Fins Assy

[U.S. Water Rockets1]

I have had some success with hotmelt glue for fins by sticking a strip of 3M micropore tape to the bottle and glueing to that. Still often lose fins on ballistic returns, but never lost fins on takeoff.
Came up with the technique when I had to do a "make and fly" session with the local cub scouts. Only had an hour to work with so any wait for glue to cure ideas were out.
Still use PL Premium (actually Liquid Nails Platinum Construction Adhesive, as it's called in these parts) for fins on 'proper' rockets

Does the micropore tape help at all with the gluing with PL? It seems like a pretty good idea.

[Muzza]

I don't think Micropore would help when gluing fins on with PLP, I just added it when using hotmelt as a couple of trial rockets using straight hotmelt tended to shed fins on takeoff. My guess was the glue was too rigid and with the slight change in size of the bottle during pressureization was rupturing the joint. To give the glue something to bite into I tried the tape.
During crashes fins still come off, but when they do, its tearing the strip of tape away with the glue, so the tape is the weakpoint. Changing the glue won't change the weakpoint. Maybe a stronger fabric tape could be the go, might be worth looking into. I was just working with what I had
M