That's probably about where I'll be at in weight too when I'm done. I made the wires for the cockpit lights long enough to put the little battery pack for them way up in back of the firewall so as to get all the weight forward too. I'm sure I'll still need nose weight too, but hope I can keep it to around a pound and a half or so. I know that I can get this into the inside of the cowl ring...more will start cramming things up there a bit, but I'm not messing around with anything close to tail heavy on this one for the maiden.
Thanks for the comps Bob. I used .010 styrene for the gun hatches and the little one in the middle was .005, so that the other hatches would differentiate themselves a little bit. I did those first taking some measurements off the little plastic model for size reference, then layed out the Flitmetal strips after drawing the lines on to see where they should be, then taped off the spots and put the strips on and cut them from the tape templates underneath with a sharp #11 blade. Have to be careful on this part with the knife blade for sure. Next step is just to rivet the wing panels and I'm happy there wasn't a ton of rivets on the real wing now.
After the other side gets the same treatment and the whole wing is riveted, I'll be ready to paint the whole airframe. Still have to put on the surface detail for the fasteners on the cowl too, but that's all that remains before the whole thing is ready for color. Probably just a few more hours now before it starts looking a little more alive.