Estes Paveway III Finished

This one was part of the Estes Enduring Freedom series from 2003.

An interesting build.
I took a small gamble using a decal over the semi gloss upper body but there as no silvering on the decal.
There were a few adjustments, from cutting down the upper body tube length and drawing up decals to avoid using the stick-ons. It still needs a clear coat.

Estes Paveway III Build, Part 15, Fixes

The fin reinforcement plates beside one fin were too close together.
There wasn't much paint inside the open area of the facing plates.
I brushed a bit of water inside the plates.
A penny and guitar pick were slid between the plates to open them up.
After the water had dried the plate spacing was closer to the other three.



The white stick on decals are already starting to lift around the body tube sides.
I'll have to slide some CA glue under the sides with a knife blade.

The tip of the X-Acto knife was dragged through a drop of CA glue.
The glue was wiped off one side of the blade on a paper towel.
Slide the glue under the edge of the lifted sticker.
A very small amount of CA was left under the sticker, not on the body tube.
Don't use much glue, if the CA glue gets on the paint there's no way to remove it other than sanding and repainting.

Roll over the raised sticker edge with a clean, sharpened dowel.

Estes Paveway III Build, Part 14, Shock Cord Mounts

This kit included a 19" long elastic shock cord.
19 inches? 
If you add in the two Estes tri-fold mounts and the recess inside the body tubes that only leaves about 10" of shock cord between the two halves!
That 10" span is before the overhand loop is tied to attach the parachute.
If I used the short kit shock cord there would certainly be some snap back damage at ejection.
I switched out a much longer piece of elastic.

There isn't a lug in the adapter base to tie the shock cord to.
The instructions have you make two tri-fold mounts. The shock cord is fed through the hollow adapter and the mount is glued inside the upper tube.

I decided to use a split segment of body tube for a stronger mount.
This is an early mount piece made from a BT-50 scrap. I ended up using a piece of BT-20.

Feed the shock cord through the adapter.
Loop and tie the shock cord around the body tube segment.

Apply a line of glue inside the upper tube.
Set the tube segment in the tube and press in place using the upper shoulder of the adapter.
After the white glue dries, glue the adapter into the upper tube.

1/3 the way down from the upper section a loop was tied into the shock cord for attachment of the parachute snap swivel.

Estes Paveway III Build, Part 13, Some Stick-ons

I hate stick-ons and had already re-drawn and printed the decals.

Some of the stick-ons had white backgrounds and I had to use those.
(I can't print white on my ink-jet printer)

The white spots were set onto the upper body, centered between the fins.
After the first one was set down, a wrap of tape gave me something to line up the other three.

Eight more white background spots were going on the lower fins.
I made a template to be sure they were all in the same place.

The fin was traced onto card stock.
A sharpened brass tube was used to drill and punch a hole in the card stock.

The template was placed on the fin lining up on the leading edge.

The "spots" were actually pushed through the hole on the template.

Simply flip over the template to set the spot on opposite facing fin.






My first try on the yellow bands were cut from yellow trim Monokote.

I didn't like the way they looked and ended up using the yellow decal bands I had printed up.

Estes Paveway III Build, Part 12, Aluminum Monokote Trim

The face card picture shows an aluminum band two places on the model. There is no silver band on the stick-on decal sheet.

The Monokote trim sheets were pulled out again.
A band about 1/4" was stuck on the back of the upper body.

At the fin can mask line a second band was applied.
This one is just over 1/8" wide.

Just like the earlier mask over the launch lug, I used a small piece to fit over the lug and into the fillets.







A longer piece was wrapped around the entire tube diameter.

The ends started and finished right in the fillet joint.

Estes Paveway III Build, Part 11, Upper Body Mask

This is an interesting mask on the smaller upper half.
The tube is sprayed olive drab and the fins are aluminum. The fins will have to be masked off and kept white for the aluminum coming later.

First, the Olive Drab.
Scotch tape masks don't bend easily around sharp corners.
I started with small rectangular pieces over the leading edge joint.
Longer side pieces were added.

Here's the complete mask for the olive drab spray.

The upper picture is after the first mask was removed.

The inset shot shows the olive drab body masked off for the aluminum fin spray.

The finished paint on the upper body.

