mike thanks for all your great work. my 2 cents bring back the andromida. that was and still is my fav. kit. i have been at this since 1974 and love the estes stuff. estes rocks. cant wait for the classics.

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craftsman, builder of exotics

Jeff Flygare once bragged to me with much glee and pride that the company used graphic methods so manual and impressive they deserved honors. He made reference to the "neon" treatment in one catalog from the 80's. He even went so far as to put me in a catalog holding one of Gary Crowell's Astrobee D's at NARAM in Houston.

As for blow molded cones, boy do I share your glee!!

Jerry

Wow, a case? Can I have one?!

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Dave, NAR # 21853 SR.

Mike
I don't think that you want to sell them off right now, isn't that for your retirement? I was surprised to see a MINT Cineroc up for sale, especially after so many member have voiced that they would love to get their hands on one.

My favorite, as mentioned previously. I did find five flight packs of film in my "camera" box.

RD

FYI

As of today, six bidders = $101.89 so far...........

RD,

I wonder what a Cineroc prototype (clear plasttic body to show the inner workings of the Cineroc), photo and negative of Mike showing , now deceased Colorado Gov. John Love and his young female assistant, the workings of the same clear 'demonstration' Cineroc, and a late 60's, 8mm copy of the April 1968 first Cineroc flight would be worth... maybe a case of Cinerocs?!

'nuff said, I have said too much already.

OK, back to lurker mode. Just wanted to chime in on this and the 'Black Mystery' rocket in the Model Rocket history section. Besides, with the 'One who shall not be named' now posting on here regularly, I have lost my interest with engaging in discussions here. Just best to get around his crap, and read the 'meat and potatoes' from others.

Bob

Mike, Your catalog builds have inspired myself and I am sure many others. When I build an Estes rocket, I try to duplicate the catalog build. Great job on your builds wish you were still building for the catalogs.
1. Do you still use basswood instead of balsa for fins? If you used balsa fins, what did you use to fill the grain?
2. Some time back Estes produced a couple of videos, one with William Shatner flying rockets. Did you build those rockets? Were they catalog quality builds made to fly? Thanks David

I can answer some of the one about the video.

"Roy: Did Estes Industries commission this film, or did you make it for another purpose?
Donald Gazzaniga: NO. THE film came about after doing an episode for a 20th Century Fox series I created and produced. The series was called Breakaway. Bill Shatner and I were friends and we worked out a package for Bill to narrate and do on camera stuff with lots of different subjects from skiing and hanggliding to the rocket segment. With allthe footage we shot we built the film you are speaking of (plus we added more scenes).

After the film was produced and marketed by us, Estes became interested in it. They bought rights to it and then changed it. What you may have seen was probably not fully our productions (which I still feel was better than what they did to it.)"

Don said his kids and the neighborhood kids built the rockets after he introduced the hobby to them. He said he had been an amateur rocketeer as a teenager, member of Pacific Rocket Society in the 40's and in 1947 he and a friend flew a "primitive" 35mm camera with an ejection system made of two chemicals that would mix and pop a cork when the rocket nosed over. His pictures made the cover of the PRS's newsletter at some point.

Mike, what do you remember of this film?

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Roy
nar12605

How does estes go about naming its new kits? I asked this very question of interest to the rocket dr. maybe that this is a better place for the question to be asked.

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craftsman, builder of exotics

Bob - like so many other items that were once in my personal file cabinets or in the back of one of my desk drawers, you mention items that were there once as well. I'm sure you can understand that I would never have thrown items such as these in the trash. I'm confident that one day at least of few of these will be graciously returned to me.

David -

1. Test flight models always use balsa in the same configuataion as the proposed kit. Otherwise the test results will be flawed. Fist flights are with un-filled grain to duplicate how many younger newbie rocketeers will build them. This is followed with better built models with semi-filled grain, again to try to duplicate what intermediate modelers will do.
I always try to use basswood for fins for photo models. You take a 4" X 12" sheet and stand it up in the spray booth and pound a heavy coat of sanding sealer onto both sides. Then sand and pile on another coat of sealer and sand again. Then trace around fin templates and hand cut the fins using a single edge razor blade.

2. See Roys reply.