Painting a Nose Cone Tip

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By Dan Cox

On occasion you need to paint just the top of a nose cone. Maybe you'd like to give it a silver or gold tip etc. This method will work for any size assuming you have the size 'stencil' you need. To paint just the top of a nose cone you need a perfect circle in a piece of card stock or heavy paper to drop over the top. This way the top will get painted but the bottom will not, but more importantly you'll have a perfectly level base at the bottom of your painted area around the circumference of the nose cone. Doing this with masking tape can be very difficult.

• In my case a 1 inch sized hole is about what I needed to only paint the top 2 inches or so of a very large nose cone, the Estes Blue Ninja cone in this case. So first I took a pill bottle, you can use whatever you have that is sturdy enough. A 35 mm film can will work as well. You need to cut off the end about a quarter to a half inch from the bottom.

• Now drill hole in the center of the piece you cut off. This will become the pilot hole for a wood screw.

• Now put a wood screw in the hole you drilled and place the cutoff piece with the screw in it on top of a piece of heavy paper or card stock. Then screw the assembly to the board. This will seat the cut off end tightly against the paper.

• Now take an exacto knife and carefully cut around the edge of your plastic pill bottle piece that is screwed securely to the wood.

• Once you're done you should try to pull up on the corners of the paper to see if it will come free. If it doesn't then you have not cut all the way through the paper. Once you have, you can then either remove the screw and gently remove the paper in the hole or you can leave the paper mounted and pull the square piece of paper off of the tube vertically. It should separate from the piece that will remained screwed down, assuming you have cut it sufficiently. The finished product is shown below. The paper is different here because this was an example I had already done prior to writing this.
  

• Now place this over the top of your nose cone that you want to paint. You may want to try and pull it down evenly all around the nose cone by gripping two opposite corners and 'screwing' it down over the top by holding the corners taught and turning in a clockwise motion. This should give you an even base line. You can simply set the paper on top of the nose cone but paint may leak through so make sure you have a good seal.

In the picture above I have already painted the nose cone but have placed our cut piece on it to show you how it would look prior to painting. Now spray paint the nose cone in the color you want. I'd recommend covering the lower part of the rocket of course while you're doing this, to avoid drift. That's it! You should now have a painted nose cone top with a perfectly level base circumference! I realize there may be easier or even harder ways to do this, but after all there's more than one way to skin a cat!

GUEST's OPINION:
05/07 - "Use a fender washer as a cutting guide and you can skip steps 1 and 2. Use a pre-punched engine mount centering ring (or the scrap around it) as the mask itself and you can skip steps 1-5." (T.B.)

GUEST's OPINION:
03/06 - "Dan, this is a great idea! Mags and I were looking for a better way to do this, and now we have it!I think we will use a compass with a blade attached for the actual circle cutting. The concept of the mask is great and should be a great help in the future. We will probable copy you and do our Blue Ninja cone as well......" (T+M.B.)

1. Finish
   When painting the nose cone tip a different color: Depending on how much of the tip I want painted, I stick it through an old centering ring and paint the exposed part. I have several different sizes, and I can usually find one that is close enough. If you want to be exact try cutting a circle out of a piece of thin cardboard and poking the nose through. I usually use old cereal boxes for this. - Andrew from RMR
2. Finish
   Before painting, especially nose cones, you should sand and/or wash the surface before painting.
3. Finish
   Featured Tip: Masking and Painting Fin Tips - This tip describes one method to mask off and paint fin tips. First, paint the airframe as desired, including at least part of the fin root edge along the body tube... more