Oh, I forgot....

You could buy solid wing blanks in a good hobby shop. They were bass or such and roughly airfoiled. You'd make the airplane with "hardwood" wings and stab. And use a couple of "hardwood" sticks for the fuselage sides. Pine worked ok. The engine cowl could be balsa, but there was no real push to make anything light.

You built the plane starting with two hardwood sticks. You built a "crutch" and added the rest. The pan would bolt to the crutch.