On The Slipway

The main crane derrick is operated from a platform at the base of the main mast. Two large winches are below the boat deck in the boat hoist compartment. Two cables run through pipes in the deck to a series of pulleys at the top of the tripod. One cable goes through the lower pulley and a pulley in the end of the main crane derrick, hoisting the boats on and off board, the other cable goes back and forth five times from the middle single pulley and two double pulleys—one at the top position on the main mast and one at the crane derrick’s end—setting the main derrick elevation.

The drawing in the Anatomy of the Ship series isn’t very accurately depicting the construction of the pulleys or the correct alignment along the main mast. The new position was determined using a series of pictures from this particular area. I started by adding the lower part of the frame of each pully, with a few difficult-to-cut parts. A series of supports are added to the frames, but as the wiring runs through these supports to the boat hoist compartment, and a double set of these supports is seen on the photographs.

The pulleys are an etched part plus the pulley themselves, made from 0.13mm Evergreen styrene. The pulleys rotate along an axis, but the wire as to be able to run downward with the derrick swayed to the side of the ship. I don’t know if the wiring runs through the pulley support, but it seems a logical approach. These supports were later replaced by steel tubing.

All pulleys in place. Note that the pulleys can swivel, following the position of the main derrick. The wiring, when the model is rigged, can still go around the pulley and through the supports. Not that I plan to have a fully operational 1/350 main crane, but it does allow for the use of only two wires to rig the entire crane (as in the real thing) and for alinging the lower pulleys toward the end of the main crane. In the outboard position, the pulleys are at an odd angle but that won’t be visible with the derrick in the stowed position.

The most important tool for my modeling is the chopper. I bought one from NorthWest Short Line a few years back. They say it is “one of the most useful tools ever, for model building, working in wood, or styrene strip materials”. For once, I agree with a manufacturer’s claim. As with many modeling tools, the quality is wanting (to be fair, it is cheap) and I made a few simple modifications. The base plate damages rather quickly, so I added a plastic ruler as a base plate. You can buy these in our local bookshops. I also added some plastic at the base of the lever to correct for the added thickness. I intend to replace it with a more rugged design later, perhaps. Or buy one of their more expensive variants. This chopper wouldn’t function properly without my trusted Mitutoya vernier caliper (or calliper if you must). They are expensive, but indispensable for accurate modeling. If you want to start with accurate scratchbuilding, consider them your most important tools.

In stead of measuring with the calliper, I use the depth probe to set the chopper. I purposely avoid the calipers with a digital readout. They are more precise, but I think I would spend too much time setting the depth probe to an exact setting! I changed the cutting miter so that it works with the depth probe of the caliper, but this does wear down the razor blade. So, I need to change razor blades frequently but they are inexpensive and come in a box of 100.

You can measure the result to see if the setting was satisfactory, in this case 10.0mm. Setting the depth probe to a certain depth usually doesn’t result in a cut of the same length, but with some trial and error you can change the setting (+ 0.1mm in my case) that usually gives a good cut. In fact, it is now so easy to set my chopper that I can have accurate and reproducable parts in seconds. If I need to replace a part (and I wrote down its dimensions somewhere), I know it will be of the same dimensions. Somehow I enjoy replacing or adding parts to a subconstruction years later, only to find out that the parts were made with high accuracy. It’s not just important that the part is made accurately to scale, but that the model is built consistently. Although a tenth of a millimeter doesn’t really matter to all but the smallest parts, in my opinion it can be the difference between a very sharp and a rather poor build; stacking a few decks which are all off by a few tenths of a millimeter will show up in the end.

 The chopper itself cannot swivel, but you can make inclined cutting miters. Here you can see a part for one of Hood’s fast motor boats about to be cut to size. When cutting these very small parts, I add a small strip of plastic to the miter so that I can be sure that I reposition the parts consistently (when using inclined miters, the position along the miter influences the part’s final appearance, so you need to fix the part’s position along the miter). Using these cutting miters can require more trial and error with positioning when the dimensions of the part are absolutely critical.  If you need simple parts with a slope, first add the slope and then use to straight miter to cut the part to size. You can also first cut strip to length and then cut a slope to one end but that is usually asking for mistakes.

Vacuum forming is a very simple technique that can produce thin-skinned parts of various forms. I mainly used vacuum-forming for producing the gun shields for the twin 4″ mounts and the hulls of all the boats and launches.

