Interceptor E Build—- Pursley Skin

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For all of mine, I painted the tubes and balsa a gloss paint of similar color in case anything showed through. I did not seal the balsa or fill the spirals. The vinyl likes the gloss finish. I never tried the vinyl directly to an unpainted tube.
 
For all of mine, I painted the tubes and balsa a gloss paint of similar color in case anything showed through. I did not seal the balsa or fill the spirals. The vinyl likes the gloss finish. I never tried the vinyl directly to an unpainted tube.
Great. Just clarifying, did you just put gloss of regular sanded balsa, or did you have to CWF or prime the balsa first?
 
I went back and checked my build thread.

I did no prep whatsoever for the body tubes. The vinyl stuck to the glassine just fine, and no spirals showed through that I can see. That is one place where you can save your effort.

The fins on mine were basswood, which don't require as much filling as balsa. Nonetheless, I did apply a heavy coat of filler/primer to all the wood before painting. For balsa, I would definitely fill it before painting. Paint on bare balsa tends to come out rough and not glossy, in my experience. I would be inclined to do something like CWF, but then probably skip the filler/primer step. You're not looking for ultimate perfection, but just a decent smooth glossy surface for the vinyl to adhere.

I suppose you could also try just doing filler/primer without CWF; I don't know how well that would typically go with balsa. On the basswood, it did decently well but definitely did not completely fill the surface; balsa would most certainly be a bit worse.
 
Was looking for some kind of tube that would allow me to put in a replaceable shock cord. For some reason I kept the yellow doohickey that was on the windshield wipers. Anyway, drilled matching holes in the centering rings, glued it to the rear ring.

Nice solution, that looks like it will work quite well.
 
John Pursley "s instructions say that you don't need to Mark the tube for the sub fins but I figure I'm going to prep tube a little bit and I need to make sure I have a good adhesion surface for them. Therefore I'm going to Mark the area for the sub fins16014122931024320524466381880226.jpg and then mask that before I Prime and paint the body tube to get a gloss surface for adherence of the skins.
 
Just curious, do the instructions specifically suggest painting the body tube? In my experience the wraps adhere very well to the bare body tube.
 
In that case you just saved me some work. I will scuff the area bit.
 

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No seriously, what do the instructions say? In personal correspondence with me John Pursley talked about painting the wood but definitely never any mention of the body.
 
Okay finally got around to getting ready to do some updating. So John and his instructions suggest using latex trim paint as a sealer for the ball sack.

This is also one of the first times I've tried using voice recognition for my posts and the careful reader will wonder about the last two words in that sentence. Yes they are typos... the word I was looking for was Balsa but I'm easily amused and elected to leave that in the post.

One of the things I wondered about was how well the latex paint being thick would work not only as a sealant but also possibly as a filler. I thought since latex paint seems kind of thick that it might fill the grain somewhat so I tried to experiment.

For once I decided to take my own advice and try it on a scrap piece of bolts of first. Attached is a picture of a very rough piece of BALSA, no sanding no nothing. The next picture is the same piece after one layer of latex. The latex did little if any as far as filling. Okay I just put the pictures in and they're backwards so the top picture is 20201012_093347.jpg20201006_093543.jpgafter the black paint and the Balsa picture is before
 
I also tried it on some test fins.
Both of these teams were fairly well sanded about as smooth as I expect I can get with Balsa plain wood. I then painted one fin on both sides. I painted the other Finn only on one side, because I was curious to see whether the latex would cause the wood to Warp. The pictures are laid out After this post. There was no warping of the fin that was painted on one side. The paint did not really seem to do that much as far as filling in the Balsa, but I really didn't expect it would. You can see a side by side of the unpainted side of the sanded Fin and the painted side of the other fin.20201012_093522.jpg20201012_094223.jpg20201012_094248.jpg
 
Okay finally got around to getting ready to do some updating. So John and his instructions suggest using latex trim paint as a sealer for the ball sack.

This is also one of the first times I've tried using voice recognition for my posts and the careful reader will wonder about the last two words in that sentence. Yes they are typos... the word I was looking for was Balsa but I'm easily amused and elected to leave that in the post.
OK, that truly made me LOL. Thanks for the explanation. :)

One of the things I wondered about was how well the latex paint being thick would work not only as a sealant but also possibly as a filler. I thought since latex paint seems kind of thick that it might fill the grain somewhat so I tried to experiment.

Another LOL.

John Pursley definitely has some creative build techniques. When I corresponded with him, he recommended using the Rusto 2x clear as a filler, which he said works great *but* only if you sand it after only a short cure time, lest it becomes too hard to sand easily. I never tried that, because I could never guarantee to be able to sand at a specific time.
 
I clear coated the skins 16025148944798490326008828633951.jpgwith the recommended gloss spray and this is the result. I think it looks fine. At least it's not all bumpy. It doesn't look all that different from before I sprayed it anyway. I didn't take any before pictures. My understanding was that the main point of putting this on was that the ink might run or smear a little bit if you didn't pretreat. So I'm happy with the way this came out. I'm not sure that I couldn't have used any other regular gloss rather than sending away for the special stuff but it worked.
 
