Re-attathcing the fins:
Now that the body tube has been successfully rebuilt, it's time to re-attach the salvaged fins...
Above is a picture of the salvaged fins. They were removed from the botched tube, stripped of paint, sanded, re-primered, and finally finish sanded.
The fins were re-attached using a light film of 5 minute epoxy. This is just to anchor it in place for the epoxy clay fillets to be applied later on. The fillets will be applied in the same manner as they were the first time but I will endeavour to make them smaller.
All four fins are attached in the same fashion. I didn't take any pictures of the epoxy fillets this time around but you can refer to an earlier post to see how it was done on the original tube.
After attaching the fins, the next step is paint. In an effort to avoid any more mishaps, I created a paint test mockup using a bathroom tissue tube and some scrap pieces. I'm planning on airbrushing Floquil silver for the booster color and I want to ensure the Xylene in the paint won't attack the plastic or the primer coat on the balsa fins.
So basically as is evident in the picture on the left, the paint test was a success. The paint did not attack the styrene or the primer coat on the balsa fin. It also did not attack the epoxy clay glue joint which was simulated as well.
The picture to the right shows the airbrushed silver coat in contrast with the white styrene. It covered very well and had a nice metallic "sheen" to it though that didn't really come through in the picture... Now that our paint test was successful it's time to paint the booster and apply the decals.
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