yea tell me about it. Water based colour is a bad choice when painting on plastic models.
I always go through each tree to see if all parts is there AND if some of them has got any damage.
Only one time in my model building life, did I find a part who was damage. It was the hull on the HMS Queen Mary II 1:400 Scale. I send the producer a mail...10 days later I got a new fresh hull.
This HMS Hood model has photo etch parts which mean I need to get my hands on these tools.
When this model was released in 2016 it was without these photo etch sheet.
This mean somewhere between 2016 and 2020 they have decided to upgrade it to some kind of celebration(not the correct word I know) model
Now why didn't they go all the way and added metal barrel instead what's in the box-barrel made of plastic.
I'm thinking of ordering this
https://anticsonline.uk/Product/Trum...200_N107971969
Your metode of washing the parts in light soaped water sound interesting.
Markus