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Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Estes Payloader II #3022 Build, Part 11, Shoulder Painting TIP

Occasionally you see clear payload models at club launches. Chances are, the nose cone is painted off the model and the shoulder is also sprayed. The painted shoulder ends up underneath the clear payload tubing. Even the model pictured at the top of the Estes instructions has the nose and nose block shoulders painted under the clear tube!
The Estes instructions tell you nothing about masking the clear payload tube. Step 10 of the finishing instructions say to: "Paint the nose cone gloss bright red." What about masking the shoulders?
Centuri had a better way, from the original Payloader II instructions - 
TIP: Paint the clear tube covering up the balsa nose cone and nose block shoulders!
The instructions add: "This is the best technique because the paint hides the visible parts of the connector and insert."


On the left is my Scotch tape mask just over and covering the end of the balsa nose block. (The block got a coat of CWF to increase it's diameter for a tighter fit.) The rest of the clear section was masked off. The low end of the exposed balsa nose block was set in the body tube, no paint got on it.

The inset picture shows the tube with the mask removed. Clean and covered!
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5 comments:

  1. LonnieMarch 4, 2015 at 9:29 PM

    Or you could use tape.

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    Replies
    1. Chris MichielssenMarch 5, 2015 at 10:36 AM

      Hi Lonnie,
      I could have used tape! My concern with tape is how gummy it gets over time.

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    2. Naoto KimuraMarch 5, 2015 at 2:43 PM

      With regards to painting the exterior of the clear tube -- that's the only solution that could think of back when I'd built the old X-ray kit. The instructions had you apply self-adhesive tape onto the balsa transition piece, then use white glue to glue the clear tube onto the transition. This of course meant that now you ended up with an unsightly appearance of tape squares on balsa visible through the clear tube. Painting the transition could take care of that, but would result in poor glue bond (white glue won't stick to paint). Thus the only solution was to paint part of the plastic tube (and hope that the paint will stick to the particular plastic used for the clear plastic tube). And yep, the instructions didn't say anything about painting the tube.

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    3. Chris MichielssenMarch 5, 2015 at 8:16 PM

      Hi Naoto,
      On clear payload models, I had painted the tubes (covering up the balsa shoulder) before I found these old Centuri instructions. I remember the old tape strips to hold the clear tube on.
      Check out the X-ray instructions on JimZs:
      http://www.spacemodeling.org/JimZ/estes/k-18.pdf
      They have you put the tape strips on the inside of the clear tube.
      Interesting, the (finished model) instruction drawings, you can see the tape strips through the clear tube.
      You are right, paint on the transition shoulders won't give a good glue bond. But, that's what the Estes Payloader instructions don't tell you to mask them!
      The Rusto 2X paint did stick to the clear tube very well. I didn't rough up the tube where the paint would go.

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    4. Naoto KimuraMarch 7, 2015 at 7:59 AM

      Thanks for the correction (memory isn't quite what it used to be) -- I got it backwards. Yup, you stick the tape onto the inside of the tube, not the shoulder, then glue the tube and balsa transition together. The adhesive of the tape strips holds onto the plastic tube, and the white glue sticks the paper of the tape strip to the balsa.

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