"SAM" Rock
 

I did a similar treatment to a Semroc Astron Spaceman a few years ago, but I like this one even more.

As before, there's (50) stars on the model (not including the flag cantons.) In the middle of the tie is a red Swarovski crystal. Except for the hand-cut stars on the hat, all of the stars and flags are from packets of confetti.

Splendid!

I hope Semroc makes this guy available again soon. The one I built from scratch was blown to pieces by an overpowerful ejection charge; I think I'll stick with A10-3 from now on.

My experience has been the T motors are the worst for the excess ejection charges.

What I've done to combat them is to add vent holes where possible, and, on featherweight recovery models, to put the motor in as loosely as possible without it falling out on the pad.

For rockets with chutes/streamers, I try to beef up the recovery harnesses - but not get too carried away :)

I've had a few of these blow the glued-on pods completely off some Edmonds gliders - mostly Tinees, IIRC. The vent holes and loosely-fit motors seem to have helped that a lot.

Doug

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Good information.

I think I have a couple of Man in Space kits in my stash. The new Oregon Rocketry model rocket field is kind of tiny; novelty models like that are now more attractive.

Thanks! Actually, this is a clone. I replicated all of the balsa pieces with 1/16" basswood. The nose cone "head" is vintage.

Wonderful, as always, Jeff!

I always look forward to the latest Spaceman.
Your work is well beyond what Estes had in mind in the old instructions where they showed
suggested line drawings of how you could customize the kit.

As always, beautiful work!

Thank you!

I haven't done a Halloween-themed spaceman for a few years now, so it's about time. One would think that with "low-hanging fruit" like Halloween that it would be hard to run out of ideas.

Estes has a real problem with picking a happy medium of ejection charge size as 13mm motors are used in micro birds like the Mosquito up to those with a large space to pressurize.

In an ideal world, we would be allowed to add more BP if we needed a more energetic charge, but that still does not solve Estes' problem with the casual user.


Bill

I could have sworn that the witch build was recent. How time flies...

Are most of these stable or have you even tried before they are sold?


Bill