Last week I finally got the time to finish up the fuselage!

I’ve mounted the firewall and the motor mount. Went together very well. Because of the right and down thrust angles, you cannot just center the motor mount on the firewall and my mounting points did not match those of the plans. So I aligned the motor mount using CAD drawings I’ve made. Seemed like a daunting task, but it wasn’t:

Then I recessed the rudder for the elevator joiner wire. Not mentioned in the instructions or on the plans, but a very obvious step needed to make the rudder and elevator fit together:

So I finally could test fit and assemble the tail and check the controls throws of the elevator. Looking good:

Then I buit and installed the fuselage antenna, just behind the cockpit, from 1/8″ birch ply. It’s remarkable what such a small detail does to the overall appearance of the plane:

… installed the servo tray:

And finished the battery hatch! This was a small little puzzle on its own, but I managed to get everything sorted and I’m very pleased with the result. First I’ve installed a canopy latch on the front side of the hatch:

Then, I glued some wooden dowels into the other side of the hatch:

After drilling the corresponding holes in the fuse itself, the hatch fits snugly into the fuselage opening and there’s absolutely no play at all. A nice and clean installation:

And last but not least: the pin of the canopy latch is in the right location to represent the front antenna on the fuse of the Jug! So it’s scale too :-)

By the way, I’m not sure if I can do the checkered pattern on the cowl, but if so the Snafu absolutely is my first choice to replicate visually.