Well, I decided to go with balsa....I bought some 2X2 X12 blocks, glued 4 together, and tried to shape them on my lathe. Came out fair., lots of wood filler helped! Right now I am hollowing it out to cut down the weight. Honestly, now that I retired I have never been so busy in my life, but the plan is to slowly work on it this summer to be ready for a flight at my farmer friends field next spring (the only time I can use his field). If it doesn't come out too bad I will post a photo here.