Artemis I, Part I -The Kit

To start off, this post will highlight what can be found when you open the box. Nice artwork, by the way.

The kit retailed at $34.95 plus a little on the side for the governor and mayor.  Sheesh, plastic models have become pricey these days

First, and most important are the molded styrene plastic parts. The model consists of thirty-eight pieces including the display base.

The model is 1:200 scale, placing it at the same size as Estes' RTF version.

Which brings up the question: why even bother with a plastic model conversion when a perfectly fine flying model can be readily had?

The thrill of the engineering and build process would be my best guess.

Moving on...

The decal sheet - many, many tiny decals.

Boomers, break out those lighted magnifier headsets. This ain't gonna be easy!

The instruction sheet - very minimally marked and illustrated, with not very much in the way of textual information.

Hang on to that box!   

 It turns out that the side panels contain a lot of information that normally would be on the instruction sheet.  Things like  overall parts ID, decal placement, and painting information.

Worth it's weight in gold...!

This refers to the small information booklet that is included with the kit. It is chock full of information about the Artemis/Orion vehicles and missions, illustrated with lots of great photos and diagrams.

Again, for those with less-than-sterling eyesight, a magnifying device may be necessary. That print is small!

More to come...

New Project - Artemis, Block I Plastic Model Conversion

 A visit to Colpar's HobbyTown store in Aurora, Colorado this past Friday netted a new kit that may prove to be an interesting build adventure for the BlastFromThePast shop.

This is the AMT Artemis I in 1/200 scale.

The model will be built simultaneously alongside some of the previously started 'binge-build' and repair-box models strewn about the workbench.

The difference with the Artemis is that I intend to post a full build series here.

I've only built one other plastic conversion kit in my model rocketry 'career', that being a Hawk Juipter-C (Juno-1) back in the late 1970s. It was quite successful, having turned in several great flights.

 Since there will be a bit of engineering going into the Artemis kit conversion, it will be a fun and challenging build.

I have already been perusing through a number of plastic model 'how-to' articles and videos online to familiarize myself with the finer points of PM building techniques.

If anyone out there reading this upcoming build series has any helpful hints and tips, I welcome you to weigh-in in the comments section.

A note of interest: 

My rocketeer buddy and across-the-street neighbor, Mike Perreault, picked up one of these kits as well.  This will enable us to do something that NASA will never accomplish-a simultaneous launch of two Artemis rockets, drag race style!

Cheers!

2024 Estes Catalog Arrived Today

 Every February brings the anticipation of finding that small package in the mailbox from the "Model Rocket Capitol of the World", the annual hard copy catalog.

As always, the first thing I usually do is take a quick scan of the entire offering to see what's new.

The 2024 offering  doesn't disappoint.

Among the highlights are:

A new Pro Series rail launcher. This one looks like it would adequately fill the bill for those heavier, higher powered models.

How about that new high power model parts assortment? 

I see some BT-70 body tubes in there, which immediately brought back visions of some of those vintage Estes kits that used them.

Estes' theme this year concerns attracting new younger rocketeers to the hobby, thus the advent of several new starter sets containing 13mm motor-powered rockets, including BT-20 sized versions of the Alpha and Bertha. Both of these models are offered as stand-alone kits.

One minor disappointment in the catalog was the lack of a new model in the "Signature" series. I hope we will see another new addition next year.

It was interesting to note that the models comprising the 'Destination: Mars' and 'Cadet Corps.' lines were scattered about the catalog rather than having their own stand-alone pages.

It was good seeing the two scale Saturn versions side by side.

Of particular interest to me was the new Mini-ARCAS kit. Since I am embarking on a quest to build a number of BT-20 scale sounding rockets over the next few years, this one fits the bill nicely. The kit description say 'scale-like', so there must be deviations from true scale. Nevertheless, the kit may be a good starting point for building a more accurate version.

Another concern I have with this year's catalog is the omission of any product pricing. This is sort of a detriment to those of us who like to closely plan our hobby budget. Lack of published pricing makes it a bit more difficult to do that unless we go to the website. 

Speaking of budget, the yearly hard-copy Estes catalog is really no longer 'free'. Unlike past years, I had to shell out $3.94 for taxes and shipping. 

Sign of the times, I suppose..

Cheers!

Back To The Workbench

 Now that the Holidays (a.k.a. 'eating season) are past, it's time to get back to building rockets. 

Even though my rocketry time will be shared with the on-going basement finishing project as well as daily music practice, I anticipate making good progress.

So, what am I working on?

I still have the nine or so models left over from the 2022-23 "binge build", which never really fully got going.

This year, I'm breaking the build pile down into smaller, more manageable chunks.

Currently, I'm concentrating on five birds.

Two of them , the 13mm and 18mm booster stages are completed through the build and grain finishing stages. Both are now awaiting primer.

Viking 4 scale - completed sanding the fin airfoil facets and filling the balsa grain. These components along with the nose are also ready for primer.

