Scale Models & Fins

Go to TAP plastics and get clear plastic fin material and use this, For higher powered applications use Lexan. I've used this on my 1/24 scratch built Titan Gemini. I will fly this on 2 38mm PRO38 motors.

Paul The Rocketeer

Man, missiles are so much easier to scale cause they are too small for thrust vectoring... but orbital rockets and ICBM uses it, but they do have very small fins for the first few thousand feet or so...

That's what I've been leading toward. Do you have any suggestions for the plastic, especially for smaller models? I'm looking at making some 1/48 models, so they won't be too high power...

snipped-for-privacy@junglevisi>

I'd recommend acrylic, such as Plexiglass. The acrylic is cheaper and easier to find. It is also more resistant to scratches and surface marring than polycarbonate, making it a better choice for "invisible" scale model fins. OTOH, polycarbonate, such as Lexan, is stronger, particularly to impact loads. For small fins, clear polycarbonate can be had practicably free from computer CD and DVD disks.

Alan

Thanks, good info on the different plastics. By computer CDs do you mean the case - or the actual CD? The silver layer would seem to defeat the purpose :)

Alan J> >

I don't know the best way to remove the data layers. :( Spindle packs usually contain a plain clear spacer disk on the bottom, but I don't know if all of them are actually polycarbonate. The CD "Jewel case" is probably a just cheap styrene, but that may be a cheap convenient source of clear plastic stock as well.

A reflective fin surface may be interesting as well. For scale models, clear fins are preferred. However, the other approach is to make the fins very obvious as not part of the true scale model. This could simply be square fins painted black. What does not work, is trying to camouflage or blend in the fins with the scale model.

Alan