Pirate Ship Ideas

I enjoyed making the pirate sloop so I've been thinking about scratchbuilding a larger vessel to use either as opposition for my pirates or as their next part exchange trade in, assuming they move up in the world of skullduggery.

I have the Gary Chalk plans for a pirate frigate type ship in the Foundry Compendium and probably in my stack of old wargames magazines somewhere. It's a good looking model as you can see:

http://www.madponies.net/pub/FoundryShips/GARYSHIP.pdf

However, whilst I may follow some of the excellent guidelines, especially for rigging and sails, I may try to do my own hull design and construction using the balsa sandwich method that worked on the sloop. I already have some medium sized cannon from Crusader, so that bit's sorted but I'm on the lookout for other useful bits and bobs.

I thought I might use some old  long handled paint brushes for masts, so those are on the list of things to pick up, preferably for free or for next to nothing. I also need something to make railings out of and some small scale cannon barrels for swivel guns, plus anything else that might be useful.