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Sheeting and Internal Armor
Normally with a new fiberglass hull at this point we would be drawing the windows, drilling out the corners, cutting them out with a rotary cutter or oscillating tool (and a lot of dust), then sanding them smooth to make sure the ribs were only 1/4" wide and the stringers only 1/8"..... a lot of work. However, since these 3D kits were already printed with that in mind, we skip that and go straight to gluing on the 1/32" balsa sheets on the side (which takes no more than 30 min to an hour!). This was great!
SHEETING THE HULL
There are lots of sites and guides for gluing the balsa sheet onto the hull (including this excellent tutorial) using standard-strength WeldWood contact cement. I follow pretty much the same procedure, only I have more recently been using a thicker WeldWood "gel" with which I don't seem to have to coat both the hull and the balsa. I only smooth the gel over the area of the hull the piece of balsa goes, wait for it to get tacky (turns dull rather than wet/shiny) and then carefully line up the balsa and stick it down to the hull.
BEFORE PUTTING ANY GLUE..
Each balsa panel must start and end on a rib in order to have something to glue the edges down against (that means each right and left edge can only cover 1/2 the rib, to leave a bit for the next balsa panel to glue to).
START IN THE MIDDLE
lay the balsa down across 3-4 ribs in the middle of the ship (the flattest area), with one edge covering only half (1/8") of a rib. Then use a pencil to mark the middle of a rib 3-4 panels over, and cut along that line so that the balsa spans those 3-4 ribs from middle-of-rib to middle-of rib.
You can then brush the WeldWood gel over those ribs, as well as the subdeck at the top and about an inch below the window. Once that WeldWood gets thick (should look dull) CAREFULLY align one edge of balsa to the middle of a rip, and press the balsa sheet against the WeldWood-coated hull and rub until it sticks firmly (you can use a knife to trim any excess balsa sticking off the top).
Since you pre-trimmed the balsa to end in the middle of a rib, it should look like the image at left.
You can then repeat the process, alternating adding a sheet to the left of the center panel, then the right, until you reach the bow and stern and have sheeted the entire side. Note that as the hull begins to curve sharply you will not be able to span as many ribs at a time as the balsa starts to resist the changing contour (note the short length of the piece at left).
Also note, if you have a problem during these sharply curving pieces at either end buckling back up at the bottom of the hull beneath the window, it often helps to cut a small wedge out of bottom of the balsa (not high enough to reach the window and leak) as strain relief and allow the balsa to lay down flat.
Here is a photo of the HMS Indomitable, just after finishing the first side of sheeting (simply repeat on the other side to finish).
Once this was done, I painted the entire length with exterior latex paint (as close to "battleship grey" as I could match) and then lay a long strip of silkspan over the top, and brushed over that with more paint to stick it down (note, let the silkspan hang down below the balsa, and paint-stick that against the plastic hull. It will help seal up that bottom edge from leaking in case there was any spot the weldwood did not quite hold the balsa tight).
INTERNAL ARMOR
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