Enerjet by Aerotech, Arreauxbee-Hi, Finished

Here's the finished model.

The 30" rip-stop nylon parachute is attached to the long 1/4" wide elastic shock cord, 12" down from the upper body section.

The aluminum motor retainer is adhered to the end of the motor tube using 15 minute epoxy.

The low end with the six AT-022 fin stickers.

The fun part was getting all the pieced runway/tunnel pieces to line up.

The upper body payload section with the Aerotech General and Arreauxbee-Hi decals. Pieces of masking tape were set down as outside edge guides before centering and placing the two stickers.

The long nose cone and upper body painted silver.

Enerjet by Aerotech, Arreauxbee-Hi, Part 20, Fin Sticker Placement

If you can, try not to touch the adhesive side of the stickers.

Fingerprints can show under the sticker. I pick up and position them while stuck to the tip of my knife blade.

Before using your knife for this, wipe off and clean the blade. You want to keep the sticky side clean. 

After the backing is peeled off, 

Dip the sticker in water. This allows re-positioning on the fins. Before setting the sticker onto the fin, wet the fin where the sticker will go.

The sticker on the fin. The template window is used to check the position, centering and horizontal alignment.

This is the same method I used when placing decals on the Saturn V fins.

Here's another AT-022 sticker on the other side of the fin.

Work out the excess water using a Q-tip, rolling out the water and air from the center out to the sides.

Enerjet by Aerotech, Arreauxbee-Hi, Part 19, Fin Sticker Template

The AT-022 fin stickers go on both sides of the three fins. Make a template out of cardstock so all the stickers will be aligned.

It's hard to see with the white on white - 

There is some cardstock behind the fin. Set the left straight side of the cardstock into the root edge.

Trace around the fin with a pencil

Here's that cardstock tracing with a sticker window cut out.

The cut out window position is approximate using the box photos.

Lay a piece of clear Scotch tape over the window and cut out the window. You can see it if the pic is enlarged.

The sticker will be dipped in water to allow repositioning. The Scotch tape window border will prevent the excess water from soaking into the cardstock.

Here's how the window fits the AT-022 sticker. 

The bottom trailing edge has been cut off the template for easier alignment on the trailing edge of the fin.

The template can be flipped over and used on both sides of the fins.

Enerjet by Aerotech, Arreauxbee-Hi, Part 18, Rear Centering Ring

Snapping the fins in place distorts the round tube slightly. While the centering ring is a perfect circle, you might find it difficult to slide the ring in the rear.

There's no way to test the fit, remove it and adjust, so you'll have to do it ahead of sliding it in.

I marked one side so I could easily tell which side goes in.

The inside hole was filed to a slight angle to slide over the motor mount tube.

Notice the angle of the sanding block while sanding the outside edge of the ring.

This makes it easier to to slide past the inside lip of the tube.

The ring is slid in until it rests against the thru-the-wall fin root edges. Now wood glue fillets can be applied 

Notice the outside wrap of motor mount tube has peeled back. This happened when the inside of the centering ring was rubbing against the tube edge. No problem - the aluminum motor retainer will cover it.

Enerjet by Aerotech, Arreauxbee-Hi, Part 17, Upper Body Silver Mask

On the left is the black marked Scotch tape right above the top of the runways.

Masking tape and paper followed, covering the areas that will be painted silver. 

Here's the full mask on the upper tube after the orange was sprayed.

The tape was pulled.

The upper end, above the top of the runways, is sprayed silver. This required another pieced mask of the orange. It took a few pieces of tape to cover the square tops of the runways.

There is some paper towel in the top to keep paint out of the tube.

 

This shows a good, clean mask line of the orange and silver.

Enerjet by Aerotech, Arreauxbee-Hi, Part 16, Single Black Fin Mask

The body is masked off leaving the one fin that will be painted black.

Notice the tight area at the tip of the root edge. The conduit runway is almost butted up against the fin tip. I wrapped masking tape over the low end of the runway.

Again, this took three pieces of tape to follow the complex root edge shape. 

Here's the fin after the tape was pulled.

Enerjet by Aerotech, Arreauxbee-Hi, Part 15, Back To It

Back to building the Arreauxbee-Hi - 

You'll have to plan ahead as to which two fins will be white and the third remaining fin black.

Study the box picture. The name should be place on the body tube, the opposite side of the two launch lugs.

With the name "Aerotech General, Areauxbee-Hi" between two of the runway conduits, you can tell which fin should end up black.

 

The body, fins and nose cone are already painted white.

Don't spray the entire body and fins orange then try to paint two fins white. The white would take too many coats to cover the orange paint. You're better off masking off all three fins before spraying the orange paint. 

Shown above - 

It takes three separate pieces of blackened Scotch tape to follow the molded wedge shaped plastic fillets. 

Shown on the right -

This was followed by brown masking tape and paper to fully cover the fins

After the orange was shot -

Estes Star Stryker Build, #3206, Finished

The decals worked, the contrast is okay on the darker red.

This many fins on a BT-20 tube model makes glue fillets a chore. Sanding and smoothing the tight areas was rough.

The fin decals were printed so you couldn't apply them on both sides of the same fin. It still looks good with a decal on one side of all five fins.

The payload section needed some masking tape for a tighter fit of the nose cone and adapter shoulders.

