Jim,

what retracts will you be using? Have a photo?

One of the tricky things on classic pattern models is getting the engine mount and nose gear installed and spaced out as needed. It is often much easier to take care of that kind of thing prior to framing up the fuse. Basically you locate the thrust line and then figure out the offset of the engine mount to account for down and right thrust (shown on plans). Once your mount is installed, you can then mount the nose gear and offset it as needed in order to clear the engine mount. It might be a tad tricky to get those tasks done with the framed up fuse but it is doable. A belly mount nose gear (if yours are designed with that option) might be easier to get installed with a framed up fuse. I would split the nose gear and fuel tank area with a 1/16" ply plate to provide a rest point for the fuel tank and a bay for the nose gear. I usually make two pairs of slots in the plate to allow the tank to be held down with two velcro straps with the tank sitting on a bed of foam. I can't recall if you mention power plant earlier but even if you are going to go electric the same procedure applied. The tank plate becomes a good battery plate. The ESC can go behind the battery or under the plate in the nose gear area. I made my top "canopy" area removable as the Pico was electric. You'll want to mount your nose gear to a 1/4" plate glued and re-inforced with tristock to the top of the tank plate. You then drill the 1/16" ply and 1/4" ply together to mount the nose gear. Ideally, the 1/4" ply would be locked into the firewall with tabs but that will be pretty hard to do now.

Don't worry too much about the nose gear linkage at this point. A basic pull-pull works best here by routing some small diameter nyrod through F2 and held in place with some small balsa blocks a the required width where the tiller arm on the gear is located. You;d mount the rudder servo centered in the fuse and use the same pull-pull system for the rudder with wires heading back. You'll want the rudder p-p wires mounted wide on the servo arm and narrower on the arm for the steering linkage. If you can. mount your elevator servo on its side for an arrow shaft/CF single forked elevator pushrod to drive both elevators. This servo is mounted further back in the fuse. I believe I posted some pics of my radio layout further up in the thread.

Here are some shots of the linkage on the Pico. I used the same exit for rudder and elevator but I'd recommend not doing this on a 60 size model - use two exits per side. Note the reversed position of the rudder and elevator servos longitudinally in the 60 size glass model above. The Pico was done this way as it has no landing gear so no steering is required.

David.