Finishing Balsa

[Hospital_Rocket]

I was wondering if anybody else has had this idea:

While I was cutting some fins out of a sheet for a scratchbuilt, the thought occured to me;

Why don't I seal the balsa before I cut the fins out. There is usually a place to hold the wood that is not on a fin. Also If I seal the whole sheet wuith a white sealer, then when i draw lines on it, they will be that much more visible...

Any thoughts on this?

 

[DynaSoar]

Originally posted by Hospital_Rocket
Why don't I seal the balsa before I cut the fins out. There is usually a place to hold the wood that is not on a fin. Also If I seal the whole sheet wuith a white sealer, then when i draw lines on it, they will be that much more visible...

Any thoughts on this?

Whatever you sand afterwards (beveled or rounded) won't be sealed. You'd have to seal them on the edges again.

 

[Stymye]

would glue still penetrate well enough?

 

[Mad Rocketeer]

It might be workable for papering fins. If you wanted to paper the sides, but not the leading edge, and sand afterwards, and if you're papering with an adhesive that won't prevent the glue at the root edge from penetrating later, pre-papering the whole sheet of fin stock could work well.

One caution though. It would be easy to lose track of the grain direction if you did that.

 

[wwattles]

I've asked this very question before, but in a slightly different form, and the answer I mostly got was that by sealing across an entire surface, any areas that would later require a joining substance (glue or epoxy) would have to be roughed up again. This isn't really an issue (except if you want to make nice big thick fillets) with the straightforward 3FNC/4FNC rockets, but if you want something like a glider where a root edge of one part joins a flat surface of another part, the part of the flat surface where the joint forms would have to be sanded back to bare wood. The reason is to get a good attachment.

WW