¹⁄700

Battlecruiser, HMS Queen Mary

Somewhat later I noticed that the fwd funnel was 1 millimeter too short in relation to the others--I would otherwise have made a replacement item. As the funnel base was surrounded by boats, I cured the problem by inserting a sliver of styrene underneath...the funnel flange is a little higher but cannot be seen due to surrounding boats. The complex and delicate funnel caps were made entirely of stretched sprue.
> With the bridge installed and the mast inserted all the way through into the lower hull my attention turned to the supporting struts and gussets under the upper bridge level with paper and cannibalized PE scrap giving the desired effect.



With the hull topsides painted, the ship was beginning to look very elegant--but despite NNT having captured the slight tumblehome of the hull sides very well it all looked a little ' flat'. I drew in all the rigoles( eyebrows) for the scuttles with a sharp pencil. Detailed examination of photos of the real ship showed that in most lighting conditions, the fore and aft hull plating strake lines were visible.
Reckoning it being impossible to recreate these within scale, I opted to 'sketch' in this detail. Having applied Tamiya Masking tape following the layout on the plans, I then drew along the tape guide with a very sharp pencil. After removal of the tape the effect was made more subtle by brushing down vertically with methylated spirits-which coincidentally removed the sheen of the pencil rather well as a bonus




The somewhat plain aft rangefinder had observation slits painted on, and a brass cross member installedn after drilling the top of the small casting athwartship...




The well rendered turrets had integral blast bags, nicely shaped...finding no reason to re-invent the wheel, I simply drilled out the resin, and installed the NNT supplied Schatton gun barrels.




The ships boats impressed with their outline accuracy--small details such as handrails, folded stack, doors, cleats and life-preserver were added to the steam launches, whilst the oar-propelled boats had the sculling notches cut in, using a blade.