Ed,

I'll risk being annoying and repeat the advice. Even though you have an "expendable" plane ( your Duraplane ) to practice with, find a club and get an instructor. It will not only help you avoid destroying your planes, it will help you learn to fly much faster. When I started out, I was armed with a Duraplane and great disdain for the idea of joining a club. I successfully flew the Duraplane several times ( meaning no major repairs ), but didn't learn very much at all. I finally wiped out the Duraplane on a windy day. After I joined a club and found an instructor, I soloed in a fairly short time, and learned a lot of stuff that I would not have learned flying my Duraplane around in an empty field. Find an instructor.

My only other advice is to put ailerons on your scratch-built plane. Not everyone shares this opinion, but I think it makes the most sense to learn to fly with ailerons. It is not any harder, but it is a little different from flying with dihedral and rudder, and it is better to have independent control of roll and yaw. Just my 2 cents.

banktoturn