Estes 2002 Orbital Transport
 

One of my favorite rockets from when I was younger has always been the Estes Orbital Transport. I remember saving my money as a kid and buying the kit in the early 80s. I was so excited until I opened the kit and discovered I had to cut out all the parts. I remember it being a hard build and did not come out looking too good. When I got back into the hobby in early 2000, Estes had a re release of the kit, of course I bought a couple. I could have used laser cut parts from BMS, but decided to use the old wood that came in the kit. I really wanted to build this but did not want to spend too much time building so I used the KISS principles. The longest part of the build was cutting out the parts and sanding. I was going to seal the parts before assembly but after seeing all the pieces, decided to fill the grain after the build. Besides I was anxious to get started. Built per the plans using Titebond Speed set, the plans were pretty good compared to Estes instructions today. I had all the parts cut out, sanded and built in 2 days. I ran out of Brodak again so I used Sig Sanding sealer thinned 50 percent. I brushed on 3 coats with sanding between coats. Actually went pretty fast using some sanding tools I have made over the years to get into the tight areas. When thinned, Sig sealer is the easiest stuff to sand, reminds me of old school Aerogloss Balsa Filler. Since it is thinned so much, it dries really fast so I was done pretty quick. To keep with KISS, no other fillers were used and no primer. After letting the sealer dry overnight, I shot a couple of lite coats of Krylon Acryli Quik Gloss white, first hitting the hard to reach areas. Before shooting the last wet coat, I had some glue, fuzz or dust bunnies I had to sand off. The good thing was the grain was all filled. Also with Krylon, there is not ridiculous recoat times, so I can sand the fuzz bunnies and shoot the final coat in the same day. I will let her dry 24 hours and begin to apply the old waterslide decals and paint the required areas black. Call me strange, but I really like the look of built up rockets with just bare balsa, cardboard, plastic and paper. I like the clean look and that is why I don't like to use glues that dry yellow. I know, it is strange and functionality should be more important.

Some more painted pictures. I also bought a box of these Alpha kits at the local thrift store for I think about 10-15 bucks, so I built one in a couple of days. I used old Alpha III decals I had laying around.

Scigs,

Lovely stuff!

We need a like button...

Bob

That was fast, I got the old decals on and took some pictures. These are old decals that were printed in the USA, they went on pretty good for old decals. On most old decals I don't use any treatments, just place in warm water and let soak longer. Also I don't really fuss with them once they are on the rocket. Also when applying the decals I used the face card for decal placement. I noticed the main body tube on the face card rocket is shorter than the one supplied in the kit. At first I thought the long window decal was just longer, but you can see the actual body tube is shorter. I cannot wait to see the larger version that Estes comes out with.

As always...

Awesome!

I recall hearing at NARCON 2020, eRockets was going to produce an upscale, but for whatever reason it didn't happen. Did Estes announce this recently?

Estes did announce it recently.
The Semroc one hasn't happened yet, I assume due to Randy having an illness.
I hope either are big enough to fit micro RC gear in the orbiter.

You mean this one?

Randy seems to be doing well. He was at our last launch and did some LCO duty. His big worry seemed to be someone bouncing a rocket off of his new truck. :o ;) Not me that day. I think if anything the delay has been due to a lack of production materials. If you look at the eRockets page, a lot of the Semroc stuff seems to be out of stock. I picked up one of the Jupiter saucers this weekend, along with an 18mm Corporal kit.

How do you like the gloss with the Krylon Acrylic-Quik? I have looking to give this a try.