Aerotech Mega Initiator #89541, Part 19, Drilling The Rail Buttons

The rail buttons are centered between two fins, on the other side of the INITIATOR name sticker.

It's difficult to find the center on a round tube.

I used a piece of paper pressed into the root edge fillets.

Mark the two fold sides with pencil.

With your ruler, find the center and mark.

    

The lower hole is to be placed about 1/2" above the lower engine mount centering ring. That puts the hole position at about 1 1/2" from the rear of the body tube.

The upper hole is 8" above that.

Drill a pilot hole using a 1/16" drill bit.

Sight from the rear and make adjustments using the larger 1/8" drill.

Using the pilot hole as a guide,

Enlarge the rail button hole to 1/8".

Aerotech Mega Initiator #89541, Part 18, Setting The Name Sticker

From the last Mega Initiator post - 

With the O and R "cut" directly over the tube joint, sight down the body to make sure the orange line and type are straight. Tape down the sticker.  

Use your aluminum angle to check the orange stripe is straight.

The placement illustration says to overlap by 1/8", but I wanted to end up with a clean cut between the O and the R.

A 1/4" overlap puts the cut between the letters.

Double check the 1/4" overlay of the orange stripe joint before peeling off the backing.

I peeled the backing on the orange strip and lightly held the  vinyl. The backing was cut off up to the R. 

The orange stripe was set over the upper stripe matching the edges.

With the ends matched up, the backing is pulled under the name. Carefully set down the name checking the straightness as you go.

Add the "C" tail sticker at the low end of the orange stripe.

GOTCHA: The illustration drawing shows the "I" even with the top of the fins. The provided sticker lengths end up with the name higher up on the model.

Estes AMRAAM AIM-120 Downscale, Build, Part 14, Finished

There are PLENTY of small decals on the model.

It's confusing trying to apply them using the Estes instructions. I did my best, some placements are a good guess. 

Online pictures of the real missile don't show the AMRAAM name. It might be Estes took some liberties like they did with the old Honest John kit. The name Honest John never appeared on the actual missile.

Here's the upper end. 

I hope it's stable! There's 1/2 oz. of nose weight in the nose cone.

And the Back end - 

No tail cone, it's a semi-scale build at best.

Estes AMRAAM AIM-120 Downscale, Build, Part 13, Decals

Applying a light color home print decal over gray paint will end up a much darker color.

You'll need a white underlay.

Black decals don't need any white underneath.

You can either:

Use a white decal strip under the light colored decal or - 

Spray gloss white onto a clear decal sheet.

TIP: Cut a strip of the white sheet, the same width of the colored band.

Lay the white underlay strip down first as a regular water slide decal and let dry.

Apply the yellow strip decal directly over and on top of the white band. 

I didn't find it necessary to use the white strip under the brown decals. They were darker and didn't show much difference over the light gray paint. 

Set the strips down a little long, and trim against the root edge of the conduit with a single edge razor blade.

Estes AMRAAM AIM-120 Downscale, Build, Part 12, Shock Cord & Parachute

The elastic shock cord was tied to the lug at the bottom of the nose cone shoulder. Notice the tail was not cut off.

When packing the chute, the short shock cord tail can get wedged between the nose cone shoulder and the end of the body tube.

TIP: On this style nose cone - Push the shock cord tail inside the open holes beneath the tie off lug.

The parachute shroud lines were tied to a shock cord loop a few inches away from the nose cone. 

I used the Target bag parachute shown in an earlier blog post.

Estes AMRAAM AIM-120 Downscale, Build, Part 11, Gray Paint & Decal Print

Here's the lower half, painted with Ace Hardware Light Gray.

The upper half, also in Light Gray.

There are still some glue boogers that need to be sanded.

Another final light gray coat will follow.

The nose cone is painted white.

I drew up decals for the downscale BT-50 size.

The decal sheet is only available to Patreon supporters.

Email me at oddlrockets@bellsouth.net and ask for the AMRAAM decals.

The home print PDF also includes fin patterns and a parts list.

The picture shows an early version of the decal sheet. I've made changes so the decal positions match the Estes sheet.

Estes AMRAAM AIM-120 Downscale, Build, Part 10, Fillets & White Undercoats

I know, I'm bouncing between builds! I'm sure you have two or three rockets in progress at one time.

Even though I had a fairly tight fit, there were still bubbles in the conduit glue fillets!

There isn't much space between the fins and conduit for a glue fillet.

I applied a line of wood glue to a Q-tip and spread the fillet drop by drop. 

White undercoats have been sprayed.

After the paint dried, those fillets between the fins and conduits weren't that smooth. The rough areas required some sanding with 400 grit before additional white coats.