Let me try to give you my favorite way of balancing a ship. Lets balance a low wing ship. First mark the balance point on the bottom of the wing. Now set a 16 penny nail in the rafters. Then run a long length of contractor's twine, looping the middle of the length two or three times around the nail. You will now have two equal lengths of string hanging from the nail. Put a small loop(around 1") at one end and a 2" loop at the other. You will stick a modelers T pin in the back end of the vertical stab or rudder. With the small loop, hang the tail on it using the pin, while hanging the nose at the spinner from the large loop, plane upside down. The plane will be in a suspension like cradle. You will now set up a length of twine hung from the nail. The other end of twine will be attached to a plumb bob; you can get a cheap one at the Home Depot. The plumb bob needs to dangle above the plane, not dragging against it. You hold the plane and let it gently swing in the cradle. The bob will point to where the plane's palancing point is; you will take small chunks of lead weights and place them on the tail at the horizontal stab or the nose at the firewall to make the bob point to the marked balance point. You will also notice that the plane may want to drop a wing; place a weight to laterally balance there as well. Mark where the weights are and glue them there when you take the plane out of the cradle. This works really well for pattern ships, but for overall balancing the one Luft has pictured above me works really well without the hassle. What I have described here really isn't a big deal once you have done one or two planes; you just need some space to move around the guy when he's hanging and it takes a little finnese to hold onto the ship and put the loops on him. If you have a moving table you could lay the plane on it and go from there. Hope this helps.