that sink with his boots on, and ground the loose screws into the surface, totally messing it up. "Can't see it from my house". He found a guy who would give him good results, but those usually involved tearing things out that people screwed up. That contractor cost him nearly triple, but delivered what he wanted. Some people get mad, saying "People are idiots, they need to fix this". I guess I can't get mad, I can just assume that all of us are idiots, myself included. That way when something beautiful and wonderful happens, or even something happens as it really should have, I can be happy. At least we have a canvas on which to create something like a B-24 in our scale of choice. Do I wish Sir Peter had done this one? Not really, since I want him and Copper State to give us more WWI goodies first. (Sorry to you fans of later genres). Tnarg

Sometimes I really want to do exactly what I can see in a photo and obsess about getting it perfectly matching the photos or measurements. This usually gets me stuck for way too long checking too many references and trying to learn too many new things to create or fix things that didn't show up in the kit. Other times I love to find a strange imagined "What If?" plane such as a Bugatti racer turned Swedish recon plane with splinter (Viggen) camouflage.... or create an imagined aircraft from a novel such as The Wild Blue and the Gray", doing the Cherokee Nation's Ace "Ninekiller's" Nieuport in support of his CSA allies in the Great War (which the Northern US president William Jennings Bryant kept them out of...). Yes, that is a real book, and has some interesting air combat elements. Strange, but true, or at least actual fiction in a book printed on real paper. The biggest problem I have is actually finishing anything. Too many starts and stops, too many shiny new objects. Even so, it is still a lot of fun. Tnarg

Doesn't get any better than this.... or maybe when they build one and fly it around the room. Keep having fun. Tnarg

You are in my prayers for a quick recovery. I greatly appreciate your example of getting beautiful things done and hope to see that continue when you are better. Best of luck with everything. Tnarg

If you just like to look at the moon, or maybe open clusters like Hercules or Pleiades, then big binoculars like 20 x 80 are amazing. Planets and deep space are much more difficult to see without bigger apertures and more money... but never as great as the photos you see. Get a good mount for the big binoculars because you can't hold much steady past 7 x 35. Tnarg

I hear conversation about the wing root having problems. Does anyone have a photo of what the kit looks like and another that compares with what the plane looks like? Just how bad is this? What, if anything could be done to fix it? Sorry if I missed the details... Tnarg

Is that the Hallmark ornament? Supposedly they have HAL this year. Tnarg

Soft metal parts were easy (or easier) to cast back in the vac form days of the 1970''s and 80's. The temperature and mold requirements are much simpler. A vac form kit didn't need any real support for extra weight. Aeroclub made all sorts of 1/72 engines and props for their kits, other vac form kits or improving injected plastic kits with less than ideal parts. In those small scales, you really don't care if you had to bend the propeller back into something resembling straight. I believe 1/32 scale needs something more. I can see quite easily that the detail difference between G-Factor gear and SAC is like night and day. I can't likely fix either one if they were severely bent, but in the SAC case, small parts do bend easily. My fingers can't do that with brass of any thickness seen in a landing gear. The main problem I see in this whole situation is one of saturation of the market with poor quality but vast quantity compared with very limited subjects done incredibly well. Other vendors besides G-Factor have done strong cast metal parts of high quality and those seem to be just as robust and finely detailed as G-Factor parts. Aerocraft Models' OV-10 gear looks spectacular and is my choice to hold up that kit reliably. I only hope for similar quality in future releases. It is difficult to do something "right" as opposed to close enough to "fool some of the people some of the time". I see G-Factor and Aerocraft Models trying to do it right. Tnarg