No idea about the hatches… I am sure you will get to the bottom of it … The Pontos set does look good though… Really adds so much extra detail.
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It’s become plan B Johnny.
I still have the etched parts set from KA Models. They also have coal hatches, but they are too small.
And I don’t use the 3 pounder guns from Pontos but the 3D printing from Micro Master.
So I have the too small hatches from KA and the lower flange of the Pontos guns. When put together, they create a fomidable coal hatch.
I’m really happy with that. And by the way, I put the deck together loosely. Fits perfectly even before sanding and looks really great.
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Very clever fix. You would never notice the difference 
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This is going to be amazing when done.
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Thank you all.
Finally, we’re continuing. The break lasted quite a long time. The reason: I had to make the remaining eight cannons.
It was a bit scary.
Nonetheless, I finally finished all 16 naval guns and am glad I don’t have to do any more.
And now I’ll show you the reason why I made all of them. A user in another forum pointed out to me that the guns were a little too high. That’s why I sanded down the carriage on the second slide a little so that they could look out of the middle of the opening.
The remaining eight will be distributed on the upper decks and it doesn’t matter.
Let’s move on to the next conversion. Again, I liked the MK set better than the one from Pontos. Since I will be showing all the gun port covers open, I thought the rope shown was very nice.
What I changed are the hinges. Since they fold down when open, I simply replaced them with a narrow piece of profile.
This is what it looks like for me. I used a slightly lighter grey to accentuate it.
And attached to the gun ports.
These are the first external structures. Since it is inevitable that the gun barrels will stick out here, I wanted to have them attached already.
And so the eight 12 pounders could take their place.
A few boxes are still missing.
And so I am quite happy with the position of the guns.
Now they urgently need the protection of my sheet pile wall. After applying the clear varnish, I will screw it to the dry dock tomorrow. I am curious to see if I will tear it down again before the construction is finished. 
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Stunning work. The attention to detail is amazing!
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Absolutely. I could not agree more! Great job.
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Great update and glad you are back … that is superb detailing and tremendous work. It looks amazing.
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Thank you gentlemen for the nice comments.
Another litle update. To protect my model from further harm, I wrapped it up nicely.
This should protect it pretty well from any carelessness on my part. 
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On to the next construction phase.
The plan is to breathe a little life into the deck in the form of a crew. And this is where the next 3D print comes into play. This time I’m using the figures from ION Model, which I won in a competition with my Bismarck.
After an initial inspection, the quality is excellent.
Then I started looking for photos showing IJN sailors in their uniforms, like the following image:
Wow, much easier to paint than the DKM guys.
I had a few leftover Kriegsmarine sailors and wanted to use them to save on figures. The first ones were supposed to go behind the gun ports, where they’re almost invisible.
So I shaved his head and punched out flat caps from styrene. A small dot of superglue on the top hair, and the Japanese sailor is complete.
Painted and ready to go on deck.
To the cannon sailors, ahrrrrg…
Fire free…
And so the lid can go on.
And the deck portside
Aged and found to be good
You don’t see much of the figures, but that’s how it’s supposed to be. The hint of the sailors at work below deck adds depth to the whole thing.
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…and it does add depth, definitely!
Just brilliant!
Cheers
Jan
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Very clever and adds so much viewable detail giving it all a sense of movement. Nice.