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When I was a kid I used to launch Estes rockets. They came with mostly balsa wood fins that would frequently break on landing. The balsa wood also absorbed pain
by varelse 5y ago
When I was a kid I used to launch Estes rockets. They came with mostly balsa wood fins that would frequently break on landing. The balsa wood also absorbed paint unless you hit it with a clear coat first. This for some reason gave me the idea of rubbing Elmer's glue on to it, letting it dry, then sanding it and then painting it. Not only did it paint easily but I never lost a single fin again. The closest I came to that was when a fin ripped itself off the cardboard tube of the rocket rather than break.
- philips 5y agoThanks for this tip! My daughter recently got into model rockets and it seemed to me that untreated balsa wood was unlikely to last more than a few launches.
- exolymph 5y agoTell your daughter congrats on the launch from your pals at Hacker News! <3
- CrazyCatDog 5y agoThen you! I used to stick to the alpha 3 as a kid because of the plastic tri-fin base, now I’m looking at you Big Bertha version n!
- WalterBright 5y agoI love tips like this. It's one reason why I watch those TV shows like "Detroit Muscle". They're full of things like that that make working on cars so much easier and more effective. For example, the usual method for replacing the gasket in an automatic transmission, which is on the bottom of the car, is to remove the transmission. This is because it is impossible to hold all the balls and springs in place to put the cover on while it is upside down. The trick shown is to use a bit of vaseline to "glue" the parts in place. The vaseline will dissolve in the trans fluid and won't affect it. Voila! You save a lot of time.
- pivo 5y agoI remember reading something similar for the pins in an MG (or Triumph? not sure anymore) manual transmission. In this case the suggestion was to use peanut butter to hold the pins in.
- WalterBright 5y agoOne trick I discovered myself. When working on the car, your hands get very greasy dirty. It's impossible to wash it all off, it just has to wear off after a couple days. The trick is to rub your hands with Vaseline Lotion beforehand. Then the car dirt will wash right off.
- robocat 5y agoIsn’t barrier cream for mechanics designed for that use?
- wrycoder 5y agoLiquid Glove
- WalterBright 5y agoI don't know about that. But the Vaseline Intensive Care works great, and is cheap.
- eightysixfour 5y agoAlso be sure to rub your hands down with abrasive soap (like gojo) prior to rinsing with water. The water makes it harder to remove the grease so you want the grease in the soap and off of your hands first.
- varelse 5y agoThe other thing that works magic (and especially for Poison Oak/Poison Ivy) is a washcloth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oyoDRHpQK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oyoDRHpQK0
- 01100011 5y ago> gave me the idea of rubbing Elmer's glue on to it Not to diminish your inventive skills but I'm pretty sure this was known back in the mid 80's when I was doing rockets as a kid. Googling it shows it to be a pretty common technique going back to at least the early 2000's.
- varelse 5y ago1970s in my case and I told people about it and they did it too. What's new here is I didn't know anyone else actually listened or came up with it on their own.
- kragen 5y agoYeah, sandwich panels are so strong it's almost supernatural.