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Old 12-30-2011, 05:04 PM
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Gus Gus is offline
7/21/61
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: North of Detroit
Posts: 2,223
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Next up is preparing the wrap.

I love paper wraps because they allow you to do such amazing designs. I can do way more complicated designs on my computer than I can by masking and painting. Whatever my design, I always start by creating a box with a hairline outline the appropriate size to wrap all the way around the body tube. I always try to make one edge of the wrap end alongside or under a conduit or be part of the design that has a long colored line along its edge. But most importantly, in the middle of the top and bottom of the outline boxes I put small tic-marks to indicate their middles. These are the marks that will line up with the line I draw on the body tube.

An example of what I am talking about can be seen in the pics below of a model I did of India's first satellite launcher, the SLV3. First pic below shows the completed model and the second pic shows the layout I printed onto a full sheet of label paper. Note how the layouts of both the upper and lower body tube wraps seem off center. That's because I set them up so the edge of the wrap would be under a conduit running the length of the upper and lower tubes.

More importantly, though, note the tic marks at the top and bottom of each wrap which will be used to align the wraps on the rocket.

When you design your own wraps, putting these marks on your design is very easy. When you are putting on pre-printed wraps you have to put these marks on yourself.
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