Hi Aqueous,
Great work!
I am building the same model too and I would like to share with you or someone interested some tips and changes that I have done. I hope it's not too late because your last entry is almost one year ago.
At this moment, I have finished the lower and the middle decks with all the decorative elements, the planking of the hull and I am working on the upper deck. I didn't follow the instructions in the same order because the gun carriages, boxes, barrels, etc. are added when the entire structure is complete. I thought that doing so would be difficult to put those elements, specially to attach the gun carriages to the interior hull, so I glued them once that every deck was finished. I also completed the first planking just until the beginning of the deck for having enough space from the outside.
I've made some improvements:
- Gun and gun carriages were not very realistic so instead of that I have used Amati Wooden gun
- The whales and upper bulkwarks termination in the hull is a wallnut plank and thicker than the supplied
- Inner gunports planking as you did
- Blakened cannonballs in triangular wood trays, not in buckets
- Blakened chains instead of brass wire for the chain plates (not yet installed)
Here you are a few pics of different phases:
Current state:
Lower deck:
Middle deck:
Hope to see your next entries soon.