Richard, the CF rod helped alot to hold everything in place while sheeting the stabilizer, made it very rigid, and added next to no weight. I used the one piece method to build the stab/elevator and found it to bepretty much straight forward. But then it was not too long ago that I built the tail feathers on my Top Flite Giant P-47 Thunderbolt and ituses the same technique. A little practice does help quite a bit.