Welcome thirsty003. I hope you enjoy your plane and this forum. Good looking job on your build. On your question about lateral balance, I recommend you balance by adding wing tip weight. I feel it really improves the way the plane flys. This is especially true in hover and other stalled manuevers. I balance mine by hanging from the ceiling with thread on the tail wheel and a small nail I mount (just for this purpose) at the center of the firewall on underneath side. I hang the plane upside down for this exercise. I only had to add a very small amont of weight to mine. I took finish nails and coated them in epoxy glue and drilled small holes in wing tip and pushed them in. They never move. On another plane I had to add about a 1/2 oz to balance. On that one I epoxy glued the weight (flat stick on type) and then put a patch of monokote over it. Stays very nicely and all you see is a buldge where the monokote is.
My CG is at 5 3/4". For me this is just about perfect. I can land easily and still do a rising flat spin. You can't do either well without a perfect CG. This plane is very forgiving on CG. It can have the most variance of any plane I've flown.
Be careful. These planes tend to crash.
Thanks,
Barry