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Old 08-10-2016, 11:16 PM
luke strawwalker's Avatar
luke strawwalker luke strawwalker is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Needville and Shiner, TX
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I've had the best luck with regular printer paper-- always a ready supply no further away than the printer... LOL It's thick enough to add a lot of strength but not a lot of weight.

I apply it to a fin spread with the THINNEST layer of white glue I can apply and not have it dry out before I apply the paper. I paper over the leading edge and basically "seal" the fin into the paper, after sanding the fin to the desired shape, by burnishing the edges down with the rounded end of a Sharpie marker, around the tip edge, trailing edge, and root edge, (wrapping over the leading edge which I generally round, or wedge for scalers that need it). I leave about a half-inch of paper all the way around the edges and burnish the glue out from under the paper to the edges and then burnish the paper over the edges down to itself, sandwiching the fin inside. Allow to dry overnight and then use a SHARP hobby knife to cut the paper away from the root edge and the tip edge, and down ALMOST to the trailing edge (so it remains glued to the layer of paper on the other side of the fin. Then I dress the edges of the fin by drawing them at a slight angle across 220 grit sandpaper to "shave off" any stray paper "hairs" and leave a perfectly smooth and flush edge, ready for gluing.

The problem with using CA for applying skins is, unless the fin is already applied to the rocket, the CA seals off the balsa fin grain so that, if one is using white or wood glue to attach fins (which is incidentally the strongest method for attaching balsa/wood fins (double glue joint with yellow glue-- the tube will rip out or the balsa wood will break before the joint fails-- you can't get a stronger joint than that!) I guess a suitable work-around would be to apply the first layer of the double-glue joint to the wood fin BEFORE papering with CA, to allow the wood glue to fully penetrate the wood and dry, which is perfectly acceptable for the double-glue-joint method. That would ensure that the wood pores are already suitably filled with wood glue to ensure a good, strong double-glue joint.

I did a tutorial on how I do papering of fins on the Dr. Zooch Vanguard Eagle Beta-Build thread I did on YORF several years ago. The thread can be found here:

http://www.oldrocketforum.com/showthread.php?t=7444

And here are the relevant posts:

http://www.oldrocketforum.com/showp...406&postcount=6

http://www.oldrocketforum.com/showp...407&postcount=7

http://www.oldrocketforum.com/showp...408&postcount=8

http://www.oldrocketforum.com/showp...409&postcount=9

That's how I do it anyway, and it works terrific... You really can't get any stronger on a paper/wood joint bond than white glue, but the secret is to make it VERY, VERY thin-- the thinner the layer of glue between the wood and paper while still "wetting" both parts (paper and wood), the stronger the bond will be. I have yet to have a bond fail...

Later! OL J R
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