Building a giveaway rocket (part 2)

The fins, as I said, were pretty huge for this rocket. And then there were the fin slots which I could try to fill, or cover… or use… I cut the tips from the roots and cut tabs. Sorry about that, whoever put all the work into gluing those two fins together at an angle. What on earth was that about?

I decided to paper the fins with label paper. I’ve avoided using that previously, partly because it costs more than printer paper and glue stick, and partly because I worry about the adhesive — you don’t know what it is, you don’t know if it’s the same adhesive used in the previous package. But I’d bought a package of label paper for other purposes and I figured why not give it a try.

Next there were the three square holes in the body tube to deal with. I figured I could try to fill or cover them invisibly, which would be tedious and might not work. Or I could cover them visibly. Make it a feature. I spray painted some more label paper black, cut strips of it, and applied the strips to the rocket, covering the square holes. The strip that went around the fin can I trimmed to open the slots back up.

I considered black electrical tape but wasn’t too confident it’d work, and I thought paper might be easier to trim for the slots. Blackboard contact paper might have worked, too, if I’d had any. I didn’t. I glued in the papered fins and put on a launch lug.