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Originally Posted by Faithwalker
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How about that! Thank you for posting those links! (It would be interesting to know what all model rocketry items the National Air and Space Museum has, because Stine mentioned in his Handbook that he and others donated a lot of items to the NASM.) An interesting note about both of those Bo-Mar kits (which is mentioned in their brief descriptions) is that the fins, body, and nose are made of something called "Kraftboard" (Kraft paper, perhaps?), *but*:
That is almost certainly erroneous, though, because I could see that the Swift's nose cone is wood, and a piece of sheet balsa is also visible in both kits' plastic bags, as are regular Kraft paper body tubes. Also, the Bo-Mar 1969 catalog (see:
http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/ca...69bomarcat.html ) says that the Swift's nose cone was hardwood. In fact, the inside front cover of the catalog ("Introducing the Mini-Arsenal") says of all of their kits that: "The use of hardwood nosecones eliminates use of added weights and provides for more rugged use, better-looking models and greater stability." Also:
They used 1" x 18" vinyl plastic streamers, which were available in yellow (that's the color visible in the Swift kit), red, blue, and orange (the Alpha-1's streamer is that color). They also sold plastic nose cones (and "chromed" versions of them, too) for customizing their kits, but maybe Bo-Mar didn't last long enough to design and offer rocket kits that used the plastic nose cones. (I get the impression that Bo-Mar was formed to capitalize on the Moon landing excitement in 1969 [or 1968?] or so, then faded as the space program interest did; I don't know if they ever even made motors, or sold re-labeled Estes or Centuri motors.) Their metal--it looks like it was--FLEX-A-PAD launcher looked tough, and interestingly, they offered not only 12" parachutes (how many shroud lines they had, I don't know), but 6" parachutes--decades before Estes offered such tiny 'chutes! (Estes' smallest ones were 8" and 10" wide [PK-8 and PK-10]). As well:
Speaking of Bill's up-scaled Bo-Mar Spartan (which looks really sharp--thank you for including the link to his thread about it!), he got me thinking... This kind of recreation of old rocket kits, where one only has incomplete data to proceed on (some builders of museum models of rocket vehicles have been in the same position, as Peter Alway pointed out in his 1994 book, "The Art of Scale Model Rocketry"), could become a new Scale category in model rocketry, which could be called
Forensic Scale. In a reply to Bill Eichelberger's Bo-Mar Spartan thread (in Reply #13, see:
http://forums.rocketshoppe.com/show...6586#post226586 ), I wrote (in part) the following about Forensic Scale:
A useful name for this type of model reproduction that you've done here, where you only have incomplete data to go on, might be "Forensic Scale," because it is similar to the other forensic arts (see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_arts ). While the term "forensic" is usually associated with police work (where a police department sketch artist or sculptor [both can use computer techniques and/or the original manual ones] creates a portrait or sculpture of a subject from witnesses' descriptions), these techniques are also used in other fields, such as art reconstruction, anthropology, archaeology, etc. Also:
A few plastic model kits have been Forensic Scale, too (one example is the Testors 1:48 scale Area 51 UFO kit, which was designed based on verbal description or descriptions). A working definition of Forensic Scale model rockets might be:
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A Forensic Scale model rocket is a replica of a full-scale rocket or spacecraft (or of a proposed, cancelled, or existing but yet-to-be-flown vehicle of either type, or a fictional vehicle of either type), or a replica of a non-scale, Scale, Sport Scale, or semi-scale model rocket kit of the past, whose design requires the builder to utilize forensic art techniques due to having only incomplete data to use.
These forensic techniques can include reconstructing fin patterns, other parts (including body tube lengths), and decor schemes from published and/or unpublished, partly-dimensioned and/or un-dimensioned drawings, illustrations, sketches, and/or photographs of the original vehicles or models, as well as printed and/or verbal descriptions from the original vehicles' or models' manufacturers, as well as from others who built or owned examples of the original vehicles or models.
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I hope this information will be helpful.