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Saturday, September 2, 2017

Apogee Shrockets Skonk Wulf Build, Part 5, Balsa Filling

The large wing fins are two-piece.
In Step 15, the instructions would have you glue on the rear fin piece after the engine mount and main fins are glued in. I didn't see any real reason to glue the rear fin piece afterwards. It just meant more joint filling if you waited until Step 15.

After the CWF was sanded smooth I did some test fitting before gluing in the engine mount. The root edges of the fins are a little above the body tube. Some light sanding of the fin tangs brought the root edge down.

This is not a problem, I'd rather have the fin tangs a bit long for a custom fit.

The balsa is taped down to a piece of cardboard for a spray of filler/primer.

TIP: On the forums I read about others doing many coats of primer and sanding to fill balsa. As mentioned before, I do just one coat of CWF and sanding then one fairly thick coat of Duplicolor Filler/Primer and sanding. That's all you should need to fill the balsa pores.
Sure, the Duplicolor Primer/Filler is more expensive than the $1 a can crap from WalMart. One can goes a long way. One coat of the good stuff sure beats four or five coats and sanding between coats of the cheap stuff.

These are the wing tips and forward fins.

On the right is the sprayed and dried grey primer/filler.
On the left is the primer/filler sanded down. Notice most all of it is removed with sandpaper on a block. The only primer/filler that remains has filled whatever grain is left after the initial CWF coat.

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