Ok, here is the final product, glued and repainted and sanded. It's not great (a bit uneven and misshapen). but it will have to do. It covers the 'abyss' just fine'. This is my debut ship model in 20 or so years so let it be a lesson to me of how I started. The first of many ships to come I hope (once I finish her of course, but the main hurdle is over).
Also started the weathering. I used the Naval series from AK Interactive. The photos don't really do it justice, weathering looks much better in person. But I may need to thin it out a bit more as perhaps it's a bit
too weathered
It's how I imagine the ship would have looked upon return to Petrograd in 1917 after deployment in the Baltic Sea. Now I'm really inspired to cut the hull down to waterline (thanks to the thread in the main forum) and make a diorama, Aurora on the Neva River firing the shot that starts the October Revolution.