Now to the Mk.III-B. I really didn't like it almost as soon as I made it. I'll admit it, I took the easy way out. (Oh, the power of the Dark Side.) I decided to go back to my original concept of the pylons being farther apart and pointing straight forward. I managed to break the glue bond without too much drama. I was afraid the main batteries would be damaged during construction, so I tried to remove them as well. Gentle flexing didn't break the joint, so I was forced to break the guns off. Now for some tricky cutting and filing.
This time I didn't cut the towers in half, I would use them full height. The problem I had was the length of the tower's base was greater than the width of the flat spot above the main guns. Since I didn't want anything overhanging, I needed to cut some triangular slots in the superstructure. Using a tower as a guide, I scribed the slots location, then using a razor saw I cut two lines deep into the model. Then for the next hour and a half, I used files, rasps, knives, and a cutter in a Dremel to carefully remove the material in-between. Even going slowly and deliberately, the slot ended up too wide. When I placed the tower in the slot, it was perfectly flush with the outside edge of the slot, but there was a huge gap on the inside. OK, I thought, putty should solve that problem, so I moved over to the other slot. I began again by scribing and sawing, and after a few minutes with a knife thought, Screw it, this is way too much effort for a simple wargaming miniature. So, I used the Dremel to grind the top flat enough to accommodate both towers. This is what I ended up with.
I like this arrangement better than the first, but it's still not perfect. There is some more tweaking to be done. Oh, the main batteries? I drilled small holes in each gun and in both turrets where they broke off. I used brass wire as reinforcing pins, and CA'ed them back together. You can't tell they were ever off. Please let me know what you think of this arrangement. Don
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