Neil we're crossing each other with our posts here. There is no way on God's green earth I was going to do any sanding on top of a printed skin. The enemy of "good" being "better."
 
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John was kind enough to send me a bonus Apollo Little Joe skin. Not sure what I'm going to do with it.

I did use it however as the first test for my clear spray and it worked pretty well. I took these pictures to show the skin and a picture of the instructions. I'm now going to cut the instructions off and use them as a test piece for trying on the painted fins. The picture of the small chest piece is so that if I ever by the Little Joe Rocket I will not have lost the instructions to put my remaining skin on.

Oh crap

Test piece!
 

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Neil we're crossing each other with our posts here. There is no way on God's green earth I was going to do any sanding on top of a printed skin. The enemy of "good" being "better."
The suggestion of using Rusto 2x clear was to actually use it as a filler coat on the bare wood, not to sand the clear coat on the skins (heaven forbid).
 
OK so I read the label on the Glidden latex paint that I bought ($14.42 a quart plus tax!) and lo and behold it says that you need to prime the wood before you apply the paint. Which makes sense. Which makes me wonder why in the world it would be recommended to use this to seal the balsa wood before applying the skin? Oh well. I will go ahead and prime the wood first, masking off the attachment surfaces. I will then apply the laytex paint and if the primer doesn’t seal it (which I think it would!) certainly the combination of primer and latex will.
 
For all of mine, I painted the tubes and balsa a gloss paint of similar color in case anything showed through. I did not seal the balsa or fill the spirals. The vinyl likes the gloss finish. I never tried the vinyl directly to an unpainted tube.
Thanks, that’s very helpful. Will give me SOMETHING to do with all that black latex.
 
Thanks, that’s very helpful. Will give me SOMETHING to do with all that black latex.
As far as the body tubes go, I continue to assert that finishing them is not necessary and not recommended by John Pursley. Can't hurt though, as long as you get it nice and smooth and glossy.
 
About exhaled my lunch all over my keyboard, now my office mates are looking at me sideways. Your posts are like a gold mine, or a mine field, I'm not sure which! But that was funny.
My voice recognition at work is much better (but then you would expect that given we are in healthcare it would be better.) It does have problems with a few words. It has a problem with the distinction between the words “transitional” and “ transvaginal.” “Transvaginal” is a term that you used for female pelvic ultrasound. I won’t go into detail. “Transitional” on the other hand is used frequently in lumbar spine MRI imaging.

Normally God gives each of us five Lumbar vertebral bodies. Some however he blesses with four and some he blesses with six. Basic either the lowest lumbar vertebrae gets extra side bars sticking it to the sacrum, making it a “sacralized” L5 or the first sacral vertebrae loses its lateral attachments and becomes effectively a “lumbarized” S1. This is referred to as transitional anatomy. It is critical we get this right or potentially our surgeons would be operating on the wrong level. This is considered poor form.

Unfortunately in a certain gentleMan that I was reading an exam on in the FINDINGS section of the report I repeatedly referred to who His transitional L5 vertebrae as his “Transvsginal L5 vertebrae.” Please understand that when I am reading these examinations and when I am dictating my reports I am dedicated to reviewing the images, making the findings, and putting in an IMPRESSION section of the report which tells the referring doctor exactly what I want him or her to understand. The FINDINGS section of the report is sort of like the fluff. It simply takes up space between the HISTORY and the IMPRESSION , And the impression of the report is critical and I review this quite carefully.

One of my cohorts was reading one of my reports and told me of this particular typographical error when he was reviewing a new MRI and comparing it to one I read, in which apparently the above occurred five times in the findings section of the report and my friend said that he basically just about fell off his chair. I of course was horrified. On the good side, my surgeons tend to like my reports (in spite of.... or perhaps because of these incidents) and continue to be among my best references for jobs, which I think is pretty good for a Radiologist.

Something to think about next time you incorporate a “transition” in your rocket,
 
The suggestion of using Rusto 2x clear was to actually use it as a filler coat on the bare wood, not to sand the clear coat on the skins (heaven forbid).
Just out of curiosity, the one color I WOULDN’T think of for this purpose would be CLEAR (okay, maybe Chartreuse, then again, nope since I just thought of it “clear” would still be at the tail of the list.). I would think you would at least TRY to match the major background color.
 
OK I wentimage.jpg ahead and glued together the pieces for the fins. I figured before attaching the dorsal fins to the wings I would go ahead and sand the rounded curvature’s on the margins as I thought it would be hard to do that without breaking it after attaching it. The one mistake is highlighted here by where the pen cap is. I should’ve left this is a flat surface as this is an attachment region. Oh well. That’s what Tamaya putty is for I guess
 
I went over the attachment surfaces of the fins with a black marker. The glue will go right through the marker but I figure it may be hard to get these perfectly dark after attachment in the joints. We will see. image.jpg
 
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