Adrian,
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "then the wood between the two slots on each side of the nose are joined by cutting the wood away from them".

I built mine with the canard out of the model. The two fuse sides are pulled together to fit the width of the assembled nose block (2 blocks of balsa sandwiching the plywood core) and glued to the nose block. The balsa blocks are then carved and sanded to shape to match the contour of the fuse sides. Once you are completely finished carving and shaping the nose blocks, the canard is inserted into the fuse sides. I did not glue the canard in at this time. I only fitted it. I only glued the canard in place after I had completely covered the model. If you glue the canard in before you cover, the covering job will be a real pain. I did the same for the wings. I fitted them in place before covering, but did not glue to the fuse and ply braces until after the entire model was covered.

John