http://www.semroc.com/Store/scripts...ts.asp?SKU=KV-1

Here it is. I should get one to go with my golden scout.

There hasn't been much movement in this thread lately but, I thought my info belonged here.

Earlier in this thread I mentioned that the Leeds Sweete crayon sharpener that I have in the package does not say "Rocket Crayon Sharpener" on it, the way the one Ted Mahler used in his Sport Rocketry acticle about building a Mark II. I thought that maybe mine was an early version of the crayon sharpener and that Leeds Sweete changed the package after they found out Orville was using them for nose cones.

So, if you look very closely at the photo from the Quest Museum photos, (link below)
http://www.questaerospace.com/Image...0Jan%201958.jpg
the photo looking over the shoulder of a young man, in the upper left hand corner you will see 2 Leeds Sweete crayon sharpeners still in the package. The one laying down just says "crayon sharpener" on it. You can check it with the photo I had in this thread. Thus showing that the crayon sharpeners did not say "rocket" on them until sometime after Orville was using them. I just found this to be very interesting.

Not much new in this thread but, I wanted to share this photo for any of you guys that enjoyed Orville's Mark II Rock-A-Chute. I'm guessing that not too many of these boxes still exist. I DO NOT own this box. The photo was sent to me by the owner who was not into rocketry. I do know that this entire box has moved on to someone else but, I don't know who. . . maybe one of you guys.

That's an interesting foot sticking out of it!! :D

Hahahaha. I was just going to say the same thing. Creepy!

Rick,

I had the immense pleasure of seeing your amazing collection of Mark II reproductions, with original cones, at NARAM 50 (I was the guy sharing Sandman's tent). For those not as fortunate as me, Rick has made an incredible effort to reproduce each version of the Mark II he has found in old photos.

Is there any way you could take photos of each of your models, front and back, and post them here along with a copy of the original photo upon which you based each model?

No one else has even come close to your level of documentation of these early models and I'd hate to see such great research go unpublished.

And Ted, thanks again for your great Sport Rocketry article. It inspired a number of us to pay way more attention to this great old model.

Steve

Here's a pic I recently received from the Smithsonian of their Carlisle Mark II Rock_A-Chute they have in their collection. Its hi-resolution and it scales up to 200-400% in photo editiors that I have really nice to see it up close and personal.

You can clearly see the staples and paper fin reinforcement and the plastic nose cone "strakes".

enjoy

terry dean

That baby's got a face only a mother could love :)

Seriously, while I appreciate the historcial significance of that rocket, I can see why other, later kits were so much more popular. As Detroit figured out so long ago, it's gotta function well, but it's gotta be pretty, too!

Doug

.

Thanks for posting that photo Terry. I think it's awesome.

I will try and get photos of my group of Mark II's in the near future.

I immediately thought of Terry Gilliam.

Seeing how this thread has been dormant for awhile, I thought I'd share a photo of my interpretation of the Mark II. Built from the Semroc kit, and foregoing the ugly bits, but with an attempt at reproducing a more representative nose without having to scavenge an actual Leeds Sweete crayon sharpener.

I see one of those everyday....along with original packaging.

John, nice job on the Mark II. The extra work on the nose is great. I never thought of adding the strips to the nose on the regular sized Mark II's. I've included a photo of my Mark II's and my upscale Mark II that I think is posted in some other thread. I just love the Mark II.

Shrox, if you mean you see a Leeds Sweete Crayon Sharpener in its package that says "Rocket Crayon Sharpener" on it, I might know where Bill got it. ;) Pass along my wish for the Museum part of the website to be re-posted, as that is where I got the inspriation for the color schemes on my Mark II's.

Thanks;

You have a great collection of Mark IIs, and the upscale must be a joy to fly.

Not being able to find a Leeds Sweete sharpener, the thought struck me to just modify the Semroc kit nose. The accompanying photo shows what I did.

I get to see original Rock-A-Chute items, engines, rockets, packaging and the evolution of where to attach the shock cord.

Oddly enough, I only have the Semroc Mark II, and I haven't even built it yet. (Soon though, I keep telling myself, soon. :rolleyes: )

MarkII (no relation to Orville Carlisle)

Shrox

I had the opportunity of going to the Garber facility in Maryland, part of the Smithsonian during NARAM 50.

Housed in this facility under climate control, I saw the G. Harry Stine collection, as well as the FIRST Rock-A-Chute model rocket as well as Orville Carlisle motors.
Carlisel
There is quite a collection of vintage rockets, Model Missiles items as well as Estes and Centuri along with the Carlise items.

