1/32 ICM Gloster Gladiator Mk.1 (32040)

This is a beautiful kit in some ways and a bit of a pain in the wahoo in others. The surface detail is first rate as is the detail in the cockpit. I ran into a lot of trouble with the fit of the fuselage halves. Perhaps it was my fault; there is a lot of detail that has to be sandwiched between the two halves and it's possible I didn't get everything aligned correctly. I had to do a lot of filling with gap filling superglue followed by filing sanding and praying that the wings would fit. One particularly difficult area of the fuselage is being the wing on the lower spine. The kit has an insert that covers most of this area. Unfortunately, this area of the kit is fabric detail so trying to blend-in the insert without obliterating the fabric decail was nearly impossible for me. Its a shame because the moulded-in fabric detail on the kit is very nice. I assume ICM uses this insert to facilitate another version of the Gladiator; if not, they really should have taken a different approach.

The wing assemblies fit together extremely welll and when all was said and done, the lower wing did fit quite well with the fuselage so I was really happy with that since this can be tricky on many kits. The upper wing and its supporting struts fit well with the lower wing - easier than most and the struts are very robust so that helps. I used EZ Line and Gas Patch anchor points for the rigging. I'm never sad when the rigging is finished on a biplane.

The decals that come with the kit are fantastic. Thin, not overly fragile and the conform very easily.

The Engine is fantastic but it simply won't fit into the cowl without leaving off part D14 (not sure what its called. These parts are only useful if the cowl is left open. Otherwise they would be invisible anyway so leaving them off has no impact.

I wouldn't recommend this kit to a beginner nor someone who doesn't like a challenge. It is impressive when built-up given the large scale and the fine surface textures and details.

I used, Helicon Focus which is a focus staking software, to blend several photos from each angle, each with a different focal point so that the entire image is in focus. Unfortunately the software had trouble with some of the rigging which happens occassionally.

Flickr Album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/98961263@N00/albums/72157720079484458
All my models: https://www.flickr.com/photos/98961263@ ... 3606379755

5 additional images. Click to enlarge.