This is it, basically. A small box with a connection for your vacuum cleaner and a series of holes in its top plate. Try keeping the box airtight at the seems. This is my small version with the basic forms of several small hulls awaiting to be copied.

Part two is a small  double frame holding a sheet of plastic. I used a few simple clamps to keep the plastic sheet firmly in place. As you need to heat this part, not using metal might be a good idea.

Heat your oven to some predetermined level, whatever works, and start heating the plastic sheet. Once the plastic gets warm, you’ll notice it will droop down. When you think the plastic is soft enough, fire up the vacuum cleaner, take the plastic from the oven, and thrown the sheet on the vacuum former. The plastic will nicely form around the moulds. This will take some practise and sometimes a mould tips over or the plastic won’t form properly over the mould (folding around edges). This is also the part where I should warm you that you can burn your fingers. I use large plastic sheets, not the more expensive styrene by Evergreen. When an attempt fails, I usually throw the sheet back in the oven and start again. 

 Here is a series of copies of hulls. You still need to trim all the parts to size. The reproducibility is as good as the moulds (they might suffer a bit) but this is a very easy technique to use.

The capstans are based on the drawings in Ross Waton’s “Anatomy of the Ship: the battleship Warspite”. I used to think this volume didn’t really contain a lot of useful drawings, but that is clearly wrong.

Being rather circular, I relied on my circle cutter by Olfa. That tool is hardly worth throwing away, but can be used with a few modifications. As you can see, I cut away some meat from the black plastic and glued the knife to the bolt that is supposed to keep the knife down. This way you make make smaller circles. The base of the part is the etched top. Spokes were added using the drawing at bottom left, eventually filled out with 15 strips. 

 All the ingredients for the forward capstan. I forgot to etch out the center for the bottom part, using the punch and die set to rectify the situation.

Forward and aft capstan, finished. Perhaps I”ll post better pics later…

As a full scratchbuild, having a custom photoetch (PE) set isn’t that farfetched. When I started drawing the set, Trumpeter hadn’t released its model and the only available sets were those of Iron Shipwright’s and White Ensign Model’s. Neither set was any good at all. Now several sets are available with the only interesting sets those of White Ensign Models (new set), Lion Roar.

I specifically do not include Gold Medal Models (GMM). Although I have used GMM sets with great enthousiasm in the past (sniff, memories), their sets are still according to the trusted GMM design: a (for current standards) small set with railings (50% of the set), generic parts for some navy (40% of the set) plus a few dedicated parts for the ship in question (10%). I feel this setup is outdated considering the huge PE-sets other manufacturers produce and their new sets sell you the same parts in a reshuffled configuration. The added HMS Hood detail set is “nice”, but not spectacular. The etching quality has always been very good though.

The Lion Roar set is quite impressive when you see all the frets lined up, but on closer inspection the etching design is crude and contains many errors. I feel it is, well, clunky. I think Lion Roar has a long way to go in designing their PE. With the release of the Japanese aircraft carrier flightdeck sets, I do think they are improving and have released a truly innovative replacement part. They also released a very nifty HMS Hood main turret in resin which is clearly made superbly, but they managed to completely botch up the rangefinder and the barrel is crap. In short, it’s a great set for a beginner who’s not afraid to spend half their building time knee-deep in superglue, but not really useful for a more demanding HMS Hood modeler.

 I like the White Ensign Model set best, having the most HMS Hood specific parts and add to that the most correct Royal Navy parts. This might have something to do with the fact I sent them my etch set and I recognise a few parts, although they’ll deny it, of course. But, having already admitted to designing my own etch set, the WEM set was a bit late for me to use. Plus, even White Ensign Models didn’t nearly include all the parts I wanted for my own model.

So, custom-design PE sounds like the ideal solution, but it didn’t quite turn out that way. I spent far too much time tinkering with the drawings and adding more detail loosing sight of the final size of the part. All the stairs, each of them designed to fit the exact deck height and width for their specific location, all snapped in half when I tried to bend them. The material isn’t very maleable and some folding lines weren’t etched properly (designed too thin). So, the set is definitely to be etched in a new form hopefully without beginner errors. But on the other hand, some parts turned out fantastically!

