"Papering" Fin-Tube Joints

Hey guys,
How do you all go about strengthening fin-tube joints on LPR-MPR? I'm just using paper body tubes and balsa and basswood for fins. I saw a thread where it looked like someone used tissue paper to add strength to these joints. How would one go about this? I've papered fins, but you can't really put a body tube between books to get the paper to sit right...
Thank you!

I did a test with some plain copier paper with elmers wood glue. I didn't get good looking results. This was to reduce the amount of sanding for a nice finish but ended up with wrinkled paper on the surface...


I'm now thinking of using tissue paper and elmers white glue to get a smooth surface and possibly add a bit of strength below the fin fillets at the fin root.

I've successfully used small pieces (about 1/4" by the length of the fin root) of sheet label stock as fillets - put about half on the fin and the other half on the tube. If you're worried about air flow, a bit of fill-n-finish to smooth out the edges should take care of that. I was more interested in making sure the fins stayed in place - this was on the fin-can of a vellum duration model. I'd had a fin shread before with this model, so I wanted to make sure it didn't happen again (getting 1/64 ply fins to stay put is kinda difficult).

I did two tests on some scrap balsa. I only performed these on one side of the balsa sheet and used two scraps from the same larger "parent" piece.

Test one used elmers white glue 75% and water 25% mixed, brushed onto the balsa and then I applied the tissue with a brush to push it down and wet the spots of tissue that didn't seem wet when brushed down.

It seems there was shrinkage as the balsa was cupped towards the tissue paper.

Test two used minwax polycrylic waterbased wood sealer straight. I layed the tissue onto the balsa and then bruched on the minwax. You can tell once it's soaked through and soaking into the wood. I only did one coat.

There was no shrinkage on the tissue side of the balsa. I'll have to apply a second coat to see what happens.

Between the two tests the adhesion of the tissue to balsa seemed about the same. The tissue was always VERY close to tearing as I lifted it away from the balsa.

I like the results with minwax and I believe I could apply the tissue to one side of the fin, let it dry, and wrap the tissue around the leading edge and minwax the second side to maintain a single sheet and also have some tissue along the root edge to give some added strength on that joint to the body tube.

I did this on my Andromeda clone build to add strength on the connection to the body tubes and I also liked the "look" that resulted, almost looking like "metal plates". Check out the Andromeda build on my links below and you can see some of those pics.

This one specifically: andromeda19.jpg