Estes Monarch Model Rocket Build, Part 2

By Mike Swanson

I had a couple of hours free over the weekend to work on the Monarch, after finishing the motor mount and prepping the body tube and fins for assembly a couple days ago. 

After letting the Fill n' Finish on the fins dry overnight (see Estes Monarch Build, Part 1), I sanded them with 320 grit sandpaper until they were nice and smooth.  I then rubbed a thin film of wood glue on the root edge of one of the fins and let it dry for about 5 minutes.  This allows the glue to soak into the wood and gives a smoother, more even surface resulting in a stronger bond when attaching the fins.  There are many different tips/tricks people use to get nice alignment when gluing the fins to the rocket.  For typical 3 or 4 fin Estes rockets, I tend to use the "eyeball method" by sighting down the body tube and making sure the fin is perpendicular.  The guidelines I drew on the body tube in Part 1 really help to make sure the root edge is parallel to the tube.  I spread another thin bead a glue along the root edge and attached the first fin:

You can also use an Estes Tube Marking Guide to hold the fin in place while the glue dries:

I repeated this process for the other two fins, periodically checking the alignment before the glue completely dried.  As a final check, I printed out a template using an online tool from Payloadbay.com.  There are a bunch of useful tools for creating jigs, templates, and guides on the site.  I placed the rocket on the printout and sighted down the tube.  Looks pretty straight and aligned to me !

Next, it was time to glue on the launch lug.  The instructions say to glue the lug along the root of one of the fins.  I prefer the more typical (and probably more old school) method of gluing the lug between two of the fins as shown below.  A section of 1/2" aluminum angle works great to align the lug.  I just placed the angle along the tube and glued the lug along the edge of the angle on top of the centerline I drew in Part 1:

Then I ran a bead of glue along both sides of each fin root edge and the launch lug using my index finger to wipe off any excess and create a smooth fillet.  When I was done, it looked like this:

After all the fins and launch lug joints were dry, I installed the motor mount by wiping a fairly thick ring of glue about 1" inside the aft end of the body tube using a 6" cotton swab: 

Then I inserted the motor tube so that it was flush with the end of the rocket with engine hook facing aft and aligned with the launch lug centerline: 

The last step I did today was to glue in the shock cord mount.  First I cut out the paper mount from the instructions and smeared a healthy blob of glue on one side and laid the rubber cord on the panels marked "2" and "3":

Then I folded panel "1" into "2" and "2" into "3" and pinched it together for a few minutes until the glue started to set.  Then I used a 6" cotton swab to apply a patch of glue about 1.5" down the forward end of the body tube.  Note:  make sure the shock cord mount is at least far enough down the tube so that the shoulder of the nose cone will not interfere with it when it is placed on top:

Now the rocket is essentially complete except for some final preparation before I start painting !