This has been a project that has been many years in the making...in 2009, when I was cloning the 1/100th Saturn 1B )
click for build thread ), I found out that YORF member grafgulch produced vacuform wraps for the Saturn 1B. During email exchanges, I learned he also had vacuform parts to upgrade the Estes Apollo Little Joe II to the A003 vehicle. I always loved the big 1/45 Centuri Little Joe II, but could never justify the expense of it to my parents, so I settled for an Estes 1/70, but painted it silver and white like the bigger brother.
So I purchased a couple sets of LJII wraps, gathered up the required tubes, then put it all in my closet and forgot about the project. Fast forward to 2016 and Estes re-released the 1/45th Little Joe II. I bought a couple, and then thought it would be cool to make a "mini me" 1/70th model, so I dug the parts out of the closet and cut the tubes to length and decided to order an Apogee Apollo capsule rather than try to clone the Estes K-30 capsule (or build a Semroc capsule). Something came up, and the parts went back into the closet...
Finally, back in May I decided to get to work on this model. I contacted Paul (grafgulch) to see if he still made the wraps and to see if he minded me posting a build article on them. He gave me the go ahead, so here we go...
First, what do you get when you order the wraps? In the photo you see the body wrap, four sets of fin halves, and four fin fairings. The body wrap is formed with 0.012 inch thick polystyrene, and the other parts are 0.030 inch thick. The parts are high quality, with a lot of detail.