Ok, let's start getting to the nuts and bolts of this build. First I have to say I've been building this size RC aircraft for decades as such I have my own ideas as to what works best. This is not a review of the product Alien Tech or Aloft Hobbies is selling. This is MY take on how I assemble and change the design to fit my needs and expectation. Sorry I had to make that statement as so many think that what I write is written as gospel. This is how I skin this cat! My apologies to the cat!
It is MY experience that with the very small contact area of the glue joints found in this kind of model that CA glues are not the best or even desired as the basic assembly glue. I much prefer an aliphatic glue like Titebond Original Formula. This glue is much more flexible, sandable and yes even faster drying than CA. And get this it even allows for a longer working time. You say how can this be. Well the trick is to have a large enough radar range to allow the parts to fit inside. I force dry the glue on high in 15 second power intervals followed by about 60 seconds of cool down or adjustment intervals. After about the 3 cycle of this the bond is ready to sand. This works great in that during the cooling down cycles you can make adjustments and alignments as you see fit. Heck if you find an error later in the build a little bit of microwave energy and the joint will soften up a bit and allow another adjustment prior to cooling back down. Oh, don't use pins to hold any of the parts together prior to the glue reaching the tack stage. I use tape and maybe some rubber bands.
The first problem was to heel the cutout under the canopy to allow the rotary servo to mount. I just healed the kerf by forcing some titebond glue into the kerf. I cut the servo outline in the crutch. As I really don't like to glue servos to balsa I added some 1/64 ply reinforcement to aid in servo mounting and to support the damaged cutout.
The first head scratcher I ran across was that there is no parts layout in the manual and the parts aren't etched. It took me a while to figure out which was the F2B and F3B parts. (the one with the larger cross web is the F2B bulkhead. also many of my parts weren't cut all the way through the balsa sheet. This can be a problem for the laser operator as wood can have various densities even in the same sheet. I normally used a longer focal length lens or upped the power about 5%.
As I'm going to change the wing hold down system I added the necessary armor 1/64 plywood to the parts that might need it.I made the necessary relief cuts in F3 and F4.
I added the Titebond glue to the bottom bulkheads and keel. Gave it the first shot of radiation. Let it cool down and adjusted all the bulk heads to make sure they were square to the crutch. Zapped 2 more times and was ready to add the basswood keel cap strip (not part of the kit design). I made a small relief cut in the front and rear of the keel to inlay the cap strip.
Again I used a very light bead of Titebond along the top of the keel. I pressed the basswood cap strip into this bead of glue. I then zapped the keel and cap strip for 10 seconds. I then pressed the basswood cap strip into the hot Titebond glue. I kept rubbing the cap strip down until the glue cooled. This held the cap strip in the serpentine shape of the keel. I reheated the assembly 2 more time making sure the keel cap stayed down. You can see the results.
One thing that concerns me is that I don't see any anti warping inserts in the simple sheet surfaces. It is my experience that this will cause trimming problems for the life of the model. I'm think of changing the tail feathers to a classic built up construction. I also don't see any benefit to lightening holes in a monolithic wood structures. It is my experiance that this just weekens the sheet and causes the sheet to split prematurely.
). This is a problem for the designer as the slot width is defined by the material thickness. It would be prohibitively expensive to select the sheet stock to fit the defined slot width in the cut files. So it is up to us the builder to make sure the tab is the proper width prior to forcing the part into the slot.