Tutorial for Papering Fins?

Looking to upgrade my finishing skills to the next step. Anyone have a link to a good papering tutorial?

Disclaimer: there are many, many ways to do papering. All of them (well, *most* of them) work great. There's at least one full-blown tutorial here on TRF that you should be able to find if you search. I think it's by K'Tesh.

I use Avery labels and wood glue. I don't have a proper tutorial but here's a post linking to my various descriptions: https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/cwf-on-balsa.148015/#post-1816010

I also posted a few more recent refinements here: https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/alcubierre-build-thread.148195/page-2#post-1821263.

Again, this isn't the only way or even necessarily the best way, it's just *my* way, and I've had excellent results with it (as I believe others would attest).

It's cheap and easy to experiment with scrap balsa pieces.

This is going to sound like an echo chamber but I uses the same product as Neil.

Avery self adhesive shipping labels. I buy mine from Walmart, Meijers, OfficeMax, Staples.

The self adhesive backing is what drew me to them. I just stick one side to the label, run an xacto knife around the fin, flip and repeat.

I seal the edges (except for the root edge) with thin CA, applied with paper towel or a q tip.

So far, for large wings on my rocket gliders I smear Elmer's white glue on 8-1/2" x 11" 20 pound stationery paper. I then place the paper glue-side down on 6" wide by 1/8" thick balsa sheets (aluminum foil underneath the balsa on the dry side) with a large drawing board underneath. I then put aluminum foil on top of the wet stationery with a heavy book on top of that. When the glue dries, I flip the material over and repeat on the other side. The process is tedious, however, the material is large enough for a wing, is strong and light, and can be cut with a scroll saw.

I just bought some 8-1/2" x 11" label paper. I am thinking of experimenting with it to see if there are any short cuts for making wing material.

Thanks very much. I was confused how I could wrap the leading and other edges, now I see that I don’t have to do those.

I don't do that, but some folks do.

If the leading edge of the fin is straight, you can wrap the paper around that edge. The leaves you a nice smooth leading edge. I stopped trying to do that early on, didn't seem to add any value and besides a lot of my fins have curved leading edges.

No time to go into more detail...

https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/papering-balsa-ply-fins-a-foolproof-method.65628/

Fantastic. I’m going to try these techniques on a High Flier. After that I may just toss my sanding sealer into a bonfire.