Hello all,

I recently finished building an Apogee Saturn V and am having a bear of a time painting the black areas and silver on the fin shrouds. I tried just painting on liquid mask and scoring with a sharp knife with limited success on the corrugations. Is there a secret? Can you folks share techniques with me? I do not want to ruin this beautiful rocket!
I have a confession to make: This is my first rocket build. My 3 year old and I were in a hobby shop a couple of months ago and he saw an estes kit that he had to have. The construction consisted of attaching the shock cord and parachute. Well, the bug bit and as my motto is "anything worth doing is worth overdoing" and I watched the apollo missions as a kid, so I found the biggest Saturn V you can fly without certification and bought it. The instructions are awesome and it turned out beautiful. The paint is my last obstacle so thanks for all the tips! I also build a launch controller for this and the many rockets to come. What a wonderful hobby to share with my son!

I painted the entire rocket white and then used a black sharpie to outline the black areas. I then applied the masking tape so it overlapped the black very slightly and pressed it firmly into place. Then I sprayed the black on normally. I'm pretty sure this is the method recommended in the instructions.

Mario

(Photos from my book)

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An Apogee Saturn V as a FIRST model rocket ????
Sheesh !
Not very ambitious are ya ???
ANY Saturn V is probably the second least likely good first rocket; the Saturn 1B would be #1.

What's next ?
The Polecat Aerospace 10" diameter N-powered Saturn ?

Hope the flights go well; you have tackled something few would ever attempt on their 10th build, let alone their first.

__________________
When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

Exactly what i did (as per directions on the CD) worked great ,but Tamiya tape helped !

P

Also am working on a Semroc Sat. 1B...The bug bit and this is a blast!

I use Tamiya tape most of the time. For large areas I use the Scotch blue "delicate" tape. It's the same stuff as the Tamiya but available in larger widths. You can tell it from the regular blue tape by the orange sections on the core.

Mario