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Gloster Gladiator "Royal Egyptian Air Force" [ICM 1:32] - RFI


Alex

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9 hours ago, mozart said:

Indeed that’s a fine looking engine but I don’t think the cowl sections will fit if that’s what you’re planning Alex.

 

My hope is that by leaving off the rocker covers, the cowl *will* fit.  Was your experience different?

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I decided that I ought to try and get the cabane struts attached to the fuselage prior to painting.  The idea of trying to juggle all 8 struts simultaneously after all the pieces had been painted was giving me hives.  So how to align them properly?  The upper wing is much too heavy to use it as a form by taping the struts on (that was try #1).  So I made this little jig that could fit around the tops of the struts and hold them at the spacing they need to have to interface with the upper wing.

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It's just a paper rectangle, as it appears.  So I then taped the lower ends of the struts in place on the fuselage, and dropped the jig on top to get the top ends spaced correctly.

 

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The other important thing besides spacing is fore-aft position.  Looking at the upper wing it's apparent that the tops of the forward interplane struts and the forward cabane struts basically fall along a single line.

 

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So I sighted this line on the model before gluing anything to make sure I was placed correctly.

 

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After double checking everything about eight times, I glued the forward cabane struts only.  I let them firm up for ~30 minutes, then removed the jig and measured their separation and re-checked fore-aft.  A tiny bit of pressure tweaked them to darn close.  I then glued the rear ones one at a time, carefully measuring to make sure they had the proper rearward separation from the front ones (1-1/32") and were square and level with them.  This is what it looks like with all four installed.

 

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As you can see, I've also mounted the landing gear legs.  Further I've done a bunch of lingering fiddly things like removing the antenna mast from the top of the vertical stab (in the Mark II Gladiator it is on top of the rudder instead), drilling holes for the rigging that attaches to the vertical stab, masking off the cockpit, etc.  I *think* that all is in place for me to shoot primer on the thing next.  Obviously I also wedged that big piece of 5/8" dowel into the nose so I have a handle to hold it by while painting...  One very nice feature of radial-engine prop fighters...

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Decided that the best use of underpainting on this one would be to emphasize the nicely-molded rib structure to all of the fabric parts of the plane.

 

Upper wing just resting in place here; not going to attach it until much later:

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Need a bit of a break before doing the rest of it.  Lots of squinting...

 

I also have a couple of shades of green on order from Mr Color and MRP to see if I can get a decent match on the insignia so they can be painted.  Or at least I can test to see if I can mask them adequately.

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This afternoon I free-handed in the first camouflage color - Middle Stone.  As an experiment, I ordered Mr Color Aqueous colors for this and the Dark Earth that will go on next.  They seem to work quite similarly to the Mr Color lacquers that I'm familiar with.  Perhaps a little bit slower to build opacity (not necessarily a bad thing).  Don't know if I would use them again versus regular Mr Color or MRP, but it's good to have the reference point.

 

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I will use the conventional putty snakes and tape method to mask before shooting the other color.  But not today, as I have some priority woodworking projects to do (i.e. my wife realized she didn't have Christmas gifts for a couple of friends and decided that some of my custom cutting boards would be just the thing...).  For the curious, here is a photo of a couple of them that I made this summer for our new kitchen...

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  • 3 weeks later...

OK, back from visiting Toronto AND the latest business trip.  So trying to make some concrete progress here before I leave again in 10 days.

 

As noted before, the plan was (is) to use the conventional method to complete this camo scheme.

 

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To my eye the Mr Hobby Aqueous Middle Stone color looks a lot greener than I was anticipating in a desert camo scheme.  Maybe because I painted it over black?

 

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But what do I know - I'm nobody's expert on RAF color schemes, desert or otherwise.  Maybe someone with a more experienced eye can weigh in...

 

What I DO know is that this is a primer adhesion problem, which is not something that I'm used to seeing with Mr. Surfacer.  Perhaps I should have wiped the parts down with lacquer thinner before painting them.  Next time.  At least it's small.

 

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2 minutes ago, Alain Gadbois said:

Funny how the middle stone looks fine in the last photo. But your eye is the best judge as cameras tend to interpret colors in a very variable way depending on the light.

 

Alain

You're right, of course - that dark green cutting mat really can affect the way the phone camera captures color. 

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