First Issue Cherokee-D Kit Scans
 

Here are the scans for a first issue Cherokee-D kit I picked up very luckily a little over a week ago in an eBay deal. For less than $12 per kit, I got the opened Cherokee-D; a pre-Damon (68-69) ARCAS sealed and mint; a pre-Damon Orbital Transport just about mint; a countdown tag Falcon boost glider mint; a 'Free Kit' Stinger mint; and a pre-Damon partially built Avenger. Photo of the batch is below.

But most importantly for here are the scans for the Cherokee-D kit, which is a first issue kit. It did not have the hang tag on the kit, so I do not know if it had a yellow pre-Damon hang tag or other. But, the face card and instructions do sport the pre-Damon logo.

Body tube length came out to right at 1/32th less than 14 3/8th inches, which is 14.344 long.

If someone has a drop box, I can drop them the full rez 300 dpi TIFF scans, which is how I normally scan these items.

I'll add the instruction scans in the next post.

Earl

...and the instruction scans.

Earl

Earl,

What a great find!

Looking at the Cherokee face card, I noticed launch lug stand-offs. Had no idea...

2-piece fins...

Many thanks to all for digging up the info.

Bob

Yes, the two piece fins were news to me until this thread and the fact that I was able to snag these kits was just happenstance. The standoff is, I suppose, to support their kit instruction recommendations to use a 'rail' for launching on D motors (see bottom right of page 1 of the instruction set). The 'standoff' material is 1/16" dowel an inch long.

I did not want to 'turn the knife' too hard about the price paid for this batch of kits, but the $70 was the 'delivered' price (with shipping); the actual purchase price for the batch was just $60. Sometimes you just get plain lucky....

Earl

Were those kits listed under some improper category or branding on ebay ?
That's a steal.

Wow, that's a great deal indeed

I don’t think these were listed incorrectly on eBay or anything like that, as they popped up during one of my standard rocketry item searches. I think it was one of those cases where I saw them *right* after they were first listed and I don’t think anyone else (or very, very few) saw it before I was able to hit the ‘buy’ button.

The lister did state he was the original owner and had purchased them in the late 60s as a kid and had just never gotten around to building them (though I had the impression he had built prior kits); these just were never completed (the Avenger had been started) or opened.

Again, I just plain got lucky.

Earl

Knife turned :)

Earl... WOW!!! What a find!!! Wanna sell it? I'd be more than happy to make it worth your while (even open bag).

I really appreciate you sharing that with us. I'm curious if there's a typo... You said that the body tube is 14.344" long? That's about 2" shorter than the guide says the BT-55V is (16.35").

Do you have any way of taking a photo of the nosecone with a ruler? Perhaps with it inside a body tube, and without the body tube? (I'd like to check the outline of it).

If you could email the higher res images to me, I'll add them to the archive w/proper credit (and of course there's JimZ's site).

Again... THANKS for sharing! Updates are in the works.

I'd also like to say thanks to everyone who has provided additional information on this kit. I'm doing what I can to preserve the history of the hobby, and I can only do that with your help.

Thanks!