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Dang! That means one of my other extra letters must be wrong.

I'd guess you have a wrong 's' at 30 (from asses = fish) because I had that before I opted for another 'fish' singular.

30: I have (b)asses + ss, with one of the last three "s" extra. Now I think that's not right because the extra letters I currently have for the last six of the across clues don't spell a word.

...sorry - asses = fish plural? Have you made the same mistake?

...now I see why my square brackets keep removing the head of my (b)asses !

Yes, I thought so, now find another one that fits the pattern - ??asse (losing the 1st letter) and add the s(pecial) s(cales) on to it - with the second letter of the answer extra

Found it. Vismut is devious. Many red herrings (and not just in the fishy clues.)

Thanks, drxx.

Yes, I think you're right - Vismut is devious (but very entertaining at the same time).

I guessed what was going on quite early - echoes of one part of the magnificent Listener 4000.
The grid fill did not require any specialist knowledge but I thought the final part of the end game was a tad unfair.
I can only find one web page that contains all the thematic orders including the final one. It is a pdf - mentioned in an earlier post.
To get to it I had to trawl the internet with complete list of all 6 thematic names as search terms. I dont think many would complete the final step without google.