Below, I epoxied the spinner and cowling to the body framework, then planked the first section of the nose behind the cowling to improve the looks and strengthen the nose some more.  After that, I tried a new kind of paper, much thicker but wrinkly, as a base covering over the planking and some of the front open framework.  I put Elmer's on the wood, wet and towel dried the paper, then let it dry.  After doping once, I sanded the nose and the paper smoothed out over the planking.  Where the paper covers open framework, however, it's still wrinkly.  I'm going to dope it again, then paint the framework, then cover everything with the lighter paper. 

Below are the pieces that go into the spinner and cowling.  I mixed some epoxy and microballoons to the consistency of toothpaste and was careful to fill the pointed end of the spinner with it before pressing in the first foam piece. I kept adding more paste around the edges between the foam and inside of the spinner as I pressed in the 2nd and 3rd layers of foam.  The cowling was done the same way.  The trick is to cut the foam carefully so there aren't any big gaps that use too much epoxy and overheat the plastic spinner or cowl. The finished product is very light but very rigid, not breaking on the Spitfire or Mustang.  In comparison, the p40 with softer insulation foam had the cowling break open.  If you can replace the nose easily, perhaps the softer approach will save the plane structure.  I'm going the other way, though.  I'm using the rigid nose and reinforcing the structure.  We'll see how it fares.

Sounds good....Maybe a removable wing with thin nylon bolts for shear factor could alieviate that situation.  best of luck in working out the details, keep us posted.

Tom

Dave,

In RC years ago we would build the spar in and I beam type set up.  With the spruce or balsa spars top and bottom with vertical grain balsa for shearweb strength.  I remember that we would vary the thickness of the vertical grain shearweb balsa for strength. 

With the location of your spars if they aren't directly over each other you can't make them I beam, can't clearly tell from some of the pictures. After rechecking the pics...I think you could do this.  

Without the I beam spars, this may allow the wings to flex more because each spar acts pretty much independantly putting it's stress on the ribs.

Don't know if this makes any sense to you?  Will try to come up with a pic later. Check out this link for I beam spars on RC models: http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rlz=1T4ADRA_enUS419US419&biw=1600&b...

Tom

The Spitfire had a nose first landing that hit something hard, so a wing spar broke in the middle.  It had been repaired twice in that area, so I ripped the wing off and rebuilt the spars where I could see them.  A removable wing would have been nice!

Here you can see some of the vertical shear reinforcements on the ribs.  They are made from 1/16" x 1/4" balsa.  You may also be able to see vertical supports tying the wing spars to the body bulkheads, in order to distribute the force to the body without breaking the ribs where they attach to the keel pieces.

This shows the Me109 with 1/4" square balsa between the wing LE bulkhead and the firewall bulkhead.  It also has 1/8"x1/4" balsa higher up between the same two bulkheads.  I want the force from the wing to be distributed to the firewall without breaking the bulkheads and stringers.