Estes Airborne Surveillance Missile Build, #0867, Part 3, Balsa Filling

The sides of the dowel end support ring (Part D) are laser cut - blackened and rough.

Sand some of the ash off with 400 grit.

Round off and seal the edges with a bead of glue. Make the glue bead as round and even as you can with a fingertip. 

Let dry and lightly sand with 400 grit.

The upper fins (Part J) are tiny!

Here I'm giving them a coat of CWF. These are hard to hold on to, lots of filler on my fingers.

After sanding the CWF to surface, the fins are taped down to a scrap cardboard for spraying. Spray one side and let dry.

Flip over the fins and spray the other side.

12 fins on a little rocket - yikes!

This is the type of balsa that ended up with small areas that didn't get  a thorough fill with the CWF. A few grain lines showed after the filler/primer 

Before sanding the gray filler/primer, some CWF was rubbed into the open grain.