Ye Olde Rocket Forum - View Single Post - Agitating for Series 17 tubing

Actually, 1/10 scale is a very handy uniform scale as Carl at Semroc discovered before his passing. He called it Deci-scale. In addition to the Semroc Nike-Tomahawk and Aerobee kits, its a good size to make everything from Sparrow to Pershing missiles. All the Nike-based sounding rockets, Terrier-based sounding rockets, Taurus (Honest John)-based sounding rockets, Talos- based sounding rockets, Sandhawk, WAC, Astrobee and others can be built in this scale with presently existing tubing. A check of eRockets indicates that Carl had designed most of the nose cones for these sounding rockets in this scale for a scratch builder. Of course, you could also build their missile brethern (before being beaten into plowshares) in this same scale as well. Nike-Hercules and Pershing kits already exist.

Semroc carries the various tubing sizes in increasing .10" increments. The Series 15 tubing was a relatively recent development. Semroc and others carried the other sizes. But there were two missing sizes: Series 14 (1.44" outer diameter) and Series 17 (1.74" outer diameter) The 14 would work for Hawk-based missiles and sounding rockets and as noted the 17 for all the various Black Brant-based rockets. 14 would also be the proper size for Shenzhou LRBs in 1/64 scale.

Frankly, there's nothing that would indicate that a manufacturer would be "stuck" with this size tubing any more than Estes was ever "stuck" with odd-ball sized BT-52 tubing or BT-65 or some of their other off-size tubing they have made over the years. The answer is make something out of it. Series 17 tubing would be a 1/70 scale Atlas or Titan or Falcon 9. With the right nose, they'd be constant scale with your Semroc Saturn 1B. No, it's not getting "stuck" with extra tubing, it's an opportunity for imagination.