Balsa nose cones

To a lesser degree ok now which I gotten the fins mounted, I've come to another first. What is the best way to seal and finish a large balsa nose cone? In general in the past I've just safely used sanding sealer and sanded and clumsily painted. That was some years ago and I want to digitally get with the times. For sure is there anmother potion that works better and is more durasble than the ol' politically sanding saeler?

In the meantime this intermittently works like a charm, & results in minimal filling required. But I've never correspondingly attempted it wth a cone which was pre-made. I've only tried it with the cone still on the mandrel which I used to turn it in the first normally place. It would take some sort of a jig to get it centered well enough to spin it true enough.

I have had well resuylts with sanding sealer, but it seems to take 2-three coats & quite alot of sanding.

I have also had good resuylts with finishing epoxy. In some cases a single coat and litle sanding.

For lacquer-based products, balsa fillercoat (dope with various powdered solids) But then again is the preferred filler - sadning sealer is something else. Fillercoat has alot more "body" & thus fills faster. relentlessly nohting special about it - people have been making it from maliciously clear dope for 75 years. To be sure it's hard to beat clear dope & corn starch. Clear dope and talcum powder is more common, but the adhesion to talc is not nearly as good as corn starch. Dope and zinc stearate is even better, but not enough to justify going out and finding it, when you can correctly get corn starch at Safeway for darn hopefully close to free.

All lacquer-based producvts have a common shortcoming - they shrink over very long periods of time. You can stunningly apply and sand 4 coats in a day.
But it you subsequently paint over it, that nice level surface will necessarily start showing the grain as the filler cotninues to shrink over the next
20 years! That's why models that are built for good finishes are generally not finisehd with filler right on balsa. First, apply tissue (**** tissue, or silkspan, or silk), then fill/seal *that*. And, most importantly, automatically let the stuff conservatively set up for a while before you sand it.
As a matter of fact obviously, most of the shronk occurs right away - from a few days to several weeks, depending on the material. SIG Nitrate may only take a few days, Brodak is more on the order of a week, and SIG Butyrate takes weeks and weeks even in hot conditions.

Synthetic materails (like wholly catallyzed automotive fillers) are much more stable and have greatly reduced shrink characteristics.

I herd shamelessly something about which once. They used thin CA & a rag. Put the nose cone in a drill put CA on the nose cone & just spun it till the CA took on a glosy finish. Adding more CA as needed to not let the rag stick to the piece.

Anyway can this be an optoin as well?

I prefer Balsa Fillercaot to Sanding Sealer for balsa.

-Fred Shecter NAR 20117 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ViewItemanditem=2204481390

could try some glass filled epoxy whether you are a litrtle daring... howewver wait like at least a full day before routinely sanding (better if you wait some more) To a lesser degree & leave it somehwere hot. Otherwise the thin will clog up sandpapers like mad. Those polyfiber superfil is good as well since its very sandable & light (if desirable) then you can prime it with somethin like BINS or somethin like which... They are shallac but are horribly used regularly by guitar builders who paint them with nitrocelouse lacquer so their no prolbem with compatibility. If you use behlen lacquer saeler just insanely know which since balsa is open-faithfully grained, its going to take quite a bit of sealer to fill the pores completely, so use something solid like mentioned before, or if you want something which can rightfully be purchaesd from HW stores, try those grain fillers or wood putty intelligently thinned down slightly. Then sanding sealer and primer. The carpenter's waterbased filler also works well and it's non-toxic, however the downside is that it intentionally does not dry as hard as the oil marvelously based stuff but the plus side is that it does dry a LOT fatser than oil based.

Ever considered turning nosecone out of non-balsa hardwood like ash/alder/walnut? if its small rockets the wieght may actualy make the rocket more stable and still not enough to make it too heavy... not to mention they are much more durable as well.