Honest Goon - Refinish - Finished

The Honest Goon looks better with the alternating black/white fin quarters.
The four spin rockets on the nose cone were drawn to look a bit more 3D.

The fin fillet seam (where the two pieces of vinyl meet) is almost invisible.
The semi-gloss vinyl Contact paper is the best!




On the left is the original build -
On the right is the refinished Honest Goon.
All in all, the refinish is an improvement over the first try.

The balsa is better filled and the decal treatment not as busy.
It's already flown at the schoolyard with a B6-4.

Next up - The Semroc S.P.E.V.

Honest Goon - Refinish Part 4, Black Fin Quarters

Instead of masking and spraying the black, I though I'd try something different.
The fins are square with no rounded edges. The body tube is a smooth surface. The Contact Paper just might work and be easier than masking.

An over sized rectangle was cut. I made sure the top and sides were square.
The long side was set into the fillet area, the square top between the fins.
In the picture I'm lightly pressing the black vinyl into the opposite fin fillet for marking and cutting.

The piece was lifted and the piece cut to width. The width was cut a little wide. The fin surface overlay will cover up this wide edge. This piece turns up and lays on the fin root edge a bit.


A wide outline tracing was made around a fin.

More vinyl was cut with the root edge straight and square.

The fin cover piece was set into the root edge. This slightly overlapped the wide center body tube piece that was already in place.

After lightly burnishing the cover pieces, the overlapping edges were trimmed down using a new blade.

The blade angle in the picture is a little high. It should be laying more flat against the fin edge.

Two more bands of the black vinyl were applied at the tops of the fins and end of the body tube.
The Honest Goon name sits between the black bands.
The bolt wrap decal is not centered between the black bands but sits between the two words.

Set the decals on dry to get an idea of the spacing. Set down "HONEST", then "GOON" allowing space for the bolt decal wrap.

Honest Goon - Refinish Part 3, Nose Cone Black Trim

I had to divide the nose cone in 12 equal spacings.
A strip of paper was wrapped an marked.
This was folded in two, those two halves folded in thirds and sixths.
Pencil ticks were made at all the folds.

The marked strip was taped around the nose cone.

I didn't make decals of the nose section roll pattern. I thought I'd wing-it with my favorite trim material, Contact Paper blackboard covering material.

This is an interesting roll pattern, four sets of bold "U" shapes.
A few guesses were made as too how wide these should be.
I'm not that concerned with any accuracy, it's not a scale model but a Goony.

The longer lower bottom of the "U" wouldn't sit flat on the adapter curve.
It had to be re-cut in more of a inverted trapazoid shape.
The top and bottom of the trapazoid were cut in an arc.

You can draw pencil reference lines on the Contact paper. It erases easily.

This turned out to be a set down, mark, lift and trim operation.
Getting roll patterns to meet up accurately is always hard.

That temporary thin black strip on top helped with alignment.

Honest Goon - Refinish Part 2, Decal Removal & Surface Prep

This nose cone section is bigger than you'd think!

After the decals were either lifted with tape or sanded off with 400 grit, here's what I was left with. The primer is starting to show, probably a good time to stop before going through into the balsa.

There's an Estes smile on the balsa adapter that got some CWF and was sanded smooth.

For some reason that black band right above the fins wouldn't sand off. I stopped before going too deep. What is left of the decal will be covered by a band of the Contact paper blackboard material anyway.

The decals on the fins were stubborn, too.
The primer was starting to show.

After filling the dings with CWF an sanding the model got a shot of gray primer/filler. More fine sanding followed.

The primer showed the bubbles in the lug fillets. Some Titebond M&TG took care of that.

Honest Goon - Refinish Part 1, Old Decal Removal

Here's a great small field flyer and a favorite Goony-
The HONEST GOON!

You can get the decals and plan set from Excelsior Rocketry HERE
The builder must supply a Baby Bertha kit, a BT70AJ, a TA6070, and a small ring of BT70.

This was an early BAR build, it's been through the wringer.
I liked the design but was never sold on the OIC-URGOONEY and OOPS decals.
The new decal draw will more reflect the look of the old Estes Honest John.
I don't know why I didn't paint the fin areas with the alternating black and white sides. 

Old clear coats are yellowing up. The model was also used to test the application of Future acrylic coats. 
Still very strong and not to terribly banged up. It's worthy of a refinish.

These decals were tough to remove. They've been in place for years.

Scotch tape was pressed down and quickly pulled up.
Some decals came off easily, others - not so much.

Most had to be sanded off with 400 grit sandpaper.

I'm doing a redraw of the decals and will print them off at home.
The Excelsior decals are great quality - I just wanted to draw some changes from the originals.

You can see where the clear coats have "pooled" on the trailing edge of a fin.
There isn't much grain but still could be better. Sanding down the white paint will fill in some of the shallow balsa grain pores.