Of course, if you're building a model with a foam wing, then 1/2 of the dihedral angle actually IS cut into the root of each wing panel. In some of the old Bridi kits, you built the wing with all of the ribs at 90 degrees to the spar and then inserted a wedge-shaped center rib that set the dihedral angle.

With a few kits under your belt, you'll be able to easily see the different ways that different kit makers set the dihedral angle. It's not rocket science, and not even particularly critical, unless you're looking for a specific performance characteristic. In the old Pattern days, Don Lowe used to tune the dihedral angle of his Phoenix-series models by partially sawing through the center joint, adding epoxy, forcing it closed, and then laminating a layer of glass cloth over the joint. This allowed very small changes to get the model tuned to his exact liking.

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