Estes Paveway III Build, Part 10, White Undercoat and Sand

After the first white coat the dried the fillet boogers were sanded down with 400 grit.

The same fillet sanding was done on the back end along with a little more sanding of the tail cone joint seam.

Another coat of white followed.

The back end is gray to just above the fin can.
This mask intersects the launch lug. I should have looked ahead and planned better. If the lug was glued about 3/8" higher the mask would have been easier, but I followed the kit directions.

A small strip of Scotch tape was placed. It's easier to work around the launch lug first and then go around the tube with a longer piece. The ends of the longer piece end on either sides of the lug fillet.



After the gray mask was pulled, here's the color separation.
It's pretty clean and will be covered with an aluminum band later on.
This is the great Fixall gray spray paint mentioned earlier on the blog.

Here's the back end view.
There are a lot of complex surfaces here, most got fillets of Titebond M&TG. It came out well.

Estes Paveway III Build, Part 9A Upper Tube Length?

That upper BT-20 tube seems longer than the one shown  on the face card picture.

I tried to take a picture of the upper assembly at the same angel as the face card photo.

It was reduced until the lower (BT-60) body tube was about the same diameter. This was overlayed onto the face card picture.

It looks like it is twice the length it should be!

The paint scheme profile picture also shows it to be shorter.

Now the questions - 

Was the supplied tube longer for stability reasons?

The BT-20 is the same length as the supplied motor mount tube. Was this done just for kitting convenience?

Which length is closer to scale? Does it really matter?

From a quick Internet search, here's the GBU-24 Paveway I, II and III.
This kit is based on the third bomb at the bottom.
The upper tube is shorter than the one supplied in the kit.

A rough guess shows the tube is about twice the length of the upper fin root edge. I'll probably end up cutting the tube.



After looking at side views of the model I ended up cutting only 1/2" off the upper tube.
One wrap of masking tape was used as a cutting guide. An old casing was slipped in to provide something to cut against.

It's a small change but does look closer to the face card and above pics.

Estes Paveway III Build, Part 9 Fillets - Lots of Fillets

The instructions say to use plastic cement for fillets from the plastic tail cone to the rear of the model .
I've had this one tube of plastic cement for a few years and it's still good. Plastic glue fillets actually lay down pretty smooth.

There are root edge fillets on all eight fins (small front fins and large rear fins).
The launch lug gets fillets.
Around all the reinforcement plates are more fillets.

After these dried, second fillets were applied with Titebond M&TG.

Estes Paveway III Build, Part 8 Fin Gluing

The reinforcement pieces don't match the body tube contour well.

When set beside the large fin there is a gap all along the bottom.





I had to sand a slight bevel into the root edges for a better fit.






Here you can see the better fit of the root edges after sanding in the bevel.






When the side pieces were glued to the fin sides, the tops want to spread out.
I held them in line and touched some thin CA glue at the top.
The glue ran down the root edge and held them in line until fillets can be applied.

Estes Paveway III Build, Part 7 Fin Gluing

The reinforcement side pieces needed some adjustment sanding to get a good fit all down the tail cone sides.
I ended up doing a fit of all eight pieces individually. Each reinforcement piece was marked 1 - 8. The tail cone was also marked 1 - 8 so each piece had its matching location.
Blow molded parts can be inconsistent, not totally round and with dimples near some of the seams. Each reinforcement piece needed a separate fitting.

The reinforcement pieces were traced around while held beside the fins.
The reinforcement pieces were pulled a little inside their final location for sanding. I didn't want to take any chance of sanding outside their final glued on edge.
On the right, you can see where the remaining primer was sanded down for better glue adhesion.

The fins are large and hard to keep in place while drying.
It seemed every time the second fin was tacked down, the first fin would fall off. This is where the FinTool came in handy. It helped hold the fin in place while the glue set up.

The root edges weren't making great contact against the motor mount tube inside. When the reinforcement pieces are glued on the fins should be held strong.

Estes Paveway III Build, Part 6 Fin Grain Fill - WARPING?

Here's the rear of the kit face card showing how the fins are built up.

There's no way to get a good grain fill after everything is glued together. Best to fill the balsa now.

