Estes Saturn V #1969 Build, Part 13, Cutting Out The Vacu-Form Wraps

The vacu-form wraps are cut out with a 1/16" border. That border gives you a small flat edge surface for the spray glue adhesion.

I tend to cut the seam sides (right and left sides) wider than 1/16".
The wrap is rolled around the tube and the over lap marked with pencil.



The overlap is cut off, the same width on both sides.
TIP: Notice my ruler is turned over so the metal side is closer to the wrap. I don't want to take any chances raising the cutting guide, the blade angle could change.
TIP: Tape the wrap to your work area so it won't shift when cutting.

Wrap the wrap, trim a bit and check again until the butted up edges are close and have a very slight overlap.

When you get close to a near fit, sand the overlap to the perfect fit.




Here is some of the left-over trimmed edges.

Save these, you might need them to fill a gap if the ends were cut too short.

Each square wrap takes about 5 minutes to rough cut out, the inter stage wrap took twenty minutes.

Here's an example of the inter stage wrap to show the 1/16" glue border.

The Body Wrap Reduction and Third Stage Wrap will be covered later on.
Assembly time so far:
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