Hi guys, thanks ever so much for your kind comments. Shall keep R34 gently alive on a back burner and consider all the options. One is to downsize, use a balsa spine, and make the skin as balsa-tissue panels assembled in jigs.
GQ2 - Many thanks for setting out a viable method of construction, never been there so would need to practice a little. Some necessary considerations are how to support/hang the whole assemblage once finished, how to add cruciform empennage, and how to mount gondolas. The gondola problem is the biggie, they are suspended on struts but their position is defined by wires which take the forward and reverse engine thrust. Without the wires the fore and aft gondolas would be free to swing forward and back, and the wing gondolas, with only two-point suspension, would describe semicircles. Hard points have to be provided and wires attached under tension. Thanks for the music vid, one of my all-time favourites for the excellent sax riffs, shall add it to my music page soonest. You know where I live!