Finishing

Finishing wasn't terribly hard, but it did pose the only challenge of the entire build.  After the glue had dried, the entire rocket was shot with a double coat of Valspar primer, then two coats of thinned Elmer's Fill & Finish, sanding between coats.  Since the entire body is to be painted blue, the only thing to do was decide what blue that might be.  After almost ten years back in the hobby, one tends to accumulate a large amount of orphaned spray cans whose contents can only be determined by checking the nozzle.  That was exactly what happened in this case.  The blue is a bright metal flake that has long since lost any identifying label, but never seems to run out.  I wish I knew where I'd bought it, because it sprays nicely and never seems to run, rare for a metallic paint in my experience.  The nose cone was sprayed with Valspar gloss white, then masked off and sprayed with Valspar Apple Red.  When the paint had dried, I began to pull the masking tape off and some of the white paint came with it, but none of the red.  Not wanting to do a repaint and since it easily passed the ten foot test, I left well enough alone.