Q-ball’s painted. I mixed some gray (primer, as it happened) and flat black, painted on with a brush. Doesn’t look great under the OptiVISOR #7 lens, but looks okay, and looks fine with the unaided eye. When I masked the fin fairings, I left a small crescent masked that should have been unmasked, and it […]

Those RCS nozzles are awfully small–but tiny paint flaws look awfully big under a #10 Optivisor lens! Though it feels good to be closing on completion, there’s still so much detail work left. Painting the nose cone atop the launch escape system is upcoming, with a bit of a challenge to mask it well. And […]

The bane and boon of aging eyes. About 20 years ago, I first noticed that my near vision was starting to go, ever so slightly. (I had a hard time distinguishing the pins of a min-DIN8 connector.) The eyes are now to the point that for all the fine construction work and fine finishing work, […]