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I am stuck with a completed grid and extra letters.

Based on robt (@15) suggestion, dials D1, D2, D3, D4 have letters:

D11, D12, D13,..........D18
D21, D22, D23.......... D28
D31, D32, D33...........D38
D41, D42, D43...........D48

To see the 6-word phrase, one has to read these letters vertically D11...D41,D12....D42, D13...D43 and so on.

He also confirmed @29, D48 is 'C'. That has to be a noun,

@18 he said he saw a few words and could reverse engineer the phrase.

I do not see any word.

Incorrect parsing could give wrong letter and wrong dial number, so unless parsing is perfect, there is no chance of getting the phrase right.

I have answers to 1a, 13a, 25a, 29a, 1d, 4d, 6d, 23d, 24d and their letters, but I suspect my parsing to be incorrect.

That said, unlike some of the recent Genius puzzles that took us to a layer of GK outside, this puzzle is entirely dependent on solving cryptic clues. I thank Soup for that.

I am afraid, I am heading to a DNF. But, there is still time.

I think that's probably what I've have done, but I've been through my letters & their categorisation into dials twice now and am too frustrated to try again. May have another look on the train tomorrow but am just cross now. But thanks for the help - would not have got the debunker otherwise.

I have a full grid and 4 dials after realising that I had misattributed one clue. Thoroughly enjoyed the process so far and for that, many thanks Hamish. (How are the bees?) I will attempt the “cracking” tomorrow…..

ilippu -- I think I see the problem now.

Using your notation, the message isn't derived as "D11...D41,D12....D42, D13...D43 and so on".

It's derived as: D11...D18, D21...D28 and so on

The preamble says "Dial by dial in clue order" and not "Clue by clue in dial order"

Does that help?

robt

" "Dial by dial in clue order" means all the 1s, then all the 2s, then all the 3s, then all the 4s... " is exactly what you said @15.

I guess you meant all D1s, all D2s, all D3s, and all D4s.

Which is probably what I'd have done naturally, if I had not seen your post and misunderstood it.

It was Sunday night for me.... I will try again. Thanks.

OK. Done. Wow. Just so impressed by the work that took to put together. Thanks very much.

Like some others, apparently, I got enough entries in the dials to guess what the message phrase was likely to be. I then confirmed it by applying it. Finally, I went back and corrected some misdials. Again like others, I am awed by the ingenuity of Hamish the sou(p)s- chef..

Ok, so that’s two solving reports in two comments… it begins to fall. I hope assorted crossness and frustration might begin to evaporate as the endgame becomes apparent… I intended this to be a hard puzzle, to push the solver more than I might otherwise do. Keep at it. Chip away. Leave it. Return to it. Xx

Yes, thanks for the great challenge hs, really enjoyed this. A really clever construction!
Saw the message despite a couple of misdials so didn't get too frustrated...

mattrom@35--I was coming in with a bunch of questions about the southwest corner, which I had mostly unsolved, but after turning your hint over in my mind it finally dawned on me and that broke the rest open! "How does 'two dashes' fit into this" I was asking myself. Phew.

Do have two lingering questions... does 13ac contain a reference to what might be (being oblique to avoid spoileriness) the butler from Trading Places?

Excellent work. Thank you Soup and _____.