Some small progress made…

I managed to reduce the weight of the plywood base for the canopy hatch from .6 oz to .4 oz so that is another .2 oz to add to the total weight reduction. That now puts the total amount of weight reduction at 3.7 oz thus far. After that I installed the two formers three stringers to the hatch assembly and am now ready to start adding sheathing to the hatch.

Now a bit more about this build regarding weight…
I have estimated the weight of the balsa sheathing for the cowl, cooling duct, fuselage and tail along with the carbon fiber veil for the entire fuselage and control surfaces at 3.4 oz (not including adhesives or finish).
Normally it would take roughly 1.5 yards of monocoat to cover the plane, the weight of that monocoat would be around 2.7 oz (not including adhesives or finish). So worst case I am adding .7 oz to the extra weight of the airplane at this point (estimated) to add a full cowl, cooling duct, sheathing to do the stressed skin finish of the plane (not including adhesives or finish). That stressed skin, along with some added composites will allow for some further weight reduction when I do the tail feathers, by eliminating the weight of the screws, dowels, fittings wire and solder used to make up the flying wires used to strengthening the tail feathers. So with that being said the stressed skin finish will have a three fold benefits of strength, reduced drag, and reduced weight (hopefully) of the finished plane to allow for all of the modifications I am adding to blend the fuselage and wing into each another.