The Return of the Zonker!

Years ago I took on the rather thankless task of converting a wrapping paper tube into a body tube. I say it was thankless because it took a whole lot of filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and....well, you get the idea. When it was done I married it to a plastic fin can that I happened to have, and a nose cone that happened to fit. After a bit of yellow and black paint and some homemade decals, the Screaming Yellow Zonker was born!

I flew her a few times over the years, but then came the fateful day when I stepped on her in my rocket room. You can read about it here:

http://shroudlines.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-death-of-zonker.html?m=1

 I figured that was it. I wasn't going to mess with that stupid tube any more!

However, my heart softened a bit this week, and I realized that it really wouldn't be too tough to fix her...so here we go!

Here is where I cut out the crimped section. I used that section to make a coupler and glue the (about two inches shorter) body tube back together. I then applied the DAP Plastic Wood...

Here is the part of the cut out section that I didn't use. The screw has nothing to do with anything. It just happened to be there...

As you can see, I now had the Screaming Yellow Zer....

So I masked off the part of the logo I wanted to keep and slapped on some more yellow paint. Interestingly enough, not all yellow paint is created equal and the new paint is a shade darker than the old paint. I think it's good enough, though...

Now I had the Screaming Yellow. Huh. Obviously, a new decal would be needed...

So I printed one up on my trusty printer. By the way, I always use Testors decal paper because I can get it at Hobby Lobby. I print out a sheet of paper with the logo on it, and then tape a piece of the decal paper over it and run it through again. That way I use less decal paper...

The tape can be used to secure it to a handy surface for clear coating.

And there she is! The slightly shorter Screaming Yellow Zonker!

So there you have it! All in all it took about thirty minutes total working time. I'm glad to have her flyable again!

Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!