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To get the PE hangar in, I had to cut wider in the plastic deck.



The box is fitting well into the superstructure.



BBB has some enormous anti-skid surfaces to add to the kit. These are quite thin and have to be straightened. The plastic obstacles need to be removed.



I don't find the source BBB uses to determine the anti-slip locations, at least the one on the hangar deck is wrong. But the detail is so beautiful I want it on Dunkerque too. Maybe I find some generic plat at IPMS Houten this weekend.



A small part of the superstructure is covered with PE plating. I don't see the point, because the thin splintershield now borders the thicker (though commendable) plastic shield behind it.



All watertight doors are now installed with an open doorway. I suppose some will fall off after a while, I can always shut them later.



The boat supports are a nice extra detail with their tensioning cables, but the instruction is extremly rudimentary and doesn't even show the direction of the parts.



The bollards are all replaced now, something Dunkerque would also be missing if I don't find a solution.



To check the fit of the wood deck, I had to move some of the PE doors.



To place the right door types I had to check on Dunkerque, all Strasbourg doors are drilled away and as mentioned no instructions are available.





Then it's Dunkerque's turn.

The searchlight platform of the two ships is identical and in the kit some plastic pillars are used to support it. Though these are reasonably thin, it can be improved with wire.



I changed the position of the supports so these all continue below the maintenance platform. Some ejector pin marks are filled up with CA.



The length of the supports is 6x14 mm and 2x6 mm. First I connected them like this.



But working upside down can lead to errors, it was the other way around.



The pattern of the supports was drilled through to the deck, so the roof can be plugged onto it. This is very tedious to install but the result will be much better.



The drilling on Strasbourg was also passing through the PE anti-skid.



The smoke stack is now upgraded on Dunkerque. Because the kit has a horizontal plate under the funnel cap and a plastic sawtooth shaped grate on top of that, the upgrade is also horizontal. When you check Jordan's section of the ship like it can be seen on Wikipedia, the grate would be oblique. I decided to use the PE as it was intended as I had no pictures proving the error.



But altogether it is better to cut a hole in the plate, because the centerpiece of the PE grate extends below it.



That also improves the look:



I had forgotten to remove the footrail, but that could be done now:



The ladders are installed with the burrs serving as locator pins, which should be a lot stronger.



Then the railing is added.



The rear maintenance platform and the ladders are a good fit.



At the bottom some small grates are replaced and then the stack is connected to the superstructure. I'm curious if BBB can overtop this with the Strasbourg stack.

I've come to the realization that Bigblueboy has included fret H twice in my set and they have omitted fret G, containing most of the smokestack parts and a lot of railing. That I could only find in this external review:



https://modelshipworld.com/topic/25090-1350-strasbourg-upgrade-by-big-blue-boy/

The good side is that these railing parts are relatively easy to replace with the extra H fret containing railings and with some Strasbourg kit PE.

Wow - that's really intensive PE work. Nicely done.

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

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