Thanks Michael for the link, good information there. Thanks for the advice chuck.
I am only at a stage of dry fitting the parts, nothing is remotely ready for installation. The kit I have is an older issue and it feels quite brittle. There is one crack through the lower gun deck at the aft of the ship. I will fix that. My Idea is to allow the lower decks some to float on there supports so that when the quarter deck is installed, the decks will be alligned with the masts. Because of the way the deck support beams are installed, I am concerned that I will dislodge the supports as I install successive decks. One Idea I am kicking arround is to install a length of wire from the outside of the hull to make a minature expansion joint with the deck beams. Once the decks are in, cut, fill, sand and touch up the paint.
I figure is I do it this way, I can allign the hull with the quarterdeck and the installation of the stern will be closer fitting.