The rigging as supplied in the kit sucks, period. It is too stiff and does not have enough variety of sizes. Hard to wax it down to cut down on the "fuzzies" too. I went with my wife when she went to JoAnn Fabrics and she pointed out the variety of threads I could select from. Colors I used ranged from the standard black to 2 different tones of white or cream. Lends some variety to it. I built 3 1/96 Constitutions so far, first a Revell, then a Mamoli all wood kit, plank on hull, then another Revell using some wooden ship building steps with it.
First, I wood planked the deck with strips of wood I got from here: http://www.historicships.com/TALLSHIPS/Shipways/ShipwaysMenu.htm
I also bought some of their self adhesive brass tape (kinda like that heavy aluminum tape) to cover the lower hull. That and spritzing on some salt water using sea salt is what I used to age the bottom hull.
Then I laid the lower deck in the hull and took some 1/4" square balsa and thickened the sides (I've seen a lot of planked decks but none that widened here sides and her thick oak sides is what got here the nickname of Ol' Ironsides" Did the rest of the lower hull build based on the instructions. Laid the top deck and duplicated what I did below. The kit masts and spars are horrid if this is a later kit, the molds have gone to pot. I used only the lower masts and put dowel rod inside of them to strengthen them (on my first Revell model the rigging bent and distorted all the thin plastic, or it hung loose and looked as bad). Made all the masts and upper spars from dowel rod from my local hobby shop. To taper the spars you cut them to length, chuck one end in a variable speed drill and hold some medium grit paper around the other end, sanding it down as the dowel spins. One side done, careful flip ends and do the other side.
I hand ran my own ratlines, the kit ones look too fake. The thread sides I used were various-I eyeballed what looked right. They also have some bungee type thread in the larger black sizes which help in the rigging for the larger lines, they stretch rather than bend things and look very good.
This is just a brief summary, Hope you get some ideas. Oh, yeah, it took 3 years of on and off building to do this last one, the rigging really burns you out after awhile. Here is a picture that was taken at a recent show I took her to.
