As I mentioned before, the hull appears to be fairly accurate with the exception of some overscale open portholes and crude detail. I thought it prudent to begin by cutting away all the molded on rails, along with all the solid bulwarks(?) that could be easily replaced. So out came my Dremel and I began cutting. It went well, and within fifteen minutes I had them all off. Next, I began to sand away all the detail on the hull, with the occasional aid of a sharp X-acto knife. The portholes will be all filled and sanded, since they are overscale and most seem to be misplaced anyways. They will be redrilled, where appropriate, later on in construction. Having removed all the rails and detail from the hull halves, I glued them together. This required a good deal of masking tape and the application of superglue, since the halves didn’t seem to want to align. There are still some small gaps, but nothing that can’t be filled with some superglue and putty.
Having set the hull aside to dry, I turned my attention to the deck. Using my plans as a guide, I realized that all the hatches were placed too far aft, and that none of the deck detail was usable. So I glued the two piece foredeck together, and traced both fore and aft decks onto a sheet of .040 styrene. I cut them out and sanded them to the correct shape. Looking at my plans, the deck is too pointed at the bow, but it is fairly minor and I figured it was not worth the trouble of correcting.
N.S. Savannah 