Rudeboy,
Elmshoot has expressed an interest in the cowls as well. Maybe you could ask Peter Kriz if he would give us a better price if we were to order three sets of cowls? If for some reason we cannot get the cowls from him, and assuming I like the plans well enough to proceed, I may just volunteer to make the plugs & moulds for the cowls. Like I said earlier, it might be worth making moulds for the engine nacelles as well....we'll see.
Like you, for my scratch built scale models, I usually glass over foam then take out the foam also.
I don't have any scale drawings handy at the moment so could you tell me: Would it be correct to assume that the left and right cowls on the Comet are identical? So only one cowl mould is required? My memory tells me they are the same...of course, my memory has played all sorts of tricks on me before!
The other thing that I'm curious about is if the wing is designed as a one piece unit, or two, or even three pieces?
As for the 1/64" ply wing skins....it would certainly be easy enough to use an airfoil program to print out new ribs that allow for thicker, balsa sheeting, if that was a better way to go. It would be interesting to know the weight difference between the 1/64" ply and say, 3/32" balsa. I think I'll go and find out this morning.
I'm pleased that the retractable landing gear details are shown on the plans. I think building the gear would be fun. My father sells Graupner motors, so he may even have the retract motors in stock.

Cheers, Nigel