I'm still lumbering along with the fuselage. I had to wait for an engine mount and nose gear to arrive before proceeding much further. This plane has a very cramped engine bay. I can't see how anyone has ever been able to fit a .60 in one of these planes. My OS SF .40 is pretty snug with the mounting lugs almost touching the sides.

Since I opted not to use the hardwood rails I wasn't satisfied with the attachment of the firewall, so I moved it back 1/4" to fit between the ply fuse doublers instead of butted against their ends. This gave me a lot more ply-to-ply surface for the epoxy. Still not totally satisfied with this joint I used two 1/8" dowells per side to pin the firewall in place. It may be overkill, but the firewall/nose section has to support the engine as well as the nose gear. If I build another one I think I'll use the rails. I may still epoxy some tyvek around the sides behind the firewall. Those hardwood rails are making more and more sense now.

I bought a Great Planes 10 1/2" canopy (Kaos replacement?) that looks pretty good. I know Goldberg sells a replacement canopy for their ARF and SIG has an 11" version, but I already had a Tower order together. I've also installed the wing servos.

I ordered three rolls of Worldtex from Horizon. I've never used it but have read good things about it. I really wanted to use silk, but with my current living setup I just can't get into all of that nitrate dope and stuff right now. I ordered natural, orange and dark blue. The natural has a transparent quality to it, so the wing and stab framework will show through as they would with silk.

I was worried about the weight of this thing as I've been adding wood and glue here and there, but the total weight of the wood: wing, stab, fin, control surfaces and fuselage is 35 1/2 oz. That's 2 1/4 lbs. without the landing gear, radio, engine, tank and covering. I should be well under the 6 1/2lbs. indicated on the plans.

Here are some more pictures.