Finishing

I could see that finishing was going to be interesting early on in the build due to the flimsy body tubes.  The tube spirals seem exaggerated, almost sharp as you run your fingers over the tube.  This would require a serious amount of Elmer's Carpenters Wood Filler, and the fact that the body tube was already thin would mean thinning it as little as possible.  First I sprayed the rocket with a coat of Valspar primer, then I took care of the spirals by loading up my fingertip with the wood filler and slopping down the spiral.  When it dried and was sanded I resprayed the body tube with primer, then hit the whole thing with thinned wood filler.  After sanding this process left me with a respectable looking body tube, but still too flimsy for my tastes.

The paint scheme on the face card was a simple one, in keeping with the nature of the rocket.  White body, black fins, red nose cone.  All of the paint was Valspar gloss.  So easy a caveman could do it.  Or a silverback in my case.

The decals.  Blessed bovine these were terrible.  Decent looking enough, but a) peel and cuss, and b) completely lacking in anything resembling adhesive.  They had already fallen clear of the backing paper when I opened the kit.  Not having any of that, I printed a set on Bel Inkjet Decal Paper.  They're mostly wrap decals, so they're a pain in the butt anyway, but the improvement was tenfold.