Cut fin slots into the airframe that are straight, evenly spaced, and free of tear-out. Slot alignment translates directly into fin alignment — crooked slots produce crooked fins and induced roll or instability in flight.

1. Printed a slot guide sized to fit around the body tube.
2. Secured the guide to the body tube with duct tape.
3. Drilled a hole at the end of each slot, using the guide to locate them.
4. Cut down the slots with the Dremel, following the guide edges.

Printed cutting jig taped to the body tube.

Printing a guide that wraps the body tube let us position and cut all the slots consistently without measuring and marking each one by hand. The end holes kept every cut to length and gave clean slot ends.

Match each bonded joint to the right adhesive. Airframe structure needs a tough, gap-filling bond; the motor-retainer zone near the nozzle sees high heat that most structural epoxies are not rated to hold.

Use a toughened structural epoxy for all airframe bonds, thickened only when a fillet needs to hold its shape. Reserve a high-heat metal epoxy strictly for the metal-to-metal zone at the motor nozzle.

Fin fillets laid with structural epoxy.

Produce the load-bearing structural parts of the airframe in-house on the 3D printer instead of cutting them from sheet stock, and confirm the printed parts held their geometry through assembly.

Printing the nose cone, centering rings, and fins let us fabricate every structural component ourselves with consistent, repeatable geometry — no sheet material or laser cutter needed, and quick to reprint if a part needed adjusting.