Pre-painting Before Final Assembly.. or Wait Until After?

At this point I'm pretty much done with wood filling and sanding on my BT-50 based X-Wing. Engine pod components are done and it's time for final assembly.

But.. I have a question.

• Glue the engine pods to the body tube and then paint... or pre-paint and then glue?

The rocket is so small I'm afraid I won't have access to allow spray paint coverage of all the parts.

Maybe glue the larger front section of the engine pod to the body tube, then paint, then attach the smaller rear section after paint?

What say ye folks? As always, thanks in advance for your thoughts.

One fear I have is the strength of the wood glue bonds to paint.

Photo's below show the engine pods mocked up... engine pods aren't glued together, or glued to the rocket.

Wood glue won’t be a good chioce if you pre paint. And if you do pre paint any glue will have a different finish that the paint.

I once built an Estes CC Express where I painted the parts before assembly. I used a Dremel with buffing wheel to buff off the paint down to the cardboard where the fins attached. Didn't work so good, two fins broke off on landing the first time I flew it.

The best way I know to do this and be successful with it, is to mask the area where the glue will be before you paint. On both parts. You may not be able to put very good fillets on it, but if you prep the surface of the tubes (sanding or cutting & pealing the glassine off, Titebond 2 will keep em together very well. In this construction, you can see where the tape mask was inside the larger tube. That was where the internal fins/motor mount was going to be installed. Flown it a dozen times and still holding as well as when it was built.

+1 I've masked joint areas and pre-painted multiple times with no issues. You do need to mask both pieces.
I use regular blue tape that I've cut into 1/8" wide strips for the mask

Whoops wrong thread.