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Update on the accursed Trumpeter 1/35 Hotchkiss 35/38 turret.
Upper Left of Pic: You can see the hole where the rear hatch's hinge well is. If you're familiar with CAD or 3D modeling, what appears to have happened was the person designing it made a boolian operation to cut the hinge well but didn't fill the resulting hole that comes from not having enough thickness in the wall around the area being cut.
Other problems with the hinges themselves might be the result of the mold or molding process. I forgot to remove the mold line on the ends of the hinge pins and will reduce the unevenness with some glue or putty..
Top Right: Redid the gun mantlet to bring it forward a small bit. The hinge pin was actually screwing with the appearance of the mantlet but that wasn't really why I moved it forward. It just looked a little bit long. I also cut a hole for the MG port and added a little bit of stretched sprue to form the 38mm gun's armored scope face which was missing. I still need to add some texture to the mantlet, do some shaping to the scope armor, and drill out the hole for the scope. Shiny stuff is Loctite GO2 Glue. It seems to stick pretty well and dries fairly quick, but has kind of a rubbery texture almost like silicon caulk. Maybe just a little stiffer.
Bottom 2: I ended up shaving a little more material off of the turret. The turret ring in RL references is actually exposed a little bit like that in the spots with the arrows. I used the Loctite GO2 to build up some curvature where the ring meets the rest of turret above it. I think it should be enough to go the rest of the way with a textured layer. That will be with Squadron putty thinned down with Model Master Thinner for Metalizer or acetone.
I've heard that GW's Green Stuff Filler might be pretty decent for texturing and the draw there is more that it might be water wash up. Acetone and the Metalizer Thinner both are a bit heavy on fumes. I'm just reluctant to give GW my money.
