Finally bit the bullet and made the decision to go electric.  Have to admit that I had plenty of encouragement to make the change from Walker, Whittle, Granderson and Varley.   Now I just have to wait til the weather warms a bit and stops raining long enough to get it airborne.
Model is 650 sq. in based on Bob Hunt"s Saturn.  Power is an E-flite Power 25 which started out being rear mounted but changed to a front mount after my flying partner Chris Cox started having suspected bearing problems with the same set-up after about 40 flights.  Motor is rigged to turn CCW as I fly CW.  Will start out with APC E props but also have some Xoar E props and have a 3 blade I also want to try.  ESC is a CC Ice Lite 50 and timer is by Wil Hubin.  Batteries are 4S  3000mAh.  Final weight came out at 58 oz ready to go but I suspect I'll add a bit of nose weight as my CG is a little rearward.  Finish is Randolph dope over Polyspan.

Nice model... congratulations...
Welcome to the E-World...

Hi Alan,
You did a great job on that plane!!!! Good luck with it!!!!! I would also suspect that you will need some nose weight as your plane is very similar to Buddy Wieders Ryan's Eagle which is also based on the Saturn. He is using almost the exact same setup as you but with Hyperion 4S 4000 mah and he is adding a little nose weight to that. Of course everyones preferences are a bit different. Which 3000 mah batteries are you using?
 As far as the bearings go I'm a bit surprised that Chris' had a failure after so few flights. I took a Power 25 apart recently(to do a bearing change) and those motors have about the best bearing of any popular motor in that size range(only Cobra may have better). Buddy's is front mounted with over 300 flights. My Scorpions bearings were still good when I replaced them with over 100 flights and my motor is rear mounted and the bearings are smaller than the Power 25.

Very nice, good luck with it.

James