How can I prevent balsa fins from breaking off on landing (especially for models with swept fins)?
From: craddock1@aol.com (Bob Craddock) Take your fin pattern, reduce it by ~90% on a xerox machine, and make as many copies as you need to glue one pattern on both sides of each fin. Put about two coats of sanding sealer on the new paper surface, sand, and then paint the fins all over again. A friend of mine was having the exact same trouble on his Super Big Bertha, and the paper reinforcement was his solution. It worked great, but next time I say use bass wood on everything. From: silent1@ix.netcom.com (The Silent Observer) There’s a variation on this technique, that needs to be applied during building, that can make balsa fins stronger than bass (and still lighter). What you need to do is simply to cover the fins before painting. I used silk tissue (like model airplane tissue made from silk fibers) on my Big Bertha, and in a dozen flights (before it lodged high in a tree) never had so much as a crack, even when flown on a D21 (and including one “plastic wad” recovery when the rocket
