You just know if you don't address this now you are going to be bothered by it and redo it later anyway.
Man looking at that comparison, it makes me feel so happy to have had any involvement with this project so long ago. It is simply beautiful Rob. Man what an undertaking. This was my first real intro to prop Replicas.
Nice words, my friend! AND happy you-know-what!
I'm going to remove the small center disc. Then, on the second largest disc, I'll cut out a circle the same size as the center disc (and perhaps even sand down a circular impression in the main dish.
Also, on the back side of the small center disc, I added about .5mm worth of styrene about the size of my pinky nail to allow the center disc to stand off a bit. I did this because in the reference photo, the shadow around this center disc seems notable, suggesting its raised a bit. But now I'm second guessing this.
Finally, I'm going to reduce the diameter of the small center disc by .5mm or so, and that may allow it to sit deeper in the overall dish, and enhance the illusion of depth by making it smaller, appearing a bit farther away.
With all these mods, I should be able to gain back an additional 1mm - 2mm in depth. Considering the scale of the Death Star that'd probably be like 30 - 50 feet!
Here's the latest progress on my dish. I successfully lowered the center disc by about 1.5mm, drilled out the center hole, and added the geometric shapes onto the center disc. Will start the radials today.
...we'll never know [regarding lines that are not straight on the original], unless some previously unseen reference shots of of the original pop up. In all the ref pics I have, you can barely make out the details on that center disc, and the shots are not taken straight on like my pics here are.
photo didn't work.