Aerotech now using body tubes with no spiral indentation?

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rhildinger

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Greetings All,

BAR here...

I just picked up an Aerotech Astrobee D kit, and in prepping for the build I noticed that the spirals on the main body tubes have little to no indentation or gap. You can see a line indicating where the spiral is, but it looks like it has been covered over with one last wrap of paper. Has anyone else noticed this? Or have they always used body tubes like this? The way it is currently I think a couple of coats of primer will hide any trace of a spiral without needing bondo...

-Robert
 
The Astrobee D that I am currently building does have a spiral that needs to be filled...albeit a small one. It is between the lines that you reference. Aerotech has always used quality tubes from my experience. I still filled mine with F&F. I remember thinking that I could get away with not filling my ARCAS tubes and ended up regretting it due to the number of coats of primer necessary to eliminate them.

Cheers,
Michael
 
I recently built w/ a LOC tube and thought the same thing. I did get most of the spiral out with Primer but it took a lot of sanding and a few coats. I think if I would have started with a small/light smear of filler it would have been less work.
 
what I noticed was the groove was smaller but the extra wrap of paper made a slight bulge where they overlap. I would rather fill a groove than try to smooth out the whole tube.
 
Yup on the LOC tubes there is actually a groove and a bulge. (cardboard wrapped w/ paper)
 
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