Estes Star Stryker Build, #3206, Part 7, Lower Fin Gluing

The first lower fin glued in place.

Four more to go - 

On the left is how much glue I use on a root edge, right out of the bottle.

On the right is how much glue is used to tack the fin in place. Run your finger down the sides of the root edge picking up and removing excess.

Using less glue means very little squeeze out outside the body tube joint.

Viewed from the rear: 

At the 12 o'clock position you can make out the rear fin in line with the larger forward fins.

All ten fins and the launch lug and standoff in place.

This is a very busy tail end.

Estes Star Stryker Build, #3206, Part 6, Upper Fin Gluing

Here's the first of the upper five fins. 

On the left, notice the wrap of masking tape for positioning the high end tip of the leading edge.

The picture at the right shows the trailing edge on the pencil fin line.

All five upper fins in place. 

That tape wrap above keeps all the fin root edge tips in line.

I went ahead and started glue fillets before gluing on the lower, smaller fins.

I like to start applying glue fillets on the root edge body tube joint - at the top and bottom before filleting the longer sides.

This shows how much glue I use when making fillets.

On the left is the the wood glue right out of the bottle, drawn down the root edge of the fin.

On the right is the glue smoothed out with the tip on my little finger.

Estes Star Stryker Build, #3206, Part 5, Filler Primer Spraying

I slid the nose cone and adapter into the clear payload tube to spray on the filler/primer. 

The clear tube was masked off.

The body tube already had a seam fill of CWF and sanding.

A shot of filler/primer followed. Slide the engine mount into a painting dowel.

The fins were held down on scrap cardboard on tape with the sticky side up.

On the left is a fin after CWF and sanding. 

On the right is a fin side after spraying with filler/primer. 

Note the fin root edges are butted up against each other to keep the primer off the gluing surface.

Estes Star Stryker Build, #3206, Part 4, Joining Tubes & Fin Marking - Gotcha!

I sand the ends of the clear retainer ring with 400 grit to clean up the edges.

Here's the yellow coupler / engine block.

A line of glue is set inside the tube and the block is slid in until it rests against the top ben of the hook. 

Before gluing the long upper tube over the coupler - 

Slide the tube over the coupler (dry). Turn the tube until you get the best match of the two tube ends. Mark the position with pencil. 

Set a line of glue in the upper tube - slide over the coupler and turn so the pencil marks line up.

GOTCHA: The tube marking guide is printed a little wide to fit over the engine hook and retainer ring.

I marked the tube then rotated the guide to check the fin spacing against the next set of marks. It was off no matter how many times I turned the paper guide.

I went to payloadbay.com and printed off a new five fin marking guide. On the right you can see the difference between the two guides. The payloadbay.com guide is on the left.

The payloadbay.com marking guide was printed to fit a BT-20 tube.

I wrapped it above the engine hook and marked for the fins. Extend the marks down the tube.

Estes Star Stryker Build, #3206, Part 3, Engine Hook & Engine Mount

I don't like finger tabs on engine hooks. 

Score it with a wire cutter, then bend back and forth until it breaks off. File off any rough edges.

Flip over with the cut end up.

I made a bent a slight curve into the engine hook.

The extra tension makes for a better hold of the engine. 

Some history:

The top picture is from the Estes instructions.

Notice the engine tube is 3" long, the hook extends 1/4" over the low end.

A couple joins the engine tube to the longer upper tube. The coupler also serves as the engine block.

This design was first used in some minimum diameter Centuri kits. This instruction illustration is from the Scram Jet.

Gluing an engine block in the correct position (by sliding it into some glue in the tube) has always been iffy, especially for first time builders. Gluing a coupler in a shorter tube from the top does two things. It easily places the engine block in the correct position. The longer engine block works as a coupler joining the two tube lengths.

Estes Star Stryker Build, #3206, Part 2, Parts Prep

 

Mentioned earlier, this build was already started.

The only thing done was the body tube seams and balsa got some CWF fill and sanding.

The pieces were stored in a small zip bag.

On the left side is the launch lug standoff.

There was a little bit of CWF inside the end of the launch lug.

To clear it, a sharpened dowel was turned in the end of the lug. Turn in the same direction as the tube spirals.

The lug ended up about 1/32" longer than the top surface of the standoff.

This was trimmed back using a single edge razor blade.

Estes Star Stryker Build, #3206, Part 1, Parts

 

The Arreauxbee Hi build is on hold while waiting for the hurricane and rain to clear - 

I picked this one up a few years ago.

Started it, then set it aside.

This was a boxed kit, I may have picked up at WalMart.

This one reminds me of the old Estes X-Ray.

Two sets of five fins, ten fins in total.

These will be fun to glue on, line up and fillet the close fins.

Here's the specs -

All  the parts:

The parachute isn't printed. At the time this kit was produced, there was some concerns about the ink.

You can see the fins, balsa nose cone and adapter already have a sanded filler coat of CWF. That's as far as I got previously.

Only one fin set is shown here. There are five sets of two fins.