Black Hole Space Probe - completed cutting apart the PNC-50BB nose cone assembly and smoothing out the seam lines on both the nose and display nozzle sections.

A.R.V. Condor - Starting the process of sanding an airfoil into the glider wings. 

Even though the the kit directions don't require this, I do so anyway with all of my glider builds.

Just makes 'em fly better.

I won't be doing daily blow-by-blow build 'threads' on any of these models, but will write  frequent progress posts with lots of pics.

Stay tuned...

Looking Back At 2023

 Happy New Year, blog readers!

Once again, it's time to hang up the new calendars and take my retrospective look at the past twelve months in terms of rocketry activity in the BlastFromThePast shop.

Most striking is the fact that I only managed to knock out two new rockets in 2023, the Mountaineer-IV and the Deltie Airshow! 

This is my lowest yearly output since becoming a BAR in 2016.  Even going back to my 'Old Fleet' days of 1973-1984, it holds the record for the lowest new-build numbers in one year.

This situation might be offset in the upcoming year because I have been plugging away at several other builds that just didn't get quite finished in time this year.

As for launching activity, I managed to put up 31 flights across six launch sessions.

These all took place in the smaller parks in Castle Rock, since the larger launch site at Dove Valley in Centennial was closed down for most of the year for renovations.  The park is supposed to open back up sometime this coming March, so it is my hope that our band of Front Range rocketeers can get back to business again.

I didn't make it down to Pueblo this past year either to attend a S.C.O.R.E. launch. 

As a result, I didn't put up any flights that involved multi-staging or gliding components. Too much potential for losing them on the smaller fields.  Only two of my launches involved motors beyond a C. These were both D-powered flights of an Estes Big Daddy.

As for the flights that did take place in 2023, most were successful, with no models lost or damaged beyond repair. The most serious issue was a C6-5 CATO that gutted my ESAM-58 model, but the bird will be restored and fly again (in some form).

Another highlight of 2023 was in getting my neighbor across the street interested in model rocketry. He has sunk his teeth deep into the hobby and is proving to be an extremely skilled model builder and flier!

So,  here are the yearly pics of the current flight-worthy fleet. Instead of trying to crowd everybody into one big family portrait as in prior years, I chose to take several shots of different rockets arranged in a more orderly fashion:

...and, of course, the models residing in the repair tote awaiting... well...repair !

Thanks to all of you who have checked out the blog this past year.

Happy 2024, and here's to good flyin'!

Perhaps I will see some of you at NARAM!

More to come...

Cheers!

Well, THAT Didn't Take Long !!

 No sooner had I hit the 'GO' button on yesterday morning's post, I found myself trekking to the subterranean vault where reside the model rocket project boxes.

In quick succession, I had the pieces of the broken Deltie Airshow glider glued back together,

construction finished on a couple of gap booster stages I've been working on, 

and a couple coats of grain filler applied to the scale Viking-4 project.

Later today, I will be tackling a number of models populating the 'for repair' box.

That particular box is situated on a shelf in the shop that is always in plain sight, so whenever I pass through, there is always a broken rocket I can extract and haul over to the workbench for repairs and/or paint touch-up.

Plenty to do...

"Hey, BlastFromThePast, Where 'ya Been??

 Very good question indeed....

I've sadly suspended rocket building (and flying) activities over the past two months to make time for other activities:

First and foremost is a project that was begun about eight years ago and has languished until now:

Framing and finishing the basement. 

The donning of the tool belt and firing up of the chop-saw has been inspired by the presence of the parts and pieces of a full-sized pool table that hasn't seen any action since the missus and I moved to Castle Rock, Colorado in 2006. All of the components are scattered and stored all around the basement space.

It's high time to finish up a portion of this basement space and call in the pool table setup pros to get this thing back in action.

I've got lots of trick shots I want to master....

Also vying for my time is the annual frenzy of getting my indoor and outdoor Christmas light displays in ship-shape operating condition and installed.

I'm not exactly in the same league as the Griswalds, and certainly don't do it up like those folks you see on the 'extreme lighting' shows, but I do manage to put up a substantial amount of lights.  

I estimate somewhere in the ballpark of 12,000 to 15,000 individual mini-lites.

At one point in November, the entire basement space was covered with light strings and lighted features, in various stages of functionality and repair.

Even though I am slowly, year-by-year, converting everything over to LED, I still use tons of incandescent mini-light strings, many of which date back to the mid 1980s !!

These strings, as you might expect, are extremely fiddly to keep in operation.  I happen to have vast amounts of replacement bulbs, so I spend a lot of time troubleshooting and repairing inoperable sections of these strings, as well as fashioning my own custom strings.

That nifty little Lightkeeper-Pro tool definitely gets well used this time of year.  A great investment for us Christmas lighting nerds!

Anyway, it won't be long until I get back full swing into rocket building.

Stay tuned to the blog, I may yet sneak in another rocket-related post or two by year's end.

Cheers!