Unmasking is nerve-racking.
After removing everything tonight, it looked mostly pretty good:
My curvy Tamiya tape seemed to do pretty well around the fin muscle. Only in one spot did it really bleed:
That was cleaned up pretty easily with a #11 blade. There are a few spots at the tail of the rocket around the engine mount that'll need to be touched up by hand; I'll get around to that eventually.
Recall that I used vinyl "4"s to mask the fins. The first one came off nicely:
The second one, not so much:
It pulled off the white paint and a good bit of the surface papering of the fin (which I suppose was pretty well joined to the paint.) "Bummer". Haven't decided yet the absolute best way to fix this, but I'll manage something. Fortunately, the "4"s aren't really the most important design feature of the rocket, so if it isn't absolutely perfecto then it'll be OK. But I guess sticking the vinyl to my thumb several times was not sufficient to weaken it up. Next time I shall apply it to my pants, to pick up some lint.
Getting the roll pattern wrap perfectly positioned was a chore, but I eventually got it (after several failed attempts):
Hard to see in the picture, but I spliced an extra piece of red just in front of the lug, because the wrap had to stop at the lug fillets and left a gap. Looked very good, but could still be better. Fortunately I was prepared with some extra pieces:
That's an extra piece wrapped around the lug, so now it's part of the roll pattern. The lug looks very well integrated into the decor now, I'm very happy with the way it turned out.
Here's the meatball I came up with for this rocket, mostly based on an initial design from Mark Hayes:
Not bad given my meager graphics skills.
And here's where it stands right now (no pun intended): Everything is on except the windows, which will take some special effort and preparation. I'll get to them soon I hope.
Hey, it looks like a real rocket now!