After the fins are glued on the instructions have you carve and glue small wood triangles into the tail cone recess ring.
I didn't like the step: "When glue is dry cut away the excess balsa." I would be very hard to smooth the tight wood fill area.
Here's how the fins fit against the recessed tail cone ring. Notice the "V" shaped notch that needs to be filled.
To make the fit even harder, the sides of the "V" are rounded.
I cut two 3/32" square strips from the leftover balsa fin stock.
With the sticks turned on their side, the top was carved away leaving the "V" shaped piece.
These strips were cut longer than needed for easier handling.
Here the fin is set against the tail cone and body tube. The V shaped piece is slid in to show the fill.
I forgot which manufacturer it was, but there is a BBII fin template that incorporates the triangle into the root edge. Seems it would be easier to cut it out in one piece rather than trying to fit and sand after gluing the fin. I'll try to see if I can find out which one it was.
ReplyDeleteHi BAR,
DeleteThat's what I did in the end, fill the hole before gluing on the fin.
OK, I think I know where I got the template from. It may have been from the Rocsim file for the Cosmodrome BBII. My motto is "always take the easy way out". Cheers.
ReplyDelete