Estes Time Warp Build, #7321, Part 14, Fin Mask Fix?

The black fin was masked off by rolling a strip of tape over the rounded leading edge.

I attempt to "blend" in more sprayed yellow paint.

Notice the tape around the brushed and sanded white undercoat is "floating", not stuck to the surface. This makes a smoother merge of the surfaces.

You have to be sure to spray directly over and not from the sides. You don't want yellow spray on the black fins. 

Here's the touched up fin after pulling the tape and bag mask.

There is a slight discoloration of the over sprayed yellow.

Not perfect, but better than it was!

Estes Time Warp Build, #7321, Part 13, Fin Masking

Most of the masks turned out well after the tape was lifted. 

There were some scraping back of the black to round the leading edges.

Whoops! I had some black bleed around one fin leading edge.

The black was scraped off for a touchup.

White paint was touched up for a light undercoat. Yellow is a translucent color and needs white underneath.

It took three applications of the white. 

Light sanding between coats filled the depression left from the scraping.

Estes USS Enterprise #1275, Part 26, Ooops!

A comment by Naoto Kimura:

"Hrm... the probe end (i.e. the dowel) looks a tad long to me. 

I don't recall it projecting as far out when I built the model."

I thought the dowel seemed a bit long. Naoto is right!

I don't know why I cut the dowel long. I tend to follow dimensions in the instructions.

Measuring from the position of the plywood bulkhead - 

The dowel should have been 5 1/8" long. At the front the pencil mark shows that length.

The extra dowel length was cut off.

The front 1/2" was tapered but not to a needle point.

The first layer of the glue dot on the tip has been applied.

Enerjet by Aerotech Strong Arm Build, Part 10, You're Not Alone!

I see paint problems on the Facebook rocketry pages. It happens to all of us!

    

I usually have better luck at spray painting once the weather cools and the humidity drops.

No fancy masks on this one, the nose cone is sprayed a medium gray.

I did mask off the shoulder.

The initial two coats are sprayed on light, the third coat is sprayed on a bit wetter for a good, smooth gloss.

I checked them an hour later. Most of the nose cone was fine, the tip was not. The paint didn't craze or wrinkle, but there were bubbles!

I'll wait a day and sand smooth. After 48 hours I'll try again!