Thursday, June 1, 2017

Estes STM-012 Kitbash to the B32-M Spike, Part 2, Fins



To get a rough idea of the fin to body tube size ratio I copied a picture from the Madcow website.
I wasn't trying for an exact copied fin profile. I did like the fin size and placement in relation to the body tube size.
The picture was sized to the width of a BT-60 at 1.637" wide. That gave me a tracing of a close size template.
Like most of the current Estes kits, there is more than enough extra balsa for a kit bash. The Spike fins are much smaller than the fins in the STM-012 kit.
The Spike upper fins easily fit into the STM-012 fins. The fin tabs will be cut off.
The smaller lower fins weren't as easy. One fin fit in the extra balsa.
I traced around the template with pen. I used a pen here so it would show up in the picture.

TIP: It's not a great idea to draw fin lines on a body tube with pen. The ink will bleed through and be visible in the finish paint! Use a pencil to mark the body tube.

The second and third smaller fins will have to be pieced together.
Sure I could just cut fins from another balsa sheet but what challenge would that be?

1 comment:

  1. Looks great. Could you post the fin sizes?

    ReplyDelete