One thing you'll find is that even a brand new set of blades will never hardly be balanced perfectly. I've had some for my bigger heli's be close to perfect, but those are the higher end CF blades... Especially with any woody blades, the density could be different from one blade to another in the set you buy. Even if cut from the same tree ! Balance your blades....
When I first started out, I didn't have a balancer either, and so I just did my best to try and balance the blades by other methods... However, nothing beats a good balancer as I've learned and found out today. But back then, I'd just balance them like in the picture below from those plastic blades I tried for a bit :
The best way to track your blades is getting the headspeed up or even better yet, while the heli is under load and in a hover. Tracking tape of different colors really helps see which blade is the lower one, or the higher one. Remember, that even a small piece of tape weighs something and will then change the weight of the blade... It may be hard to imagine, but weights and balances play a big part in the rotating mass of these heli's... They like perfection, especially with the high RPM's, that there cranking... They don't like things that aren't balanced throwing them off.
You did good putting the tapered edge of the retaining collar toward the bearing... You don't want to much of a gap, and really you want it kinda snug, but most will still have about a piece of paper's width between the collar and the bearing to free up any extra drag or load from the bearing. I do the same, and like that very, very, small tiny gap there. Here is a picture just in case to show you that "lip" of the collar, and those step washers, and how they rest on the inner housing of the bearing :
This principle will apply to all your future heli's also, just like it even does for the CX2, as you can see in the picture below :
Here are a few more pictures that are from the original CPP's, but will still apply I believe for the newer CPP2's.... Just make sure you have everything in order since you may have taken that stuff apart :
