Steampunk Protostar #20 - Re-Visiting The Fins

Even though the fins for the Protostar are going to be completely covered with riveted panel detailing, I will still fill the grain and sand them out. 
The panels are to be made from self-adhesive Avery label material, so I want to have a smooth, even surface for proper adherence.

Before sealing the fins, the trailing edges are rounded over.
Sanding a round-over on curved fins is somewhat tricky.  A flat sanding block is not effective here, so the job is better done using some medium grit sandpaper wrapped around a motor casing.

The leading edges will remain squared for reasons I will address in a future post.

Now, the usual coat of brushed-on thinned CWF is applied and the fins are sandwiched between waxed paper and plate glass to dry without warping.

Followed by the ever-popular task of sanding, filling, sanding....etc. until all of the grain is taken care of.



The next task is to finish the decorative holes in the fins.  At this point, they are still a bit ragged from drilling, and are now filled with excess CWF.

A variety of Dremel sanding tips and shop-made sanding sticks (fine sandpaper wrapped around dowels)are used here to restore roundness and to smooth things out.

Before I get too much further with the fines, I want to make sure that the edges to be glued to the pods are correctly shaped.

To check this, I hold the fin and pod up to a light and align them to their proper position.  If I see light between the joint, that means there are some high points that need to be sanded down in order to make everything even for glue bonding.

Sure enough, even though the fins are laser cut, I find they don't precisely match the pod profile.

Extremely light passes are made with fine sandpaper on the high points, checking against the light frequently. 

Now, the fins are ready for rivet-panel detailing.