Have you considered upscaling and making it available though someone like Hobby Factory? This is excellent work, and I think it will get more attention in a larger scale.
regards
Dream on. the only Great lakes ship in card is the JSC Fitz in 1/400 scale. Paper Shipwright may someday do the Keewatin. (Sigh.)
I too built card models while deployed to the Balkans. Paperclips are a good resource for wire, gun barrels, etc. Enjoy.
I live in the west end by Tecumseh and Banwell. I forgot to mention that you can get the sandpaper at Michaels. They also have the Uhu all purpose and the Uhu glue sticks, which works grwat for laminating. I have stopped using spray adhesive. regards
Get some 3M medium grit sandpaper mounted on the flexible foam backing. This stuff is great for shaping the formers. I think many fit problems are due to not sand the formers and test fitting. if you sand too much, you can build it back with paper strips. This will be an interesting build to follow.
I would suggest a creamy white or very pale yellow. The decks would have been holystoned daily while she was in service. They would not have been allowed to weather to a silver grey. Nice build, I have allways been a fan of the Bellona.