Banishing Tube Spirals
- Thread starter brockrwood
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mh9162013
Well-Known Member
Just an observation from today:
I tried to deal with spirals with CWF, only this time I did it with a BT-50 body tube and used my thumb to smear it into the grooves. Seemed like this smearing technique worked well and I will see if it works with BT-20 body tubes on my next build that uses that sized tubing.
Perhaps it's already been mentioned before (I think it has, but not sure when or which thread), that when getting the best finish on a body tube, sometimes there are spiral ridges to deal with, in addition to the grooves. I never noticed this with BT-20 tubing (which is my primary rocket size), but when working with Estes BT-50 tubing, I noticed this issue. So I think using a hybrid approach of sandable/filler primer + CWF might be a great combination with certain body tubes to deal with both as efficiently as possible.
I tried to deal with spirals with CWF, only this time I did it with a BT-50 body tube and used my thumb to smear it into the grooves. Seemed like this smearing technique worked well and I will see if it works with BT-20 body tubes on my next build that uses that sized tubing.
Perhaps it's already been mentioned before (I think it has, but not sure when or which thread), that when getting the best finish on a body tube, sometimes there are spiral ridges to deal with, in addition to the grooves. I never noticed this with BT-20 tubing (which is my primary rocket size), but when working with Estes BT-50 tubing, I noticed this issue. So I think using a hybrid approach of sandable/filler primer + CWF might be a great combination with certain body tubes to deal with both as efficiently as possible.
That is extremely common practice.
If you haven’t already done so I highly recommend reading @hcmbanjo ’s blog (http://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com/) where he show this process very clearly.
I hate sanding filler/primer but it is so darned effective that I usually just suck it up and deal with it.
mh9162013
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I thought I saw him talking about using both before, but me being lazy, I hoped I could get satisfactory results with just one of the techniques.
I don't care to build all my rockets where appearance is that important, but I want have the skills to get perfect results when I want (or need) them.
Sometimes you can get by with only one. For my current build the tubes have very minimal grooves, so I'm just doing filler/primer without the CWF step. Some folks always just do it with the filler/primer, sometimes using several coats.
For me, CWF + filler/primer is my "standard" approach for body tubes, as learned on Chris's block. It almost *always* produces excellent results. Occasionally I will diverge as the circumstances allow.
mh9162013
Well-Known Member
That's what I had been doing. But if I have to choose between 1 filler/primer coat and 1 application of CWF, or 3 primer/filler coats, I choose the former.
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I have started blocking the glassine with 400 grit on a long sander just to knock down the highest spots before doing anything else. Seems to make a little difference and doesn't take long. The few, small fibers that are raised go away in the next steps.
Oh, wait! There are already pictures of the "Gnome-Hawk" Frankenrocket in this thread on TRF:
https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/tube-coupler-hack.172910/
Here are couple more I found on my phone:
For @CoolRockets
I should calarify. The Quest Big Rage "payload bay" is not the payload bay from the Big Rage. It is just an intact piece of pre-colored body tube from a crashed Quest Big Rage.
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