 So, this is the entire set. I didn’t do the printing and etching myself, this was done by Saemann-aetztechnik in Germany.

1-10 Assorted stairs
11-12 Deck hatches including inside detail plate
13 Quartedeck deck hatch
14-15 Ammo loading hatches plus inside detail playe
16 Superstructure doors
17 30ft gig detail
18 Quad Vickers ammo locker hatches
19-20 Boilerroom uptake vent hatches
21-22 Assorted watertight doors, correct style

A Quad Vickers detai parts
1 base plate
2 Frame
3 Spent casing bins
4 Shields
5 Ammp drums
6 Assorted detail

B Paravane, assorted detail

1 Searchlight covers
2 twin 4″ ammo loading lights
3 Quartedeck bulkhead hatch, inner
4 Crane pullley
5 Pompom director seats
6 Pompom director, assorted detail
7 Quad Vickers ammo locker hatches
8 32ft cutter detail (unusable)
9 Small reels
10-12 Medium reels
20+22 Large reels
21 Quarterdeck bulkhead vent hatch

1 Degaussing cable (not used)
2 Night lifebuoy rack
3 HACS inside detail
4 HACS, assorted detail (overscale)
5 Pompom ammo locker hatches
6 Funnel grid detail
7 HACS detail
8 Deck hatch awning support

A UP launcher
1 Casing
2 Ammo locker hatches
3 hatch
4 Front/rear casing detail
5 Door
6 Windown frame

B Pompom
1 Traversing engine detail
2 Railing
3 Hand wheels
4 Ammo locker frame

1 Commanders hatch main turret
2 Capstan, assorted detail
3 hatch for boat deck
4 Asorted detail
5 Torpedo loading hatch (can you spot the error?)
6 Pompom ammo locker hatches
7 Ammo hoist hatches for the boat deck
8 Large reel
9 Spotting top detail
10 twin 4″ ammo locker hatches
11-13 Single, double, and quadrupple skylight hatches
14 Deck locker detail

4″ gun
1 Elevation gear
2 Loading lights
3 handweels and assorted detail
4&5 Fuze setting device detail
6 Traversing gearbox
7 Awning support
8 Vision port hatches

1 Signal light detail
2 Mushroom vent detail
3 Admiraly ladder handrails
4 Quarterdeck detail
5 Pompom ammo locker hatches
6 Main crane pulleys
7 Clump catheads
8 Main derrick detail (not used)
9 Ships name
10 Eyelets
11 Rigging details
12 Mast stay detail
13 Assorted stairs
14 Quartedeck bulkhead hatch
15 Quartedeck bulkhead hatch, inner
16 Sounding machine
17 Skimming dish, assorted detail
18 Assorted deck hatches

1 Deck locker detail
2 Spotting top detail
3 45ft barge detail
4 45ft barge rudders
5 Rangefinder hatches
6 Boat rudders
7 Assorted deck hatches
8 45ft barge steering wheel and propeller
9 45ft barge railing
10 Voice pipe cabinet hatches
11 Mast detail
12 Assorted stairs
13 Paravane locker hatches
14 Assorted stairs
15 Assorted stairs
16 Cutter details (not used)
17 Fast motor boat propellers
18 Boat rudder details
19 Boat rudders
20 Boat rudder details
21 Boarding ladders, short
22 Boarding ladders, long
23 Boarding ladder handrails
24 Boat detail

1 Assorted seats
2 Random detail
3 Frame for bridge
4 Degaussing cable (not used)
5&6 Mushroom vent detail
7 Assorted handwheels (4 and 5 spoke)
8 Assoted seats
9 35ft fast motor boat engine hatches
10 35ft fast motor boat stairs
11 Fast motor boat, assorted detail
12 35ft fast motor boat, handrails
13 Too small
14 Assorted handrails
15 25ft fast motor boat, windshields and too small parts
16 Fast motor boats, propeller shafts

HMS Hood carried 7 Mk XVII High Angle/Low Angle Twin 4″Guns. The first four were added in 1937 and three more in 1940. These guns are open mounts with a gun shield. So, all the detail on the interior remains fully visible. I started working on new shields soon after I received the kit by White Ensign Models. Their shields were not etched but cast and are somewhat on the clunky side.

