Estes AMRAAM AIM-120 Downscale, Build, Part 14, Finished

There are PLENTY of small decals on the model.

It's confusing trying to apply them using the Estes instructions. I did my best, some placements are a good guess. 

Online pictures of the real missile don't show the AMRAAM name. It might be Estes took some liberties like they did with the old Honest John kit. The name Honest John never appeared on the actual missile.

Here's the upper end. 

I hope it's stable! There's 1/2 oz. of nose weight in the nose cone.

And the Back end - 

No tail cone, it's a semi-scale build at best.

Estes AMRAAM AIM-120 Downscale, Build, Part 13, Decals

Applying a light color home print decal over gray paint will end up a much darker color.

You'll need a white underlay.

Black decals don't need any white underneath.

You can either:

Use a white decal strip under the light colored decal or - 

Spray gloss white onto a clear decal sheet.

TIP: Cut a strip of the white sheet, the same width of the colored band.

Lay the white underlay strip down first as a regular water slide decal and let dry.

Apply the yellow strip decal directly over and on top of the white band. 

I didn't find it necessary to use the white strip under the brown decals. They were darker and didn't show much difference over the light gray paint. 

Set the strips down a little long, and trim against the root edge of the conduit with a single edge razor blade.

Estes AMRAAM AIM-120 Downscale, Build, Part 12, Shock Cord & Parachute

The elastic shock cord was tied to the lug at the bottom of the nose cone shoulder. Notice the tail was not cut off.

When packing the chute, the short shock cord tail can get wedged between the nose cone shoulder and the end of the body tube.

TIP: On this style nose cone - Push the shock cord tail inside the open holes beneath the tie off lug.

The parachute shroud lines were tied to a shock cord loop a few inches away from the nose cone. 

I used the Target bag parachute shown in an earlier blog post.

Estes AMRAAM AIM-120 Downscale, Build, Part 11, Gray Paint & Decal Print

Here's the lower half, painted with Ace Hardware Light Gray.

The upper half, also in Light Gray.

There are still some glue boogers that need to be sanded.

Another final light gray coat will follow.

The nose cone is painted white.

I drew up decals for the downscale BT-50 size.

The decal sheet is only available to Patreon supporters.

Email me at oddlrockets@bellsouth.net and ask for the AMRAAM decals.

The home print PDF also includes fin patterns and a parts list.

The picture shows an early version of the decal sheet. I've made changes so the decal positions match the Estes sheet.

Estes AMRAAM AIM-120 Downscale, Build, Part 10, Fillets & White Undercoats

I know, I'm bouncing between builds! I'm sure you have two or three rockets in progress at one time.

Even though I had a fairly tight fit, there were still bubbles in the conduit glue fillets!

There isn't much space between the fins and conduit for a glue fillet.

I applied a line of wood glue to a Q-tip and spread the fillet drop by drop. 

White undercoats have been sprayed.

After the paint dried, those fillets between the fins and conduits weren't that smooth. The rough areas required some sanding with 400 grit before additional white coats.

Aerotech Mega Initiator #89541, Part 17, Setting The Name Sticker

Take it from an old typesetter - 

"Os" are typically taller and extend beyond the baselines of the other letters.

Be careful when trimming close so you don't cut off the top and bottom of the O.

You have to decide if the vertical orange line or the name INITIATOR will be centered between two fins.

The INITIATOR name is bolder so I decided to center that vertically.

Don't peel the backing off yet. With tape on the back to hold it onto the tube, measure and center the name. 

I am holding the name low, between the fins to find the center.

Rotate the to upper tube to line up the lower vertical orange line with the upper line trailing down. I used my aluminum angle to position the lines.

When both the orange ends are joined and touching, tape the body tube to keep everything in line.

With the vertical orange line overlapping about 1/4" at the top, it puts the break line between the O and the R.

Wait until the next post before peeling off the backing.

Aerotech Mega Initiator #89541, Part 16, Pulling The Mask - Sucess!

The nose cone was slipped in and the upper end was sprayed with Rusto 2X Apple red. 

I would normally prefer using Ace Hardware Premium Enamel, but their "Banner Red" is darker and I wanted to get close to the red color on the model stickers. In the end, if the top roll sticker and bottom fin red colors are a close match. You can't tell a difference with the visual distance between them.

After about 30 minutes the paint dried quick enough to pull the masks.

The color mask lines were clean and sharp.

I had a small bit of red that got under the tape.

This was easily scraped off the clear area using a knife blade.