Vintage Estes Scorpion Build #1333
 

I have a couple of these kits but never built them. This is an older Scorpion with a different fin can than the later version that came out. Looks to be a simple build but the directions call for orange spray paint on the bottom portion, but the face card looks red to me. Oh well I will have to decide when I get to the part of the build.

The face card does look red. Perhaps a reddish-orange as a compromise? Maybe Bill Eichelberger could give you a paint recommendation. He has built about a 100 Der Red Max variants, ranging from red to orange to yellow to blue, and may have an idea. I personally want to try the Hemi Orange pictured in his Max thread.

http://forums.rocketshoppe.com/showthread.php?t=15837

Even this old "first" version of the Estes Scorpion was notorious for the booster "lawn darting" instead of tumbling with the result being a mangled booster tube-top.

That face card looks red to me!
I would guess they say to paint it orange to match up with the plastic nose cone and fin can color.

I think I will go with red to match the face card. Without having to mess with balsa sure made this a fast build. The Estes Mongoose looks pretty close to this design but there are some little differences with the parts. The fins on the can slant down more from the top on the Mongoose and the nose is one piece vs the two piece Scorpion nose. I will do a little sanding on the plastic and then hit with primer today.
http://www.estesrockets.com/rockets...2092-mongoosetm

I sprayed one coat of primer followed by Rusto Stop Rust spray paint, red and black. Once the paint dries I will apply the old decals.

The plastic is orange because the Scorpion used plastic parts from the Challenger 1 starter set. The Challenger 1 had a white body tube so that the model could be built without painting. It's also the same mold as the Star Trek starter set, but they were yellow parts. I believe the Mongoose uses the fin can from the Generic E2X kits, but I can't be sure as I've never seen a Mongoose kit.

You are right to paint it red to match the face card. The orange plastic is a little too orange to go well with the black and white decals and bare plastic doesn't look as good as a good paint job anyway.

Agree that red is the color to go with on an Estes Scorpion body/fins, but I seem to recall the proper nose cone color for this model is black per the catalog pics.

Last winter my brother gave me a dumpster-diving find; an intact Challenger from back in the day. Well, the body tube was kind of toasted, and I had to replace the motor mount too, but the fins, nose cone, parachute, engine hook and one centering ring are the original!

The plastic colors were kind of pale, so I sprayed them with Krylon orange. Also painted the replacement BT-50. Came out spiffy.

I seem to remember my old Scorpion having the square-sided fin unit, and a one-piece cone.

Here are my builds with the old nose and fin unit and pictures of the Mongoose kit.

I applied the old fragile decals today and she is ready for flight.

The looks exceptional!

Catalog quality build you got there.

I hope the first flight goes well!

Here is the scan of the instructions and fin unit. The decal is online already and is a better scan than I have.

So I was working on this recently. My plan is to use the svg file attached pdf is based on to cut some masks for the white portions using my Silhouette machine . I know the stencil font isn't right, but that's easy to fix for the next iteration.

Maybe this will help someone out.

kj