Today, I had some time to sit down at the workbench and begin repairs on the recently CATO-trashed ESAM.
The first order of business was to rough cut the severely damaged tail end off the model.
The fins and lower launch lug are completely intact and salvageable, so these got carefully broken off and set aside.
Next, I was able to extract the motor mount from the model. It is largely undamaged and fully re-usable.
The outer surface of the tube and the lower centering ring are scorched a bit, but are still very strong and solid. A little bonus is that there will be need to paint the parts after they are mounted. They're already flat black!
All that is left to make everything good is to cut a new forward centering ring.
Must continue this tomorrow. It's dinnertime at the BlasFromThePast home, and I need to go wash up my hands.
They reek of burnt black powder....