All of this and the entire facility is supposed to be moved
RD

An original Leeds Sweete crayon sharpener is for sale on eBay right now, ends tomorrow.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/160761809608

:cool: I just flew my Mark II tonight. Almost landed in the middle of US 27, but hit the roadside and cracked a fin instead. :(

To get the crayon sharpener to work as a nose cone, was a collar of some kind glued to the bottom of it, so it would fit in the BT?
I'm sure the answer to this question is on YORF somewhere...

Thanks!

Allen

Picture below is from the October 1957 issue of Mechanix Illustrated article about Rock-A-Chute rockets. Photo shows the nosecone with what appears to be a wood plug.

Someone should 3D-scan one of those sharpeners so it can be fabbed.

John (or Rick): How many of the longer ridges are there around the circumference of the nose cone/sharpener - four or five?

John: thin strips of fiberboard or wood or what? I'm rebuilding a crashed Semroc Mark II (tipped off in the wind on a Quest A6-4) and would like to better replicate the sharpener/cone whilst I am at it.

Thanks!!

Hi Bernard;

There are five long ridges around the nose. In my reworked Semroc nose I used 0.047" square styrene strips, each cut to length and then glued to the nose with CA. After the CA had cured, I used a medium grit sanding block to taper each strip. I found that sanding each strip after it had been installed resulted in a much more consistent taper.

About a couple of months after doing my build I came across an original Leeds Sweete sharpener and discovered that the depth of the ridges at the aft end of the sharpener are barely 1/32"; they're much more subtle than what I had imagined, and using 0.030" square styrene strip to replicate the ridges would result in a much more accurate representation.

I found this to be a relatively straightforward (and cheap!) modification to make to the Semroc nose and I'm quite happy with the result. Even with my Fred Flintstone-sized ridges the overall effect, once blended and painted, is quite distinctive and I'm often asked if that's an orignal sharpener when folks see the model. If one were to use a strip size closer to the actual ridge thickness it would be very hard to tell the difference once finished and painted. I plan to build another (I quite like this model, and Carl has done his usual great job with it) and will do exactly that.

As a final note I'll mention that I had prepared an article for our club newsletter outlining my method for this rework, and I've attached a copy below.

Bernard,

Yep, 5 long and 5 short strakes. The cone is 2" long and the long strakes are 1.5" with the short ones being 1.25". They stick out at the base like John said and taper into the cone at the top. I tried to get a good photo but, it's not great.

Just went and checked out John's article and it is very nice. Good work!

Thanks, both of you! I've looked at G. Harry's model in the Museum of Flight more than once and have some pictures I've taken of it....but couldn't tease out the right number from that or from the pics you posted, though I'd just about convinced myself it was five of each.

And thanks for the how-to, John. Very nice. Now all I need to do is stop by the hobby shop for the styrene sheet. I have a little Fourmost cutter - not as nice as the NWS Chopper, but it'll do the job.

added: It occurs to me that if 0.030 sheet would work, so would 1/32 bass wood. I probably have some of that to hand.....:)

And 1/32 bass does in fact work.....I'll have to post a picture. I was not quite as methodical about the spacing as John in adding the strips, but I have to say, even unpainted, it is VERY convincing.

Thanks again!

Well we'll want to see some pictures indeed! Have you decided on your color scheme for finishing the model?

I'll try to take a quick snap this evening and post it.

On color schemes: the crashed rocket that is being reworked was orange except for a yellow nose cone. But I'm tempted to paint the "rhinoplasty" version white and swap it onto my currently flyable Mark II which is painted to look like the one built by GHS that's on display in the Museum of Flight in Seattle. That one is has a fluorescent red body/fins except that one fin is black. That particular model also has a conventional 1/8 inch launch lug on it rather than the one that works on a 1/4 dowel. It also has the fins glued on, not attached with the staples and such. One picture showing both of these points attached. So is a better view of the model overall.

I'd love to be able to have color documentation of other Mark IIs from the early days so as to more readily be able to enter one in a Classic Model competition (NAR event P57). The way the rules are written one needs a color picture for documentation. If you have a place I can look, I'd love to know.