Ah, a very early attempt at building the shields (Actually, this is a result of the second set of seven shields). These parts are made up from individual sheets. It takes some cutting and slicing and a good deal of pencil work to prepare the parts which is quite difficult to do several times in a row. The problem with these parts is that both the tumble-home of the side panels and the curvature of the front panel exerted a little bit of stress on the parts. It’s not as if you could see the cracks developing before your eyes, but the height of the shields varied too much from gun to gun. Also, the parts aren’t very strong and I spent too much time puttying and repairing them. Still, they look much finer than the part by WEM.

So, I decided to vacuum form the parts. This required a nice template I made from brass. Fortunately I had access to a small milling machine. This is the template after I already finished all the parts, so it shows some wear from cutting.

After the vacuum forming, resulting in several failed attemots, I made a series of parts to act as cutting templates. With these templates I was able to trim the parts to size with some consistency. I took my time building these cutting templates, as you can see from the above picture. I used a very fine tip X-acto knife to first scribe-in the first cut. Then I removed the part from the template and carved away.

A top view of the same sequence.

The slots in the front of the shield required a series of cutting templates; two cutting templates for the opening for the guns and the view ports, one for the horizontal lines (note that there are subbtle height differences) and one for the position of the chairs. These templates were a bit tricky to align nicely as you want to keep the thickness spacing between the view ports even and small deviations show. Getting them right cost me a few more shields. Ah well.

Another cutting template, this time to trim the two internal bulkheads to size. Building all these templates takes time, but you don’t have to spend hours cutting the parts to size, deciding which ones to keep and ditching the remainder. The right side has a small indentation and the left side is angled inward 4 degrees.  When dealing with two of these operations on either side with some chance of failure, templates to the rescue!

Here you can see the center bulkheads being fitted. I used a small spacer to keep the parts in the right position and angle during glueing. The bulkheads were cut to size and sanded flush with the shield.

Fitting the custom-etched hatches for the view port. Again, using a small spacer helps a lot in aligning the part correctly. Note how well the inner bulkhead tapers exactly toward the top of the gun shield

Most of the detail on the inside of the gun mount is made from custom-etced parts, including a lot of seats. Here the use to steel for the etched parts appeared to be a bad choice. After folding, the material had a tendency to break, unlike the more maleable brass (note to self).

This is just a small test to see if it were possible at all to place the seats in the shield with some accuracy. Apparently, it is, even though the seats are at odd angles. Can you see that the chairs are slightly misaligned? Neither can I, but the inner bulheads were in the way for the #3 seat (from left to right). I suppose this is a small error in the cutting templates.

Here are the guns themselves are being glued together in yet another template. The guns were custom-order work by Steve Nuttall.

There’s a bit of detail on the breeches as well. Note the cute detail at the end of the red pointy thing.

All guns and their trunnions, in a dry-fit. I got a bit carried away with the etching, so the elevation gear is visible. I doubt it is visible on the final model, but just having it on this very photograph was worth the effort. Well, not really, but I was experimenting with the etching, finding out what is possible and what isn’t. The part worked out really well.

Here the guns are bring glued to the trunnion with a template.

HMS Hood carried a typical tripod main mast, with the topmast fastened with stays from the star fish. Several modifications were performed on the mast, inlcuding the addition of a radar set of which no drawing exist how this was actually done. The main mast is contructed from styrene and the top mast is a brass mast from modellmarine, made by Burkhardt Masch. I choose a mast with the correct lower diameter and taper, cut to length later.

Here you can see the tripod under contruction. I choose to do this ‘in situ’, in order to have the tripod legs fit in their emplacements in the deck part and simultanuously have the mast completely up right. A small mould (tube) was used to keep the mast up. The small platform was cut at least 15 times before I had one with the right shape, with the small strip around the main mast of a constant thickness. That strip broke often all the time during drilling.

is a diesel exhaust pipe connected to the port side tripod leg. This exhaust is fitted to the tripod at three points. I first drilled in the exhaust pipe at the correct locations, taken from the best photograph I have to the mast taken f om the bridge, and then drilled-in in the tripod through the exhaust pipe. Next, I made several rings simulating the flanges keeping the individual exhaust pipes together. Of course, you can use rods and disks, but a single rod and rings is structurally more sound, especially with a few drilled-in holes. After the pipe was glued to the tripod mast, the rings were glued into place. A protective cover is fitted to the base of the exhaust pipe. My guess is that this cover is fitted in order to avoid damage when handling the admirals barge that is stowed very close to this location.

