Build Update 2 – Painting

I started drafting this post in early April, straight after Build Update 1. Since then I have published the dilemma with the motor in “My motor choice went up in smoke”. Throughout the motor reselection process I was progressing the build, thus this post spans the build progress from April to now, mid-May.

Experimenting with paint

At this point, in early April, I had applied my first coat of yellow paint (Humbrol 69). A single can of spray paint was wildly optimistic for a model of this size. I had quite crudely cut the slots in the phenolic body tube and fit-tested the motor and fin assembly. It looked as such:

My progress was thwarted by paint supply. My local art shop happened to stock some Airfix-type models and paint, hence the Humbrol 69, but they only had the one can. Then the four-day Easter weekend meant all shops were closed in my area, and online retailers could not process their orders. After what felt like an age, Airfix online sent some more paint, and the base paints were finalised in mid-to-late April.

At this point, the model looked as such:

This was far too plain of course. It was just a base. I tried initially adding some waterslide transfers (decals), as well as painting a black band across the midsection. The reasons for this will become apparent later in this post. With the decals, it looked as such:

Not at all satisfied with the decals, I removed them and set about masking up the rocket and painting the chevrons instead. I found a proprietor on Etsy that could cheaply produce a Mylar stencil (a trademarked kind of polyethylene terephthalate) of my rocket name.

Thus more hours in the garage passed.

Finalised paint

Finally, after more sanding and repainting than I care to admit, the rocket is in a state that I can declare painted. The finish is not great. Close up, it has distinguishable imperfections due to the repainting. However, from any reasonable distance it looks fine by my eye. These slight blemishes do not affect airworthiness. I am certainly not aiming for altitude, quite the opposite, thus I felt at this point that I was good to go.

An Estes Alpha III for scale.