After finishing the first layer it is time to begin with the second. This time everything should be more precise because this is what will be seen later…. 
The top picture shows the gunports painted red and the first planks on the upper decks. You can see how the planks cut accross the gun ports at the aft part of the hull.
I had some fears not to get the gunports right because there is a litte framing step around most of them, which I thought would be hard to get straight and clean. But it is working much faster and easier than I thought. Even at the aft part of the ship where the planking is not parallel to the gunports and the clearance has to be cut at an angle. In the middle picture you can see one of the framed gun ports and the lower picture shows a strip of wood with the recess clearances for the gunports precisely cut out.
When I started planking I did not look close enough at the plans and did not recognize that the upper deck gunports at the waist do not have that framing step because they do not have lids. I had to insert tiny strips of wood to close the recess but after sanding and painting that mishap will barely be visible.
