Low Power Painting Support and Storage

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Les Bradshaw

Most of the Estes instructions tell you to roll a cone of paper, insert it into the motor mount, and use this to hold a rocket while you paint it. Great. You've just applied a coat of paint, so what do you do? Keep holding the cone? Try to figure out a way to get the rocket off the cone and place it down without touching the wet paint?

I did a few things that help support my rocket parts while painting and drying. My first step required:

• 4' x 1-1/8" dowel
• 1' x 3/4" dowel
• 6" x 1/2" dowel

If you do not have a lathe (or don't want to be bothered) then eliminate the 3/4" dowel but have 2' of the 1/2" dowel plus spent 18mm and 24mm engines.

I have a lathe so I made 2 pieces for the top, cut the 3/4" dowel into 2 - 6" pieces. On each piece machine the top 3-1/2" of dowel to 17mm and the other to 23mm. I made these a little smaller than standard casings to make it easier to insert. Drill a 1/2" hole into the bottom of each dowel about 1" in depth, cut the 1/2" dowel into 2 - 3" lengths and glue the 1/2" dowel into the 2 machined pieces.

If you don't have a lathe, then take the 12" length of 1/2" dowel and cut this in half. You may need to do a little sanding to fit, but slide a spent 18mm casing over the 1/2" dowel (try to clean some of the carbon out of the casing first). Once it fits, epoxy the casing to the dowel. Do the same for the second dowel, again with a spent 18mm casing. Once the expoxy is dry, then clean a 24mm casing, sand the 18mm casing if required, and then epoxy the 24mm over the 18mm.

Drill a 1/2" hole into the top of the 4' dowel about 1" deep. You can now insert one of the two pieces into this hole (do NOT glue - you want them interchangeable).

Initially, I would put the dowel into a bucket that had a bag of sand in it to hold it upright. I could then change the top piece depending on the rocket engine mount. The rocket would slide onto the top as if it was an engine. I could then rotate the 4' length to spray all sides of the rocket. The only issue I had was the pole sometimes wanted to tilt. I also sometimes had a problem with very tall rockets. For some larger rockets, I painted the rocket without the nose cone attached and slid the body tube over the dowel upside down. I taped a cross piece to keep the rocket from going too low.

Later, I purchased a set of plastic shelves. It was a plastic, 5 shelf unit that just slipped together (no screws). I put it together as a 3 shelf unit and a 2 shelf unit. I used one of the openings for the legs to hold my 4' dowel. Now it can't tilt! And the shelves give me a place to store paint, paper towels, gloves, mask, etc.

The shelves are an open grid. I've used bent out paper clips to hang down to provide support for small parts (such as trying to prepaint the Estes Outlander tubes).

The last thing I did was drive a few nails into the ceiling and hang some strings. On the end of the strings I tied some small wood (like 1/8" dowel). I can now use the string to hold nose cones or tubes. You just place the wood parallel to the string and slide it down the tube (or through a screw eye), and then let it rotate 90 degrees to hold the tube. The only issue with this is keeping the part from rotating while you are trying to paint it. For the nose cones I can hold onto the shoulder (which should be masked anyway). The tubes you can try to twist the string.

GUEST's OPINION:
"" (X.X.)

1. Finish
   Tips for applying paint: 1. Multiple light coats are better than one heavy coat- Heavy coats tend to run, and weigh more.
   2. If you intend to use both latex/ acrylic and enamel paints, apply the enamel over the latex/ acrylic. The paints are usually compatible this way, but rarely the other way around!
   3. Clear coat over stick- on type decals usually is a bad idea. Apply these types of decals after you clear- coat.
   4. If you plan on using different brands of paint, test the combination on some scrap material first. Sometimes the paints don't react well with one another.
2. Finish
   Painting: For those of us that use the rattle can method of painting, I happened on a little tool thats makes it much easier. Its from plasti-kote and is called a can gun. Cost me 2.00 dollars and it makes using the rattle cans a lot easier. It attaches to the top of the can and has a trigger that when pushed it pushes down on the nozzle. It really saves the fingers and give a more accurate spray in my opinion, give one a try. Found it at the local farm and fleet store. - D.G.(IL)