A 12" parachute is always a tight fit in a BT-20 tube. The tri-fold shock cord mount could block a chute ejection.

All that considered, it's a good looking small payload model with too many fins.

Estes Star Stryker Build, #3206, Part 10, Decals - GOTCHA!

Vacationing in California - Drove past the elementary school where I launched rockets in the 1960s through 1970s. Sign of the times - gated and locked.

You get the impression the decals will be placed on both sides of three fins. The box cover picture shows two fins are solid red. 

GOTCHA: While it seems you have mirrored decals, these six decals will only fit on one side of the five fins.

So I'll set the fin decals on the right side of all five fins.

You'll end up with one extra.

This has happened in kits before. The decal print sure looks like the decals will be placed on both sides.

Do the wrap decal before setting on the name decal. You can better center the name decal in the open space after the wrap is in place.

The gray stripe was cut from the top of the decal and set it back from the top of the body tube and  expose a band of red paint on the tube.

TIP: I don't like to set wrap decals all the way to the end lip of the tube. That can cause the upper overhang decal edge to break and peel.

The name decal was set on the opposite side of the launch lug, centered above the root edge of a fin.

Estes Star Stryker Build, #3206, Part 9, Paint & Decal Planning

Here's the model in the red and black paint, before decals.

I used Ace Banner Red. It's pretty dark, probably too dark.

Some of the decal contrast will probably be lost.

In the the box art, the body looks to be more orange than red. Too late, I won't do a repaint.

The box picture shows stripes on some of the fins.

At first glance, it seems half of the fins get decals.

Well, three of the five fins get stripe decals on both sides.

I'll be in California on vacation until October 23. 50th High School Reunion. YIKES!

There may not be any posts until I return.

Estes Star Stryker Build, #3206, Part 8, Payload Section Painting

Here's the payload section after the white undercoats.

The center clear section will be masked off for the black paint. You've gotta' love an easy mask.

On the left is the adapter mask, 

On the right is the nose cone upper mask.

Notice the clear tape edge was marked with a Sharpie so I could see the mask line. You can see the marked tape better on the right side.

The black paint will go over the clear section to cover the balsa shoulder underneath. 

The center section was covered with brown masking tape.

After spraying and removing the masking tape.

Notice the black paint covers a little over the end of the bare balsa. The same goes for the nose cone base. This makes a cleaner look covering the wood shoulder underneath.

On a smooth surface (like the clear payload tube) you can get very sharp mask lines using Scotch tape.

Estes Star Stryker Build, #3206, Part 7, Lower Fin Gluing

The first lower fin glued in place.

Four more to go - 

On the left is how much glue I use on a root edge, right out of the bottle.

On the right is how much glue is used to tack the fin in place. Run your finger down the sides of the root edge picking up and removing excess.

Using less glue means very little squeeze out outside the body tube joint.

Viewed from the rear: 

At the 12 o'clock position you can make out the rear fin in line with the larger forward fins.

All ten fins and the launch lug and standoff in place.

This is a very busy tail end.

Estes Star Stryker Build, #3206, Part 6, Upper Fin Gluing

Here's the first of the upper five fins. 

On the left, notice the wrap of masking tape for positioning the high end tip of the leading edge.

The picture at the right shows the trailing edge on the pencil fin line.

All five upper fins in place. 

That tape wrap above keeps all the fin root edge tips in line.

I went ahead and started glue fillets before gluing on the lower, smaller fins.

I like to start applying glue fillets on the root edge body tube joint - at the top and bottom before filleting the longer sides.

This shows how much glue I use when making fillets.

On the left is the the wood glue right out of the bottle, drawn down the root edge of the fin.

On the right is the glue smoothed out with the tip on my little finger.

Estes Star Stryker Build, #3206, Part 5, Filler Primer Spraying

I slid the nose cone and adapter into the clear payload tube to spray on the filler/primer. 

The clear tube was masked off.

The body tube already had a seam fill of CWF and sanding.

A shot of filler/primer followed. Slide the engine mount into a painting dowel.

The fins were held down on scrap cardboard on tape with the sticky side up.

On the left is a fin after CWF and sanding. 

On the right is a fin side after spraying with filler/primer. 

Note the fin root edges are butted up against each other to keep the primer off the gluing surface.

Estes Star Stryker Build, #3206, Part 4, Joining Tubes & Fin Marking - Gotcha!

I sand the ends of the clear retainer ring with 400 grit to clean up the edges.

Here's the yellow coupler / engine block.

A line of glue is set inside the tube and the block is slid in until it rests against the top ben of the hook. 

Before gluing the long upper tube over the coupler - 

Slide the tube over the coupler (dry). Turn the tube until you get the best match of the two tube ends. Mark the position with pencil. 

Set a line of glue in the upper tube - slide over the coupler and turn so the pencil marks line up.

GOTCHA: The tube marking guide is printed a little wide to fit over the engine hook and retainer ring.

I marked the tube then rotated the guide to check the fin spacing against the next set of marks. It was off no matter how many times I turned the paper guide.

I went to payloadbay.com and printed off a new five fin marking guide. On the right you can see the difference between the two guides. The payloadbay.com guide is on the left.

The payloadbay.com marking guide was printed to fit a BT-20 tube.

I wrapped it above the engine hook and marked for the fins. Extend the marks down the tube.