Papering Fins

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pepe

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I just picked up the Estes Yankee and have a question about papering the fins.The kit comes with one sheet of balsa that I'm suppose to cut the fins out of ,I and I want to know if I can paper the whole sheet and then cut the fins out.It sounds easier if I'm not forgetting something.Thanks and Happy Labor Day
 
There are several threads on papering fins. Some people use glue sticks, some use white glue (NOT school glue) - make sure you do a very thin coat, some use spray adhesive

While you can paper the balsa first, the advantage of papering after is you can fold the paper over the leading edge so you don't have a paper/balsa edge in the wind stream. Also the balsa is easier to cut without the paper skin.

However you sometimes need to paper a fin without covering the leading edge anyway, such as if you have a complex fin. Then you can seal the edge with thin CA. Just do that outdoors, be careful not to glue yourself or other things together with the CA, and watch for drips/runs that can show up in your paint afterwards
 
Papering the balsa sheet will make it much more difficult to cut out the fins. The point of papering is to increase the strength of the wood, after all.
 
Once you have papered a fin, you will never go back to filling the fin grains. Happy papering.
 
Yes, you can paper an entire balsa sheet and cut the fins out of the sheet.

I have tried this with regular white glue, with glue sticks, and with spray on adhesive on 6x36" sheets of 1/16" and 1/8" balsa. All work.
The wood tends to warp particularly with white glue, but with the others a bit as well. You need to do both sides at once (a bit tricky.) I put the glue/adhesive on the BALSA first, then put the paper on, then smoothed it out.
I bought two four foot 10x48" shelf boards and covered them with wax paper. Once I glue the paper on the both sides of the balsa, I stick the whole thing between the two boards, set it flat on the floor, weight it down, and let it dry for 24 hours or more to prevent warping.
Once you start cutting it, make sure you keep track of which way the GRAIN is going on your balsa, once things are cut out of the rectangular sheet, can be hard to remember and isn't intuitively obvious.
The fact that you have to do both sides at once, and kind of fast or you REALLY get warping, makes it a bit challenging.

I've had a few cases where the paper peels back at the edges after cutting, I think likely due to not getting a complete even coat of glue on the wood in the first place. Might be a good idea after cutting but before sanding the non-root edges to take down the edges with thin CA. Some recent brilliant TRF'er (can't remember who) had a technique for putting the CA on a surface and using the edge of your fin to swipe across it, to give a very thin non-drippy "edge" of CA along the margin of the fin. Only works with straight edges, though.


edit, how could I forget K'tesh. Here is the post on the edges
https://www.rocketryforum.com/showt...-Fins-A-foolproof-method&highlight=glue+edges
 
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What kinda spray glue are you using? I've had fins papered with 3M for years without lifting or bubbling....hope you will be understand
 
You can paper fins with self-stick label paper. Just don't get the "removable" paper, the glue is too weak.

I have used both Avery and Staples brand 8 1/2 X 11 full sheet labels for almost all of my builds for the last several years.
 
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Here's a good way to do it.

[video=youtube;JnYBSbYr8ZE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnYBSbYr8ZE[/video]
 
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