Stuntman23 build - Finally working instead of talking

I wouldn't even know how far back to look and see when I started talking about replenishing my 1/2A fleet... possibly last November after the Carolina Gang's 1/2A Day. The idea is to bolster my small Baby fleet with three Stuntman23s that are surprisingly capable aerobats and can also endure novice pilots, or whomever I foist the handle upon. And it was a great excuse to check out the new Michaels craft store in my neighborhood. They have good balsa, except it's too consistent, like most of the sheets came right out of the sawmill together. So templates are officially on the table, as well as an old Stuntman of Watt's and my old Green Death, later known as the chopper, after being aggressively shortened... and became a delightful flyer. And testbed for learning Tee Dees, balloons, tanks, and bladders. I remember flying it one day and seeing a pair of steel hemostats flapping in the wind Lol. Hadn't quite gotten the hang of it yet.

I found a couple of 1/4" fuselage sheets that had tight grain and seemed hard enough. I also found one at home that was very hard, but only long enough for two radial mount fuselages. The modern beam mount won't work with the short planks, but the Goldberg method would work. But I'm not wild about that design for a couple of reasons. For one of my models, I might go radial mount with a screw-on aluminum backplate mount for a Medallion. One of the models is going to CEF member Rat9000, who has been incredibly patient with my herky jerky schedule. Fair warning, if I bust a Stunter between now and the Criterium, there will be further delays. Regarding the fuse; I want to implement one of Ken Cook's enhancements and rip the fuse and insert a 1/8"x1/4" strip of spruce from the firewall to the tail. This will help prevent the fuse from breaking  behind the wing. I don't have any 1/8 spruce, and didn't think to look at the store. If it isn't available, I could use plywood. What about a 1/4" x1/16" strip of carbon fiber? Maybe I could use CF for an embedded spar on the wing.

I'm pretty happy with the 1/8" wing sheets, except it would have been convenient if I could have gotten 6" wide sheets, rather than 4". The chord is 5" or 5.5", I forget which. But splicing gives me the opportunity to stiffen it with a spanwise spruce spar, and/or find a good combo of grain that will compliment each other in a strengthening fashion. Lots of you guys can give me tips on splicing the wing together. I would appreciate any input on how to do this.

The 3/32" balsa for the stab/elev. are excellent, nice and firm but not too heavy. I'm trying my best to build it light in the tail. I've gotten lucky in the past. The Refried Bean, Lil Satan, and Oriental didn't require any weight at all to trim.

Here's what I got drawn today.


Below is a picture showing how the Goldberg kit spliced the wing. Of course the chordwise splice is just so they could fit it in the box, so I will not be cutting it there. But the spanwise splice is the one I'll need y'all's advice on.

Should I cut it straight along the probable CG? I doubt if I could do a staggered joint without hopelessly botching it. It'll certainly be straight if I embed a 1/8"x1/8" spruce or ply spar. What about a Carbon fiber strip rather than wood? Or is that going to be structurally helpful at all? The more I think about a spar, the less I think it's worth the trouble.

And when I finish this project, the one I'm really excited about is the Hyper Viper profile for my Conquest .15 CL engine. Yeah yeah, talkie talkie...
Rusty