The reinforcement plates were die-cut from 1/16" balsa. The balsa grain runs down the short leading edge, not down the root edges facing you in the picture.

I've read about it on the forums before. 

Warps are caused when filling thinner balsa with water based CWF.

Brush it on one side and the balsa will warp as it dries. The balsa will curve up on the coated, wet side.

Let the one side dry a bit, no need to wait until it's totally dry to brush the filler on the other side.

Here's all eight of the reinforcement plates - after both sides got a coat of CWF and had dried.

All eight pieces are dry and flat!

I didn't have to let them dry under waxed paper and under a weight or in a heavy book. 

One side of the drying CWF filler counteracted the warp from the first coat.

While doing a dry fit of the fins I noticed there was no recess cut in the root edge for the Mylar retaining ring inside.
(The Mylar ring was marked with a permanent marker so you could see it in the picture.)
One fin was marked for a notch. The other fins were stacked on this fin and all were marked.
The notches were cut with a sharp knife.

Estes Paveway III Build, Part 5 Engine Hook Fix

Here's the before and after fixing the engine hook.

On the left, the engine hook is pressed tight between the tail cone and engine mount tube. The tube is compressed and not perfectly round.
A swelled engine casing would be hard to insert in an ovaled tube.

On the right, a notch was filed in the bottom inside edge of the plastic tail cone. There is enough room for the thickness of the engine hook and the tube is round again. Center the notch between two fin slots.
A simple and necessary fix.

With the tail cone and engine mount in place, the rings sit this far inside the body tube.
The motor mount tube was marked at the end of the main air frame tube.
A dowel was marked a little shorter so the upper ring would hit the glue ring before it was totally in position.

A ring of glue was applied around the top of the rounded dowel. The dowel is inserted into the tube and the glue rolled around using the pencil mark as a depth gauge. Three applications of glue were needed to get a ring around the inside of the BT-55.

I adjusted the engine mount height until the tube end was even with the end of the tail cone.

Estes Paveway III Build, Part 4 Tail Cone and Adapter

The tail cone and adapter were molded together as one piece. You have to cut them apart.

The instructions recommend a razor saw but I just used my hobby knife.
Don't try to cut through with one pass. Lighter pressure and three or four passes should do it.

Cutting off the through the wall fin nibs isn't difficult.
The instructions said to use a razor saw again, but I wouldn't use one here. You'll have more control using a hobby knife.
The blade easily follows the inside edge of the molding lines.

Be careful when you get close to the bottom, the knife will want to travel in and towards you.

Here's the tail cone with the nibs removed.
There might be a slight lip that should be sanded off for a better fit of the fins.

I wondered why a LPR needs TTW fins. This might be because gluing wood fins to a plastic tail cone won't be a strong enough joint.

Looking ahead: The fin slots in the tail cone are wider than the 3/32" thick fins! The side reinforcement pieces will cover up any root edge gaps.

Estes Paveway III Build, Part 3 Fin Prep

These fins were die-cut, before laser cut fins were the norm.
Some new kit instructions have you "gang sand" the laser cut fins. This is really unnecessary, laser cut fins should all be exactly the same! You should sand off the burnt laser cut sides of the fins, that's all.

Die-cut fins are cut using razor blade like pieces set in a wood block. It was nearly impossible to get all the blades in identical places on a second, third or fourth fin template.
The raised blades are quickly pressed into a balsa sheet.
This die-cutting (or die-crushing as we used to call it) isn't consistent from fin to fin, the blades can shift and get dull when cutting a run of balsa.
Die-cut fins do need to be gang sanded to get them all the same size.

There are eight reinforcement fin pieces, too many to be stacked and sanded at the same time. I did three at once.
The bottom fin root edge was marked and used as a master.
All the fins were sanded and trued using the master fin for consistency.

Always start a gang sanding by lining up one side, usually the root edge.
It's easier to tell which fins are high or low with one side flat and consistent.
Be sure your block of fins is standing up straight before sanding the edges.

Here's a good example of die-crushing. The outside edge of the third fin down from the top is pretty broken up.
Don't sand all the way down to smooth out the broken side. That takes too much off the fin sides changing the shape. You'll be able to fill this broken edge with CWF later on.

All the fins prepped for filling.
This is a lot of balsa!