Recovery Builds
 

So I listed a few possibilities for builds during my heart surgery recovery:

- Cloning the old shorty Midget & Beta
- ASP WAC-Corporal 2 stager
- Open bag SkyDart kit from about 1972 (Damon era yellow face card)
- Semroc SLS Arcas
- Semroc Jupiter B
- Super Mars Snooper

Then I remembered a beat-up vintage Scamp I picked up recently, so started with that. Package was sealed, but it may have been re-sealed, since it was missing the parachute shroud lines. The die-crushed fins took a lot of sanding to look halfway decent; the partially crushed BT rounded out after inserting the engine mount; the rubber shock cord was shot, so substituted some elastic. I didn't want to cut the header card, so dug through my stash and found a vintage shock cord mount "SCM-50", pre-dating the "Printed In China" version, so used that. The tape discs were, of course, no good, so used some mylar tape instead.

I was surprised that the decal is a peel-and-stick - hopefully there's still some "stick" left. It's printed black on white, which is a bummer, since I wanted to paint the model yellow & black as shown in the 1977 catalog.

I really like the scamp and am surprised a kit from the 70’s has stick on decals. Good chioce for a build, and nice picture of the 40 year old shock cord!

That Blast Off! EAC flyer is one of my favorites. HUGE nostalgia buzz from those, second only to the 1977 catalog.

I'll mail it to you if you're interested, no cost. I've got too many stamps anyhow.

Got a start on the shorty versions of the Astron Midget (K-40) & Astron Beta (K-45), now waiting on tubes from eRockets. I have some brown BT-20/BT-50, but prefer the white ones.

Also shown, a small part of my shorty stash I'll be flying them on.

I slapped this Semroc Jupiter-B together yesterday, just needs a coat of silver spray paint when I can get to the HW store - no driving allowed yet.

Thanks, but I've got a couple. I just see them and think of Rocket Red spray paint. :D

I cheated a bit on my most recent Beta build. I ordered Semroc balsa instead of cutting my own. I wanted things to match up for once. :rolleyes:

PaulK

I came across this when I was going through my decal stash today. You can have it if you want to do waterslide. Still black on white though. PM me and I will send it along if you need it.

Wow, that's very generous! At this point, I think I'd prefer black-on-clear - I don't see redrawn decals anywhere to print myself, but Tango Papa has them listed, so I'll contact him.

While waiting on parts, I put together these Squirrel Works "Battle Of Britain" gliders. I lost one of my original war in the pacific gliders, and busted the other one. The balsa is pretty soft on the German glider, so it may not last more than one flight.

I think I'll do one or two coats of Sand 'n Seal, just enough so the decals will stick. Not going to spend too much time finishing these. The Pacific ones glided fantastic with very little trimming.

Next up, the Astron Skydart. First, an inventory of the parts. Nearly everything is there, it's missing one of the 5 NCW-1 weights, and the Elevator retainer clip. The instructions only show 4 of the weights being used, so I may not need the 5th. Anyone know what the retainer clip is made from?

The chute tape strips and hinge material have no stick, so those will require replacement, and the decals look dicey. I may just get some from Tango Papa, since I need Scamp decals too. Wish he had Beta decals - looks like I'll have to print those. I'll also replace the elastic thread, even though it has surprisingly good stretch to it.

Some of the die-crushed fins need repair work, but the balsa is all there.

Both my War in the Pacific gliders were sacrificed to the spirits of the hay field early last summer - the elevator from the Zero was found in the fall but that was it. I’m building a set of Holverson Zoomies as stand-ins until my next order from Squirrel Works. Your builds have been a bit of an inspiration so thanks for that!

The #3229 Sky Dart II retainer is made up from three pieces of laser cut balsa - probably not much help but it does look easily replicated. https://estesrockets.com/wp-content..._SKYDART_II.pdf

Astron SkyDart Elevator Holder
 

Or use a bent small paper clip for the elevator hold-down. Ive done this pretty much for every gflider of those sorts up till F power and then bent music wire for HPR sorts.

You'd just bend the clip up, tape down the 'other half', then bend the rest back down with a small bump in the rear section. Also ensure that the pointy end of the clip does NOT have any chance to impinge your elevator!!

Once you've done one of these it's likely a go-to solution overall. Certainly beats gluing small finicky balsa bits taht may/may not be precise in holding down the elevator for boost but also allowing the pod to freely eject.

AH-HA! I finally found them! I have a set of Scamp decals. PM your mailing address to me if you want them.

My brother drove me to the HW store yesterday for some Silver paint - the Jupiter-B is now finished. The finish isn't too hot on this one, it's seemed impractical to try for a smooth finish on those cardboard legs - besides, it's just a fun booster motor burner when I don't feel like walking. At least it's shiny!

The parts bags for the Midget, Beta, and Firefly are complete. I'll start on the Midget, then the FireFly. I'll hold off on the Beta until the Qualman fin alignment guides arrive, the placement of those is more critical. Normally I just mark the lines and eyeball for straightness.

No idea what color scheme I'll go with, but I'm thinking some sort of matching or complimentary scheme, so the 3 look sort of like a set.

The SkyDart starts with the wing assembly.

First 2 of 3 shorty 2 stagers are complete. On the FireFly, I shortened the toothpicks and rounded their edges, to hopefully reduce breakage on landing. Centuri advertised the FireFly as the world's smallest 2 stage rocket - it's about 1/4" shorter than the Midget, and the upper stage ST-8 is smaller than BT-50, so I guess that fits the bill.

Now for sealing, sanding, repeat. I've been using the Deluxe Products Sand 'n Seal, and even with 3 coats, and a coat of primer, sanding between each, the balsa isn't as smooth as I'd like. There's zero ventilation where I'm currently building, so can't use my stash of Aerogloss. Need to figure out if there's something I can do differently with this stuff.

