egroups.com:

How did you get to this point in the first place, maybe based on that
we can make some suggestion. Was the design overweight by design or
was it over built? How close is the empty weight to that of the
prototype?

I'm in the early stages and am trying to avoid some of the pitfalss of the
first time builder. So far, I'm doing well. The ribs (truss) are as light
as feathers with barely enough spare glue sticking out of the gussets to
show they're covered. My welds are good, so I won't be carrying around 50
lbs of extra rod when it's done, I hope, and I'm dodging all the popular
mods and sticking pretty much to plans. There's nothing wrong with the
design (Hatz), but I'm not going to overpower it and my local strip is only
500 yard long, with obstacles, so I just want to stay "ahead of the power
curve" from day one in every way possible. After all, I'm not going to be
able tocut things out so easily after it's finished! Previous builders
usually wind up with empty weights of about 950lbs, but it's possible to
build it as light as 860, so I'm going to shoot low.
got some good ideas here, too. I'm thinking the composite tank is probably
not the way to go now, so I'm going to have to learn to build an aluminum
tank..

Anyone know of a resource to show me how?