RE: Tail dragger take offs
The main gear can be shimmed, and it helps significantly.
The speed with which you roll the throttle in is really important with this airplane. I taxi mine into position and basically begin to taxi it down the runway. A couple of click more throttle and it'll build takeoff speed all on it's own and steer just like it did taxiing. Roll the throttle the rest of the way and it's flying. The picture was taken back in 2006. It's still as pretty today. And will go flying soon. As for the shimming..............
To begin with, it was a tad easy for a bump or rock to divert the taxi. I located the CG with the hang-it, and string-it method to see where it was both longitudinally and latitudinally and then figured what the angle was to the tires' point of contact with the ground. The design layout isn't generous with that angle. So I shimmed mine.
You can simply run a strip of wood that holds the back of the gear away from the fuselage. But I decided to make a wedge plate the size of the gear center piece to support it entirely. Tell ya' what. I'll go get a picture of that.......... brb