Paul, Try Elmer's Carpenter's Wood Filler ( or Elmers Fill 'n Finish, if you can find it ). THin it down with water, and brush it on. Then sand.

Steve

What is this ventilation GARBAGE when using Aero Gloss products ??
Kinda ruins the experience... ;) :rolleyes: :D

Gotta agree here. The stuff has never bothered me.

OK, now that the obligatory dope shaming is over, I put on the first coat of Sand 'n Seal on the FireFly and Midget. Perhaps I'll try gradually increasing grits for sanding each coat. The NCR Handy Stand works nicely to hold these while drying.

Now that 48 hours has elapsed for the Rustoleum base coat, I'll be able to spray a coat of yellow on the Scamp. I received a very nice set of decals from Jeffy, so I'll be able to make it look like the 1977 catalog art. Along with some vintage shroud lines, I also received what might be the coolest get well card ever - much appreciated!

Glad you like it!

The paint was sufficiently dry today on the gliders, so on go the decals. Phew, there are 6 sheets of them! The decal material is quite tough, I only had one small tear. Since I only put on one coat of Sand 'n Seal, and one light coat of gloss white, the surface isn't as smooth as I'd like, but didn't want to add any more weight than necessary. After applying the decals, I brushed on a coat of Micro-Sol to help soften them so they might adhere a bit better - we'll see. I don't expect to get many flights out of these, so they look good enough. Hopefully I'll get more than the one flight I got with the War In The Pacific gliders!

The Qualman fin guides arrived, so I started building the third shorty 2-stager, the Astron Beta. First, the set of parts, almost all from Semroc, including a genuine Knightdale BNC-20N NC. The build is based on the original instructions, with the exception of a kevlar leader and streamer instead of 8" parachute. We'll start with the booster:

Only the S-motor Beta used an 8" chute.
The later mini-brute Beta used a 10".

This discussion of chutes motivated me to dig through my stash - I found these 8" and 12" chutes. Since the K-45 Beta used 8", and K-40 Midget used 12", I could use these to make them closer to original, but chutes seem ridiculous for such small models. Anyone know if specific colors of chutes were used with certain kits, or were they just random?

Upper stage fins - using the Qualman fin guide, they line up much closer than I'd be able to do eyeballing. Connecting the stages together while the glue was still soft helped, since the guide only defines the angle between the fins, and doesn't guarantee they're parallel to the tube.

Chute colors back then seem to be random for the 12".
The only 8" I have seen is Orange/Black checkerboard.

I have always used streamers to recover the sustainers on my Beta (2" x 24") and Midget (K-40) (1" x 12"). Packing a parachute in a Midget (either version) harder than packing one in a Alpha.

Well now you've seen Red/White and Red/Yellow!

While the shorty builds enter the seal/sand/seal/sand/seal/sand phase, and the Scamp is waiting for the black Rustoleum to dry (gah, another 48 hours!) I'll continue building the SkyDart. The wing balsa is softer than I'd like, so I applied thin CA to the leading edge and sanded with 400, to toughen it up a bit, before gluing to the BT.

So I need to make hinges now, they were missing in my kit. I can guess at dimensions, but does anyone have an actual TH-1 hinge they can measure? They look to be about 3/4" x 3", room for 2 on the 7" long elevator with small gaps. I have some adhesive hinge material Carl sent me years ago, that Semroc laser-cut for the cc:Space Plane, X-21, and SST Shuttle, that should work nicely.

I scratch-built a Sky Dart clone years ago and used the same adhesive-label hinges from a Semroc CC: Space Plane.

Good to know. So, the instructions state to apply the hinges during assembly, I wonder if adhesion would be better if applied after the balsa is sealed? I applied directly to raw balsa on my original Gyroc and a Semroc cc:X-21, and they have never come loose, just wondering what other folks have done.

To figure out when I should apply the elevator hinges, I did some experimentation with the Semroc (Knightdale) white hinge material on unsealed balsa, and balsa with 1 coat of Sand 'n Seal. The later had better adhesion, so I'll be sealing the wing first. Not sure if I'll wait until after painting too, I'm concerned it would pull the paint up easier. I found the original hinge, and it measures 5/8" x 4 & 1/2", which gets cut in 2. I'll increase size a little, to 3/4" x 2 3/4", no reason not to. This hinge material seems similar to mylar, but tougher, and has a faint texture - I wonder what it's made from? Seems like eRockets has switched to different hinge material, as the Gyroc uses Tyvek, and the Scissor-Wing uses clear hinge material.

Anyhow, the SkyDart build continues with the internal pod assembly. Though my kit was missing one of the NCW-1A lead weights, only 4 are needed for the pod, the 5th is used for glider nose weight, if needed. The parts list calls out NCW-1A, the pod assembly instructions calls out NCW-1, I wonder what they actually are? Well, too late to weigh them, assembly is complete. The only missing part was the elevator retainer clip, I fashioned one from 1/32" brass wire (tried 5/64" too, but that seemed too thick).

The last step of the pod assembly is the 8" parachute, which is attached to the center of the pod. To help find the pod, I'm going to paint it something fluorescent, then add the parachute. Interesting that the chute is pre-Damon, even though it is a Damon kit with yellow face card.

Now that the paint is sufficiently dry on the Scamp, I applied the decals provided by Jeffy (thanks!). They worked nicely, sufficiently tough to not require liquid decal film, but thin enough to lay down very well. They did take a longer than normal soak to free up, around 45 seconds. Interesting that the little creature is a mirror image of the one on the header card. Good enough for me, and far better than the white stick-on decals that came in the kit. I wonder how the catalog model was decorated?