I was showing the reworked nose cone to my wife last night and discussing this problem and she had the brilliant suggestion that I should just paint the model in shades of grey! :D

Bernard,

I've included a photo of my re-makes of Mark II's in the case I carry them in. All of these color patterns I got from photos I've seen. One is modeled from the Museum that you posted a picture of. (The crayon sharpener nose was painted white, the sharpener never came in white. Bill Stine told me it was painted.)

The other photo I've included shows a photo that is from a thread here on the forum of a news reporter that visited Orville's wife and daughter and took a photo.

All the other patterns I got from the Quest Museum web page. The front page says "collection of B&W pictures" but, they are in early color.

http://www.questaerospace.com/q_museumgallery.asp

You have to look carefully at all the photos to find the different variations. The short movie that you can download has a Mark II taking off from a launch pad as well. (at 2:35 into the clip) Though, I couldn't get the link to work tonight but, I have it saved in my Ipod movies.

http://www.questaerospace.com/Image.../MMI_Launch.m4v

I have been biten by the early Mark II bug and I can't get enough. I wish I could find some more early photos as well. I keep hoping that Bill Stine will add more to the Quest Museum. He surely has some more historical stuff. I will try and post some "not really important but, cool" stuff about the crayon sharpeners when I get some other photos taken.

Hope this helps.

Wow, Rick - thanks!

Of course I have to do up a Mark 4 in one of these schemes, no? :)

added: movie link worked for me and I now have it copied down to my MacBook.

Bernard;

On my model I wanted to retain the appearance of the original so I kept the "large" launch lug. But to make it compatible with our 1/8" launch rods I just glued a short piece of 1/8" LL inside the big one. Perfectly functional and perfectly disguised.

And yes, I would say that was quite a brilliant and practical suggestion on the part of your wife. They do seem to have this way of seeing problems differently than us!

John,

The first Mark II I built from the Semroc kit I wound up flying off of 1/8 (or 3/16) rods with the simulated spent motor casing "launch lug" without doing what you did, though I did think about doing it. I actually wrote Carl at Semroc and asked his advice and his reply was something to the effect that using the big lug was not a problem because the Mark II was "so stable". That said, I expect a 3/8 lug on a 1/8 rod was one of the three factors that conspired to cause the one I'm rebuilding to crash. The other two were a pretty good breeze and the slow thrust build-up of the Quest A6-4 motor.

Here are a couple of pics I took this morning of my 1/32 basswood-based sloppy interpretation of your simulation of the sharpener nose cone.

The rocket, as shown, is all the parts from the crashed one except the BT and the parachute. You can tell the BT I used for the rebuild was previously used as a nose cone paint holding picture for other ST-10 models. My Start has a blue nose cone.....

Rick,

Yeah....the one GHS built which is on display at the MoF looks as if the sharpener is painted.

That's similar to what I did with my Mega-Alpha (5.5 to 1 scale up of the Alpha). The scaled-up "launch lug" is made of two Alpha body tubes, one split and placed around the other, and a standard 1/2" high power lug glued within it.

I haven't had a problem flying my Mark II of a 1/8" rod. The one screwy flight I had turned in a weird direction quite a few feet off the pad so the rod had no influence on it.

The real sharpener has much subtler ridges. If I build another Mark II, I plan to use slivers of 1/64" plywood or tiny styrene strip to simulate them. (or make a mold of the sharpener and make them from resin. And if I do eventually do that, I'll tell you guys. Don't hold your breath.)

I thought of 1/64 ply - but having only seen the painted sharpener on GHS' model in the MoF, I figured that would be too thin (and handling that to glue it on is not something I want to contemplate). I have started to taper the bass strips already and can do more before I repaint the NC.

Those spring sunshine pics make the edges of the bass strips really stand out, that's for sure.

I think that's an interesting suggestion, and it would be equally interesting to see the result with 1/64" ply. I will say though that the ridges/strakes on my sharpener are just a little less than 1/32" deep at the base; I would think that 1/64" might be just a shade too subtle. But ultimately this is a modification, so the end result only has to please the builder.

Bernard's effort is looking great, and I'll be keen to see it painted. Once the strakes are blended and finished the end effect makes for quite a distinctive appearance as compared to the stock (smooth) nose.

This a great thread, alot of good info. Photos of Mark 1&2, Mark 1 flies on a A3-4t and is super stable. John

Great models, each! Well done. How did you come up with the Mark 1; scaled from photos?

Yes, used different photos. There's one somewhere of Mrs. Carlisle shown with a Mark 1&2, I tried to scale from that. I used balsa for fins and turned the N/C.