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Having scalped off the ships' funnels, I went about making replacements. The replacements were made from parts taken from an under scale kit of HMS Dorsetshire. The seats for those funnels were molded directly onto the deck part of that kit. So I went and made my own....
I attached the piping on the sides of the funnels and built a part on the forward most funnel which was to represent the ship's whistle platform.
Following that, I scrounged up replacement parts from kits of HMS Cornwall and HMS Kent with which to build the ship's main armament. The barrels required a small bit of surgery to get them to fit properly in the turret housings. Here the turrets are placed on board in a "dry fit" test. After they were painted they were glued on.
The last steps were to assemble and paint the cranes; mount the anti-aircraft guns, assemble the secondary armament and attach it; and to paint and attach the ship's launches and cutters.
At which point I arrived at my finished product:
This wasn't a speedy build by any stretch but it was reasonably satisfying. I scratch built a few replacement parts which turned out okay. They're certainly not top notch quality but they're sufficient to get me to the point where I can say that the kit has some degree of semblance to the real thing. Painting the camouflage was the fun part and the results aren't too shoddy.
Off to my next project....
