Before any spraying was done, a strip of masking tape was set sticky side out around the inside base of the lower main body tube. Reduce the stickingess of the tape by pressing it on your pant leg a few times. Otherwise, the tape could pull and lift a layer of the rough inside surfaces of the body tube.Paper towel pieces are pressed into the recess and down to the lower centering ring.
This keeps all the paint out of the engine mount, it gives a cleaner look to the finished model.
After the paper towel pieces and tape removed there shouldn't be any paint in or on the mount.
The rear edge of the tube needed some black on the rim.
I used a permanent Sharpie pen.
In the picture the right side of the tube edge has been blackened.
I still have to scrape a bit of black paint off the engine hook.
I prefer to paint the bottom end of the rocket in order to better seal the cardboard from soot and moisture, but leaving it unpainted looks really nice too.
ReplyDeleteFor painting, I used to put a spent engine in the mount and hold the rocket by the top with rolled up card stock, but now I have adopted your rocket-engine-on-a-stick technique (I still have the roll of card stock in the other end to seal it off and act as a second handle). I still paint the back end but I put a piece of masking tape around the "engine" and hook to keep the rocket from spinning, which makes for the added benefit of the engine hook remaining unpainted.
Yeah, I go back and forth on whether to paint the inside rear of the engine mount. I do agree with you, there shouldn't be a lot of paint inside the engine mount to foul up inserting an engine.
ReplyDeleteI'll usually run some CA around the exposed tube ends, that should be enough to seal the tubes.
I do like to keep the paint off the engine hook. In a small way it's like a bit of chrome trim and shows attention to detail from the builder.
"In a small way it's like a bit of chrome trim and shows attention to detail from the builder."
ReplyDeleteYes! I always painted my rockets with paint on the outside of the engine hook; the Angry Goonybird is the first rocket I've built the "new" way, with no paint on the hook and I really like it that way.