Wappen von Hamburg aka Captain Kidd from Lindberg.
As a little research shows Captain Kidd sailed on the
Adventure, a 280 ton, 36 gun Galley with 23 pairs of oars launched on 1695 and to make this look like the
Adventure would have required major surgery. A little more research showed this kit to be the
Wappen von Hamburg (The name means "Coat of arms of Hamburg" and the coat of arms from the city of Hamburg is clearly visible in the fancy work on the stern) a German heavy frigate of ca 1660 in the
Hanseatic period. The first thing I noticed when test fitting (will be doing a lot of that, it is a Lindberg kit!) is that the lower gun deck has sufficient light getting to it to show that there is no deck, just mounting platforms for the guns.
Three solutions presented themselves; ignore it, close the gun ports or scratch up a deck. I can't ignore challenges so 1 is out and maybe it's my German blood (or maybe I'm just a bit bellicose) but when I build warships I like to show them with guns bristling all over (hence my lack of interest in modern warships) so option 2 was not gonna work, plus I need practice at option 3 so it got an .040 sheet deck installed. It's not the prettiest (there are some gaps at the hull/deck joint) but it will serve it's purpose.
I noticed while sanding down HUGE ejector pin (maybe ram is a better word) marks that there was no plank detail on the insides of the hull so I used my draftsman's dividers to scribe some, it's rough but again it will serve it's purpose.
Next comes decks, once I figure the best way. I expect I'll install each deck separately and paint and detail as I go. As always, comments and suggestions welcome.