Each tripod leg is fitted with a ladder. I choose to use ladders by Aber, which I considered the best ladders available. They need to be folded, which is very tricky for longs lengths of ladder, but they can be directly glued to a bulkhead without additional supports and drilling in that usually spoils the fine feel of the etched part. Note the odd curve in the ladder as it approached the lower platfrom below the main starfish. I also added a cover to the diesel exhaust pipe, estimated dimensions from the photograph at right.

A nice detail shot of the main mast below the yet-to-be-fitted star fish. A small ladder runs from the upper platform the star fish. The main topmast housing is fitted to the bottom of the topmast. There are several nice drawings, but none to scale. This part will require more detail. A small metal tube is seen sticking out of the rear of the mast where the tripod legs meet. I have no idea what it is and it isn’t on any of the drawings, except vaguely on a few photographs.

A nice close-up of the topmast and wireless yard. Drawings of this yard are much better in Anatomy of the Ship: Warspite, by Ross Watton, including how the yard was fastened to the topmast. I like this detail, I haven’t seen it before on 1:350 models. The yard arm was hard-soldered to the topmast. Normal soldering resulted in a very weak bond and I didn’t like the prospect of glueing. With these scratchbuilding projects, the chances of handling damage are must greater than with kits, so I wanted a strong bond. I bought a Proxxon torch and started practising hard-soldering. This is really tricky to do and more often than not I completely vaporised the brass parts. This is why the topmast and flagpole are made from steel. But even then, the solder wouldn’t flow between the two parts no matter how careful I was with adding flux and aiming the torch. I spent hours soldering wire together and in the end I just decided to stop playing around. Fortunately, the parts were soldered correctly in one attempt, with only some minor deformation in the topmast which was easy to remove. I added very small brass rings to the yard to simulate some much-needed detail. The flagpole is connected some distance from the topmast. To my suprise, the strength of the model is sufficient. Even more to my suprise, that flagpole was alter removed to add the Type 279M radar antenna, which is a standard Royal Navy part. So, I snapped it off.

HMS Hood carried 5 UP launchers when she was sunk (UP stands for Unrotated Projectile.). These weapons could fire 20 3inch rockets containing so-called aerial mines. These mines had a 238 gram explosive charge tethered to a parachute in the hope that an enemy pilot was polite enough to hit them. However, this actually never happened with the 60 units placed on various ships.  The model is based on John Lambert’s drawing no. L/0/96, but this drawing contains one error; the sloped-back glacis plate was not in the drawing. The drawing did contain enough information to design a few etched parts so that some wonderful detail can be added.

The edges of the etched part folded around the launch tubes is not 90 degrees, but actually two 45 degree angles. Folding the part to size wasn’t very easy (I did use a cut-to-size fold mould) and the first folding attempt proved to be difficult.  Using styrene as a filler and then drilling in the tubes using the front as a template didn’t work out either as I frequenty drilled right through the etching so in the end I cast the part without the front etching. I hadn’t cast anything lately, so I order some CR-600 casting resin and 1-to-1 mold rubber from Micro-Mark. These products mix on a 1 to 1 basis, so you can mix by volume and avoid many casting disasters when preparing small batches. All the detail of the etched part is retained perfectly in the casting. I drilled in the launch tubes using a drill-press with a positioning table at the workshop at work. The tubes are 0.5mm with a spacing of 0.6mm, so that’s only 0.1mm between the ‘tubes’. Small errors show up immediately if you’re off by the slightest ammount.

I forgot to cast a block to hold on to the part when using the drill press and I also lost quite a few castings due to errors in drilling or handling. I guess I cast and drilled in over 30 parts before ending up with 5 acceptable parts.

Here is one model protected by splinter shields atop B-turret. A door is present on the armoured operators cabinet, including the sighting window. A hatch is present on the other side of the model, probably an access hatch to the traversing mechanism. An etched part is added to the bottom of the launch tubes (not on the pic). The ammo boxes are based on photographs of HMS Hood. (I’ll try to update the bottom right pic, it’s overexposed…)

HMS Hood carries four quad 0.5 inch machine guns. Rather ineffective and antiquated weapons I’d guess. I designed the etched parts a year or two back, and I forgot how I got carried away drawing these parts on a large computer screen using John Lambert’s  excellent drawing. When I saw the final etching, I wondered if I hadn’t perhaps gone  little too far. A test assembly didn’t really work out, some etched parts were just too small to handle. The final assembly worked out far better, although I spent as much time folding and gluing the parts as I did scraping away excess glue. Not an easy task, as this part is very weak and doesn’t tolerate much, if anything.

