You know: "Do No Harm" - the Pysician's Creed. And man, do I know (at least, where model-building is concerned) what they're talking about: it is very easy for me to over-work a piece - until suddenly it doesn't look better, but worse. Much worse, frequently - and fixing it, usually a serious b**ch!.

As usually happens, I started out really on a roll:


Click on Image to Enlarge
-------FULL RESWith surprisingly little trouble, I found and installed two striated PE snipets, cleverly chopped and bent to represent the open local-control sighting ports (left, brass) and their surroundings. The source was Peter "Mad Pete" Hall's gorgeous WEM 1:600 (Airfix) Belfast PE set (right), specifically the textured shell-trays for quad-PomPoms (inset). You can't imagine how incredibly tiny are the little doors - cut through just half of each tiny snippet and then bent open: about the size of two fleas, getting it on. I was quite pleased with the above - despite their appearance, created by the substantial relief of the bars, together with their close-spacing (originally to indicate shells, remember), such that the doors (left) looked like they had scalloped edges - if not corrugated entirely.

But these - both the concerns and PE details themselves - were in short order literally obliterated by a real problem: substantial damage to the turret-face, brought on by a valiant yet very dumb repeat-attempt at form-fitting the interior around the new guns. The subsequent repairs, while ultimately successful, nevertheless saw the tiny PE doors popped off, torn and bent in the process.

Even worse (so I thought, anyway), during the repair process I could not help but to indulge a bug well and truly up my a** - ever since seeing the FROG 500-scale turrets - to taper the back end just a little bit more like the FROGs, resulting in the following:


Click on Image for FULL RESAgain, when I saw these closeups, enlarged on the screen, I was horrified that I had overdone the taper - exceedingly difficult to "put back" - quite apart from the bowed, top-starboard edge which needed straightening. On the point of deciding to accept defeat and recreate an entire, new turret from scratch, I miraculously stumbled upon confirmation (see below) prompting complete reversal of my assessment, and instead continuing on to fix (both) the top starboard (and also top-port) edge (not shown).

Meanwhile, note the new guns, while still too short (only longer in most of these pics due to macro-distortion), because of their finer thickness certainly look far longer: more like true, heavy 8-inchers - to be extended further-still, to match my drawing (not shown).

So, what was it that convinced me the above was not already hopelessly over-worked - into something too diamond-shaped - but in fact looking, if anything, even better now, than ever? It was the following, historical reference pic:


Click on Image to EnlargeNote (particularly) the "A"-turret on HMAS Australia (left), photographed unusually from about 45-degrees elevation and sllightly off to the side: practially the exact mirror-angle - and illumination - attending the pic of my turret master, at right. And the observed lines are all nearly identical - certainly close enough, IMHO, to endow the new master with the same "look and feel". Which is, ultimately, the Bottom Line.

In this regard, however, note even the new, finer gun barrels look excessively thick - again, largely an illusion of the macro-photography (particularly at this angle).

So, the turret not only escaped the jaws of defeat, but even snatched a little more victory, after all - and next I will carefully fit the new guns. And only after that is done, finish off with the PE local-sighting doors - for which I will search for yet more-promising-looking scraps, in my stash - as well as two PE doors to go on the rear of the turret.

All I need to do is Not F-Up Anything Else, before I can get this thing successully into a mold!


Cheers,

- Matty