Let's take a look at the kit. Roden's Mk II kit was released in 2003 and added decals and parts to allow the builder to make a Mk II Gladiator from the original Mk I boxing. Since my subject looks to be a Mk I, given the two-bladed prop, I'll likely be able to ignore the added bits.
All of the main parts come on just two sprues, with a third small, clear sprue for the canopy parts. The wings are solid with no upper and lower halves. I had always thought that it might be worth a try to rig a bi-plane model with the wing halves left off to allow easy access to the lines - i.e. make the model with the lower half of the upper wing glued to the upper half of the lower wing complete with struts, etc., then pulling the rigging through pre-drilled hols and making them fast before gluing the other wing halves on. At any rate, the kit fabrication nixed that idea so I'll need to make do with the traditional approach.
Surface detail is good and there is a slightly rough texture on all of the surfaces, presumably to convince us of a fabric skin, though the texture extends over the metal areas as well. The panel lines are nice and thin, unlike some of the canyons on even the recent Airfix kits. The control surfaces are all separate - NICE!
Cockpit parts are apparently sufficient to provide a decent amount of detail, though the moulded framework on the sides will likely not survive my Dremel tool.
Here you can see the added Mk II sprue that includes a 3-bladed prop and a hook for the Sea Gladiator. I'm not sure what the other part is and have not looked into it. It's marked as not to be used anyway. There is a good number of parts for the engine and reviews have cautioned us to steer away from the instruction sequence to make sure that the engine, exhaust stubs, and the 3-part cowl all fit together properly. The Finnish skis can be seen at right but, as mentioned in my opening post, these are different than the Norwegian units.
There's a bit of flash that I'll need to deal with. No big deal.
The clear parts look OK but could stand a dip into the old floor wax. The instrument panel is also clear and I've never been convinced of the logic of this approach. Two windscreens are provided and I'll need to figure out which is the correct one to use.
One reviewer had difficulty with the applying the decals saying that they did not sit down with the usual decal solutions. Another comment was that the letters for the British versions is too dark and that the blue on the Finnish swastikas is too light. They do look to be nicely printed though. It's all moot for my model anyway as I'll be painting on the Norwegian stripes and cobbling spares together or making my own for the few others that I'll need.
A glance at the instructions shows that I'll need to be careful with the alignment of some parts as they are a bit vague in some cases. There is a rigging diagram provided but it's missing some of the wires. I'll rely on some good walkaround sites to get that right.
Speaking of rigging, I'll be using some flat wire that apparently one can buy for vaping equipment. This was suggested by Skydiamonds in a previous post involving someone's Swordfish but I went with a narrower width than the 0.4mm suggested. I don't vape so have no idea what this stuff is for but it has something to do with the heating element, so I gather. In any event, the 0.3mm width corresponds to about 9/16 inches wide which sounds about right for 1/48, if not a tad too wide. I wouldn't want to go any narrower than that.
I hope to get started with my first posts on Sunday as tomorrow is 1:1 Mosquito build day. See you soon.