This is the original set of etched parts. Visible are the elevation gear (A), the elevation and traversing hand wheels and open sights (B), the ammunition drums (C), the bullet proof shields (D), some construction to collect or eject spent casings (E), the main part (F), the base plate (G), and some part which I forgot goes where (I). The indicated detail of F was supposed to be folded onto F, but most parts suffered some wear and broke off during folding. I added them by hand, but it was really difficult to spot the difference. In the end, I cut them all off. Unfortunately, part E was counting on the added 0.2mm thickness, as it partially overlaps parts A, so parts A were trimmed.

Parts E are very small, and it was impossible to keep them apart during the trial fittings. But, dry fitting went quite well, so I decided to keep the parts. Here you can see them glued onto the main body. With such small parts, you really need something to hold on to, so keeping the parts in the fret isn’t such a bad idea. 

A close up with the elevation gear and spent casings ejectors (?) added. Note the detail in the main body, which will later be swamped by detail and superglue. The smallest lines are only 0.1mm thick, the thinnest allowed by etching 0.1mm thick plates.

Here you can see the guns under construction. The barrels are made from Scale Caliber tubing, purchased from www.cammett.co.uk . It’s the finest tubing they sell. A small brass wire is added to be the barrel. A small styrene block with a tiny hole keeps the barrels together. The final assembly shows some sloppy gluing from gun to gun, I’m not too happy about it. But, I doubt it will be visible on the final model. I decided to have one gun at a high elevation, so people can notice it’s scratchbuilt and not some standard part.

Two close-ups of the finished part. Here you can see that the ammunition drums where made with a small arc, not half a disk. The hand wheels and sights are added as well. Argh! Notice that wheel being misaligned! Hmm, the ammo druks aren’t glued properly either.  Also notice that the gun is mounted on a styrene disk, aligning the part on the etched base didn’t work out at all.

 Now with the ammo cases fitted. That is really some interesting fitting and aligning… Note that the ammo cases are all aligned with the barrels, particularly well noticeable with the high-elevation variant (which was the point in the first place).

All guns on a small 1 Euro coin. It’s easy to spot small inconsistencies on the photographs, but these guns are really very small as you can see. They are about 5mm/0.2″ tall.

This was a very interesting exercise and taught me a thing or two about designing my own etched parts. The ammo drums where supposed to be glued exactly into place, but I forgot to add some markers to align them. Some parts just broke off during folding and handling (and keep on doing that). Anyway, the results look satisfying and I think this is the most detailed Vickers quad 0.5 inch in 1/350 scale. I feel comfortable tackling 30 triple 25mm guns in the future…

The turrets of HMS Hood are the second generation of 15″ turrets and only fitted to HMS Hood (The only ship with 15″ turrets after HMS Hood is HMS Vanguard, fitted with leftover material). The tricky part is that the bolts of the roof armor plating are very well visible while the older Mk I turrets are smooth. As I built these turrets a few years ago, I had some experience already with this difficult detail. So, when White Ensign Models asked me to build a set of replacement turrets for Trumpeter’s kit, I thought it would be a great idea.

The turret doesn’t have a 90-degree angle anywhere, only a nice flat bottom to work from. I started by drawing it out.

First, when you draw out a part and it has a few odd angles, it is worthwhile to draw a few additional lines as a framework. I drew a centerline and two parallel lines. Note that I draw the angled outlines of the turret much longer than necessary. You can use the intersection with the centerline and the parallel lines. I mirror these points on the opposite side for the other line and use these points for the other angled line. This makes cut (symmetric) lines at an angle much more accurate. It does depend a bit on how well you draw the first line, but on a large scale drawing you can repeat the exercise for measuring as well: extend an angled line and determine a few intersection points. Draw these on the styrene.

The backbone of the turret was added next. The roof of the turret consists on three large overlapping armor plates. The two forward plates are at a slight angle. As I intend to use 0.75mm plating, all dimensions are minus the plate thickness. Next to the backbones are the transverse supports cut to a 7-degree angle. Some of these plates double as a support for the side walls, but several additional side plating supports were added as well.

