Vintage 1/2 A6-0
 

Odd.
An unopened diamond pack had 2 motors dated 5-4-73 and 1 dated 1-21-71.

Very strange.
I have never seen "old markings" motors mix packaged in with "new markings" motors.

Tube must have been loaded by hand. Finish up one bin, start another?
Very In-ter-esting...

Allen

Wasn’t 1973 the year Estes changed to the diamond packs?

If so, I’m wondering if the older labeled motors were part of a sizable batch that were in the Estes warehouse(s) at the time but still in the older blue tubes. Possibly the motors were shucked of the older blue tube packaging and repackaged with newer motors in the diamond packs.

Earl

I would suspect they did not put massive batches of motors all into blue tubes for longterm storage. More likely they left most of the motors "loose" in big containers, then packaged a certain % of them into mailing tubes as the "ready to go" stock of motors of a certain type got low, storing the rest until more were needed.

And, the 1/2A6-0 was not exactly a top-selling motor. So I could easily see Estes going a couple of years between production runs of those, doing a new run as the container of the last run dwindled, then old dumped in with new. Now if we were talking A8-3's or B6-4's two years apart, THAT would be a bigger puzzle, as I expect those to be among Estes' top-selling motors then, and perhaps now too (Probably B6-4's the top seller). So those probably were run every few months, if not every few weeks.

Hmmm. After typing this, it occurred to me that it would be safer to store those if they had all been put into the mailing tubes, rather than being left jumbled into big container boxes of whatever type. Though in any case, they do have motors stored in old railroad box cars or shipping containers, away from people (Motors have to "age" for a few weeks to dry out before being packaged, regardless).

Are the older ones the super thick walled casings and the newere ones the modern thin walled casing?


Thin walled is 18mm OD and .50 ID


Thick walled is 18mm OD and the ID is identical to the ID of a modern mini motor.

I would like to see the entire B6 line canned in favor of the B4 series which has a thrust profile similar to the C5 series.
More kick off the pad with a lower sustaining thrust...besides that those can be "converted" into B14's due to the large nozzle.
B4's stage easier too.

Yes, the older one has the thick walled casing.
I bought a box of 12 unopened diamond packs. The first one I opened was all thin walled, the second pack had one thick walled and 2 thin walled. I have 10 unopened packs left.

As long as you do NOT open them, those 10 packs all contain both 1971 AND 1973 1/2A6-0's.

At least that's what Schrödinger theorizes....

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:chuckle:


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