And from the more pedestrian version of the subject.....
I've not been having a great deal of joy with paint recently. I finally finished the correction to the hull camo (no pictures needed because both sides look the same), but have had to redo the anti-fouling and 507C because both previous paints would not dry properly and could be rubbed off in places or just felt rubbery and wouldn't sand properly without 'chunks' sloughing off. I'm trying a new local supplier of enamels which are working out nicely. I'm now on my third brand of 507C and am frankly not happy.
I'm mostly working on my 'bridge stack kebab' trying to get the top 4 levels completed as they have lots of fun exposed pipework and I would like to get a little fine detail under the belt as it's been a while since I did that.
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Whilst discussing the possibility of the tripod legs being black toward the top with George Pek a while back (awesome job going on there !!
), he sent a picture of this area from a slightly earlier time (you can just make out a print of this in the picture above). Although there were some a couple significant changes from this before 1941, I'm going to assume that the structures in the unaffected areas would not have been changed. Doing this course meant that a lot what I had done based on the Profile Morskie drawing was, to be polite, 'at odds' with actual photos. More steps backwards....
The Spotting Top
The area underneath from the mast to the front has been completely redone requiring the 'starfish' supports and the two side tubs to be redone as well as new supports added. The forward points of the starfish now extend beyond the spotting top cabin.
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The wide vertical ladders from A GMM generic set were almost exactly the right size for the window frames (once you cut out every other rung); if you look close, there is only in flat face that has a 'half' frame due to length mismatch, all the other are full size.
The roof part I had made previously got binned as I wanted to include the little recess that PM show around the director. I don't care if it really exists or not, it's a nice detail touch....
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15" Director Platform
The bulwarks were too low and and the replacements now have a wind deflector lip. I've decided to include the small platform in this sub assembly so that I can blend it into the small radio shack. This also allows me to work on the two wing platforms in front of the mast at this level. The look like they are service access platforms for equipment suspended beneath the spotting top. I've added various supports etc and the handrails. Additional supports appear to run from the spotting top. Being made of paper with a thin edge piece means these are flimsy as anything...not helped by their being a gap between them for the support struts that go to the forward edge of the spotting top starfish.
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Because of thepaint issue I've had to replace some of the large triangular supports for this platform as well as a make anew overhanging lip which were victims of cleaning out the old paint.
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Compass Platform and Air-defense lookout
Finally got two sub assys together. Yay. For all the careful preparation of the tripod rear legs into layers, I dropped one of them and ended up redoing the legs as one piece for these two. The support bracing I had done was not compatible with that of the new photo so a lot of it was removed and redone in a simpler way but with much larger pieces. There will be two columns at each end of the large rectangular piece that run to the deck below. I've also moved the cutouts or the stairs at the rear forward slightly as I need some deck behind them for support columns there as well. Those two sticky-out boxes at the front have been redone to make them thinner and higher up such that they touch on the deflector strip. The gigantic supports for the enclosed platform are actual progress....
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