Maudib is right, this plane should definitely still be great even at a balanced 16.7 pounds... but would be a lot better at 16. I'm sure I could have balanced it at it's bare 16 pound weight if I hadn't made some of my mods.

Most of my mods were behind CG, and most of them were way back in the tail. Extra covering, tri-stock, vinyl graphics, hinge blocks and Robart Hinge points add up pretty quick. Put 3 extra ounces in the back end of the plane and you need 12 in the nose to counter it. This isn't a problem with the plane, just decisions I made to be happy with it personally.

I don't regret the hinging decision, as I simply was not comfortable with CA hinges, and certainly not comfortable with the hinge slots that were precut in the surfaces. As for the extra tri-stock, that probably was overkill, but didn't add that much. The graphics were a personal decision to get the plane looking the way I wanted it... at a price.

Compound this with the "nose lightening" I did using carbon fiber spinner and gear, which lightens the nose and adds to the balance issue... it's an exponential dilemna.

Overall, I'm very happy with the plane, except for a few minor construction quality issues. The poor hinge slots should be corrected... especially considering how thin the TE and LE stock is. You'll never see this unless you strip the covering... it's scary when you see it. Also, half of my wing ribs were broken during construction and glued together in disjointed positions. I had to add scabbing to correct. Other than that, the quality was great, especially the hardware supplied.

I'm sure this will be a great flying plane, I just want to make sure it is "safely" balanced before flying and try to minimize the amount of weight I have to add to do so. Hopefully the suggested CG is substantially farther forward than what it needs to be and I can safely move my CG back from that and lighten things up a bit.

Lastly, if worse comes to worse I can always switch to pull-pull rudder and probably save at least 8 ounces of ballast in the nose. I hate pull-pull so I'm not going there unless I have to. Time will tell.

Tom