With all the supports in place, the roof plates can be added. These can all be trimmed to size later, after the sides are placed. The roof plates and turret rear plate are way oversize.

The front of the turret is a bit more tricky, as there are three viewing ports and I also wanted the outline of the barrel opening present. I’m not sure if Trumpeters parts will fit exactly, but I rather use the correct curvature of the turret than adapting the turret to a poor part. The shape was slightly lost with sanding…. I do hope it fits… Here you can see how I constructed the front of the turret.

The roof itself is a bit of a nightmare. I need to have the bolts well visible, but gluing them one by one didn’t really appeal to me. I used a 0.13mm Evergeen plate, the thinnest I could find, and built a few templates with the exact shape of the turret roof. With some trial and error, I managed to draw a suitable bolt line. Next, -here comes the part you’ll really like- I drilled in each individual bolt. The drill damages the 0.13mm sheet, but in a way it looks really nice from the other side. I tried this technique a few years ago and couldn’t do it, but now I seem to have a steadier hand. I filled the holes with CA to avoid damage during handling later.

Now you “only” need to glue the plate to the roof top. You can use normal glue, but that will melt the 0.13mm plate. I thought I could avoid melting this time and used plastic glue anyway. After half an hour, a small spot was plainly visible on the roof plating! I had to do the plate again! And that plate wasn’t the first version I tried either… The latest bolted rooftop was held in place with tape and I carefully added glue under the roof plate with a strip dipped in CA. This finally worked! Unfortunately I made an error when adding the second roof plate and smashed the turret to pieces when I lost my temper. This normally doesn’t happen but I wanted to have the part finished in time. Well, these things happen! Back to square one…

The rangefinder is a large cast metal object bolted in place. My previous turrets did not have these bolts but I really wanted them for the WEM set. This time I used a different technique that works quite well for straight lines of bolts. I used the gear from an antique clock, filed down the teeth and just let it roll along a ruler. Instant bolt heads! This is really a very easy thing to do and results in great subtle detail at zero cost.

The rangefinder has two openings on its front, one commanders view ports and the gun layers telescope. As this opening wasn’t documented very well and due to a lack of pics, I “forgot” to add it to my original turrets. The top of the rangefinder as a slight height increase at the center, sloping gradually at the sides. This slope was very tricky to do, as my filing skills aren’t on par with the average carpenter, so took a bit more time and effort.

A tricky part is the front of the rangefinder attaching the turret roof. It has a 45-degree slope, but connects to the roof plate that also 7-degree slope in the other direction. How to cut the V-notch out of the plate that will result in a perfect fit? Mathematics to the rescue! This angle can be easily shown to be equal to:

That just fits perfectly as you can see in the pic above. A strip with bolts was placed where it connects with the roof. I added a hatch from my own photo etch set to the rear of the turret.

The commander’s position has a wind screen. This part should be hollow, but that would be a bit tricky to cast. I started with a styrene ring filed to shape and added the supports later.

The rangefinder itself has two distinct styles, as a change was implemented somewhere in 1939. I also thought it would be neat if you could choose between open and closed viewport, so eventually I ended up making eight parts.

The top left image shows the center plate of the range finder arms with bolts in place. I made both top and bottom parts to shape and cut out the location of the viewport. I glued the bottom part first, so I could use it to file away some material from the bolted plate. A small strip is placed in the slot, giving a nice open appearance.

Here you can see the final part, fresh from the casters. Bolt detail is nicey retained and fortunately no marks or dents are present on the turret plate.

The first part to go from the resin copies is the wind shield, which is replaced (A). Now it’s actuall a wind shield kept in place by four supports. It was made by gluing 36 degree arcs and 2mm strip angled 45 degrees at the end to a strip. The shield itself is a ring cut to size. Vents are added to the rear of the turret, including a small platform (B). A small walkway is present to gain access from the aftermost twin 4″ gun position to the turret roof. At (C) the abandoned attempts of mounting an aircraft launching installation on ‘X’-turret. This frame initially consisted of 8 squares with a cross bond, but the two center squares were later removed. The remnants of the frame were present the rest of HMS Hood’s carreer. I haven’t seen this particular detail correct on any model.