Thank you all for the welcome and the kind words. This was the third ship my father was building i believe. He left me the first one he ever did. He was always very meticulas in his building. The only thing I didn't like on it was he did use filler in some areas that covered the planking. I believe that no ship has perfect planking so I scraped a lot of it out.
To Floyd yes I have everything, box, plans, instructions parts etc... Although the instructions are there they are not "place part 222 at bulkhead G 1/8" above deck. It seems that they think you know what you are doing. I am not all that familiar with ship & rigging terms. I know bow, stern, port and starboard.
I think I'm going to go with decking the whole deck then cut out for the hatches.
With the nibbing stake how do I make that. The ship seems to match up well with the drawing. Should I trace the plan and transfer it? What thickness is the nibbing stake? Same as the decking? Should I get some flat stock material to make it out of or try and bend material.
I have been going thru the builds and am following a bunch of them. With that said should I paint the bulkward and the planking before I deck for ease of "cutting in later".
The biggest question is should I paint before I start the deck.