Estes Aries SST, #1927, Build, Part 17, Adding The Second "Finlet"

I drew a pencil line for the second finlet by sighting down the nose cone tip.

This seemed iffy, I matched the straight angle by matching the knife angle to the finlet in the nose cone.

Removing the finlet you can see the slot that was crushed into the balsa. It's actually pretty clean, a tight fit.

The second finlet is pressed into it's slot.

I was lucky - the alignment is good.

After adjusting the height of the finlets, there was a small gap at the bottom of one slot.

A wedge of balsa was cut and pressed into the void. The edges of the finlets should be rounded.

Here's the two nose cones (balsa above the 3D print) compared side by side. If the balsa cone were filled and painted I doubt you could tell the difference. The basswood finlets are a little thicker.

They are the same length, there is a little photo distortion.

Estes Aries SST, #1927, Build, Part 16, Making a "Finlet" Nose Cone

If you don't have a plastic PNC-50S nose cone (with the finlets) You can make one using a BNC-50Y balsa nose cone and some 1/16" thick basswood.

When researching this build, I checked the old Vashon Sandpiper instructions. To see them, CLICK HERE

The balsa nose cone gets a slot cut, and the tapered canard root edge is pushed into the slot. 

I thought this would be iffy, but I had an extra BNC-50Y nose cone to experiment with.

The finlets (or canards) pattern is on the PDF available to Patreon subscribers.

The Vashon kit used balsa, but I'd recommend using stiffer basswood.

Cut out the pattern and trace onto 1/16" thick basswood.

The distance behind the trailing edge of the finlet to the shoulder lip is just under 1 3/4".

Mark a straight line with pencil the length of the root edge.

Mark the depth of the exposed root edge on the finlet.

Using a sanding block, sand a sharp taper to the inset tab.

Cut a slit about the depth of the inset tab. There is no need to cut and remove balsa.

Cut another slit on both sides, just to the side of the first slit. Side by side, the three slits are about 1/32" in width.

You should be able to press in the tapered tab up the root edge pencil line.

Starlight Jayhawk Build Part 19 Canard Placement

This shows the canards in place.

The canard on the left is set in it's hole, no glue yet.

Here's the dry-fit Jayhawk up 'till now.

I'm still deciding whether or not to paint the nose cone before glueing them in. If I glued them on after painting the black there won't be any tricky masking.

Starlight Jayhawk Build Part 18 Canard Placement

Using the same small pin vise, a hole was drilled into the root edge of both canards. While drilling, keep turning and checking the canard to make sure the drill is going in straight.

Two pins ends were cut off to about 3/8" long, a little shorter than the picture shows.

Glue the cut pins into the holes you already glued with CA.

Keep the glue in the holes and not on the root edge. You want to keep that edge smooth so you'll get a good fit against the nose cone curve.

Starlight Jayhawk Build Part 17 Canard Placement

To get a "near" correct position of the canards, I looked at the old Centuri Magnum instruction drawings.
I kept messing with the enlargement until I got it to match the length of the model. Notice the diameter of the Jayhawk screen drawing is wider than the model.

This gave me a good idea of where to mount the canards on the nose cone instead of farther down on the body tube.

The root edge of the canards had to have a slight sanding to match curve of the nose cone.

I decided to use a cut needle set into the root edge of the canards for some support.

A hole was drilled through the wall of the nose cone to accept the needle