Estes Saturn V #1969 Build, Part 23, Gluing The Fins And Fairings

TIP: To start - Glue just the front tip and rear edge of the fin to the body tube. Line up on the center pencil line drawn earlier. Using very little glue now will allow you to lift and re-position the fin if needed.

Slide the fairing over the fin. Check to be sure the rear of the fairing is even with the body tube. Also check the front to see if it is centered.

If the fairing fits well and between the corrugations, slide it off.
Now - Add the glue fillet to the sides of the fin. You can still do some last minute fitting with sandpaper if you see high areas and gaps.

Slide the fairing back on and brush liquid cement at all the joints. Add glue to the fairing sides first and the fin joint afterwards. Apply the liquid cement about 1/2" at a time holding the joint or seam together until the glue dries.

The first time I used the brush on Plastruct Plastic Weld glue I was concerned that it might melt the vacu-form plastic - It didn't!
TIP: To be safe - Test your brand of glue on some scrap vacu-form plastic. Always save your scraps until the model is finished!

Under a bright light you can see where the glue was applied down the "fillet" area. This will disappear under paint.
After a few hours, go back and check all the joints. If there is any lifted areas, re-glue.

Here's the fins and fairings in place.
The newer Styrene fins and fairing assembly are so much stronger than the old #2157 kit vacu-form fins.

Assembly time so far:
13:10 minutes previous
  1:00 minutes this post
14:10 Total so far