Winter build season
 

I finished a Semroc Cherokee C at the end of last season and liked it so much that I decided to build one in each tube size. Luckily the alphabet cooperated and the BT-5 is the Cherokee A. Decals were a challenge, but I like how they turned out. The BT-20 Cherokee B is being finished tonight.



After a decade of building Baby Berthas in every way but the way they designed it, I gave in and painted one like the face card. :D



The Estes Payloader II project stalled when I lost the decal sheet. Last weekend it turned up in a drawer, so I finished what I started a LONG time ago.

The original, seldom seen Estes Vagabond. I started this one a while back and recently decided to break down and print out the decal. My calculations were off a bit, but it isn't that easily noticed. They're slightly large.



The Estes Taser Twin was one of those rockets that I bought just because I wanted to build something and the Hobby Lobby coupon made it cheap. Not a bad kit, but the stripe decals for the sustainer fins are way too small. :mad:



The Fishhead Rocketry Maverick XL is a D-powered BT-55 upscale. I had a bunch of extra nose cones and a can of green paint, so this was born. The green is a little dark to allow the black decal to show at the top of the body tube, but in the sunshine on the pads it should look okay.

Quest THE Flash. This one survived being treed a couple of years ago and recently got painted. The sticker decal had no stick to it, so I found something online that worked just as well.



The Estes Kadet is a weekend build because I had the parts. The fin can is from the Skywriter that CATO'd a couple of years back. This one builds quick.



The Quest Sprint also had a sticker decal that didn't. If Quest crawls out of the hole they're in I hope they do so as a waterslide company. I scanned the sticker and printed it off as a waterslide, as it should have been

The last of my MRC birds, the Firefighter is a bit more stout than the other two. Another sticker failure, I printed off a scan of the decal and it looks pretty decent.



This Quest Tracer was an Ebay no-brainer because I replaced a rocket I had that I never got a picture of, and got a backup launch controller for basically the cost of postage. I didn't bother to paint this, I just scanned the useless sticker and printed it off as a waterslide.



The Semroc V-1.5 sat around in primer for years before I decided to complete it as Carl envisioned it.

Bill.........you've been busy!

Empty nest. :D I think I already posted the Canaroc FK-3 and Estes Hi-Flier, which were also a part of this group. I'm trying to puzzle out the Centuri-style wrap for the Semroc SLS Jaguar, one of my more tragic projects. :rolleyes: Poor thing flew once and sat in my room in primer for ten years or so. I recently got a wind up my blowhole to finish it, but I never cared for the stock decal. Too modern. I also finished the Estes Vampire tonight, so I should be able to get a pic of that tomorrow. :cool:

Look at all of the trophy winners.

Too bad a certain rocketperson could not present such a fleet! :rolleyes:

Business with new dog has limited my build hours.

I did rebuild an Estes Challenger 1 my brother gave me. New body tube and mount; parachute and plastic parts are from the original. Sandman's decal goes on sometime this week.

I'm also rebuilding a rocket I literally found in the trash. Someone's gift that they shabbily built and never flew; it was in the box, which had an unassembled launch pad and controler.

The model has the cone and tail cone of a Black Brant. Replaced the tube and need to come up with a fin pattern.

Oh, yeah, they're all shiny now, but the challenge is keeping them that way between now and the time that B6-4 Field resurfaces for the flying season. :D It's actually looking pretty decent right now for the weekend. Today would have been perfect if not for the 30+ mph winds. :(

I did both Challengers that way. The Challenger 1 needed a new tube, but the old tube just pulled away from the plastic pieces. They must have used bad glue. I did a review on it quite a while back.

http://www.rocketreviews.com/estes-...chelberger.html The pics don't do justice to how yellowed and crunched the original body tube was. It was almost comical.

The Challenger II came in an Ebay lot last year. I was able to cut the body tube and insert a coupler into the crunched portion, then fit the two halves back together without a seam showing. It still has "patina". :cool:
I'm guessing your Black Brant was the III version in BT-50?