Quote:
Originally Posted by stefanj
I found one of those spin-fin units on a beach on July 5th . . . in 1971 or so.
Any item which it simply not made any more, I suspect. If one could be found, it could be 3D printed and reproduced.
|
That's true, and even flexible plastics can be and are used for 3D printing. Even an "eyeballed" one recreated from the catalog drawing or a photograph (I think I saw one in an online scan of another old Estes publication, not necessarily a catalog) would be "good enough," particularly since the fins' shape is so simple.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stefanj
I have been hoping to find a source of the other delta-fin firework fin cans, but the supply of those seems to have dried up as well. (FireFox no longer carries them.)
|
Like Roy (I loved your AS-501/Apollo 4 school project posting, by the way! I couldn't add anything, but I also enjoyed your linked-to articles on that pivotal mission!), the only "Bastille"-style (like on the catalog-illustrated version of Centuri's Sky Devil, see:
http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/ca...2/772cen10.html ) firework missile fin units that I've seen in recent years have very thick fins, which taper downward from their fin can attachment points. In the 1970s, the fins of the ~0.75" diameter firework missiles were 1/16" thick (or just a hair thicker), and they were of constant thickness. There were also smaller, quite similar ones (often made in Macao) that were about 0.6" in diameter, whose fins each had a molded-in "stiffening rib" along the trailing edge.
ALSO:
In the 1980s or 1990s, one of the consumer fireworks companies that I ordered from (Blue Angel Fireworks or Neptune Fireworks) offered a large--about 1" diameter--missile that looked very much like the Centuri Payloader II (see:
http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/ca...2/772cen12.html ); its fin planform was virtually identical to the kit's, and its nose cone was a long cone with a radiused tip, which fit into the body tube like a model rocket nose cone. It even used a rod-type launcher and launch lugs (it came on a plastic base with two 1/8" [or maybe 3 mm, being made in China] diameter rods that fit through lugs on either side of the missile; the rods were slightly shorter than the ~15" - ~20" long missile).