RobertC
Active Member
Hello, this is my first proper post in here, I’ve been reading in here for quite a while, and usually can find the answers I’m looking for just by browsing around and I probably could have found the answers I’m looking for by browsing a bit more, but I figured I’d just ask for some help instead of browsing for hours. I am starting my first high power build, it’s a 4” LOC Phoenix. I decided to open it up and start working on filling the tube spirals earlier today, and before I started filling, I noticed some imperfections in the tube. These imperfections are raised, like oblong bubbles about 2” long, and they are in between the tube spirals in the paper. I started with filling the tube spirals with wood filler, and sanded the filler smooth, and while I was at it I tried sanding down the “bubbles” a bit. That seemed to work to some extent, so I moved on to spraying the tube with filler primer. This seems to have brought back or accentuated these bubbles. I feel like I could just sand these bubbles out all the way and it will look fine, but not knowing what caused these bubbles has me a little bit concerned about the integrity of the tube at these points. Before I even started, I considered fiberglassing the tube just to add a little strength to ensure a successful L1 certification, and also thought that it might make it easier to smooth out the final finish. I’m a bit of a perfectionist and I’ve been building scale plastic models for many years. I would like the final result on my rockets to be as close to scale looking as possible, and with my smaller stuff I think I’ve been pretty successful so far. With all that being said, I have a few questions for those who have some more experience than me.
Has anyone experienced these “bubbles” before, and should I be concerned about the tube integrity in these places?
Would there be any benefit to ‘glassing the tube? and if so, what weight cloth should I use? I have .75oz and 3oz cloth that I've used for other projects just sitting here waiting for me to find a use for it. My main concern is the weight/strength trade off.
Also, if I ‘glass the tube, should I ‘glass the fins as well? With this, my main concern is adding extra weight to the tail of a design that’s already relatively tail heavy.
Has anyone experienced these “bubbles” before, and should I be concerned about the tube integrity in these places?
Would there be any benefit to ‘glassing the tube? and if so, what weight cloth should I use? I have .75oz and 3oz cloth that I've used for other projects just sitting here waiting for me to find a use for it. My main concern is the weight/strength trade off.
Also, if I ‘glass the tube, should I ‘glass the fins as well? With this, my main concern is adding extra weight to the tail of a design that’s already relatively tail heavy.
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