What would you like to see from Semroc?

Definitely the Blue Bird Zero! I have the SEMROC Retro-Repro BBZ and it is awesome!
I used an Aero Pack 24mm Retainer in mine and LOC MMT. Also eventually ended up replacing the plastic chute' with a sunward 16" yellow nylon one, which I had to first re-sew the lines on, as from the factory they come the "Wrong way".

Enerjet Athena!

The N1

7 pages of nosecones would be nice to get back up to. I have about 50 'cones....it's NOT enough....

Nose cones are the single biggest thing for me, plastic and balsa. There are so many kits but my most desired one is the Orbital Transport.

dave carver said:

7 pages of nosecones would be nice to get back up to. I have about 50 'cones....it's NOT enough....

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+1 I recently inventoried mine: 71 cones, not counting what's packaged with unopened kits. But still, its nice to have variety. I'd really like a repop (and upscale) of the PNC-50SP from the Argosy, World Fed. Star Probe, Starhawk, Falcon Commander, Fireflash, etc. There are several I'd like to clone. That and the droop-cone from Nimbus & Starship Nova

To me, the two most useful categories of items from Semroc were:

The vast number and variety of parts. I have to admit that last spring I ordered lot of spare specialty parts (mostly tubes) because I did not expect to be able to get any more. So I am glad to see that those will still be available again. Though it will be awhile before I need more of those particular ones due to stocking up.

And the effectively custom nose cone service. It was incredible that Carl made so many. Carl could have called that aspect something else, like Balsa Machining Service since BMS stepped being a Balsa Machining Service about 2 years ago. And indeed Carl made up some balsa noses that I would have gotten made by BMS back when BMS was BMS.

Last summer I ended up turning a nose cone vac-form mold, using balsa, on a drill, old school style. Nostalgia is nice but I'd have rather had Carl (or the old BMS) do it.

So, I hope that the new Semroc will be able to do something like that again, once things are running well enough.

- George Gassaway

georgegassaway said:

And the effectively custom nose cone service.

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+100

Thanks for all the replies so far and keep them coming. I'll show Randy this thread on Tuesday night at the club build if he hasn't already looked at it. I'll also try to get an update on how the Semroc reboot is going.

To add another heaping helping of stuff to do to Randy's plate, the SEMROC web site is in severe need of updating -- many features on the front page are several years old or older.

The basic format/layout is not bad but it is definitely a few years behind the times. This is not really a criticism of Carl and SEMROC's past management, because revamping a website is not easy to do when you have a lot of pressing day-to-day ROCKET business going on. As long as the website seems to be working "OK" major updates tend to take a back seat to keeping the business rolling day-to-day.

Hopefully before the company fully relaunches, Randy will have time to perform a moderate update on the website -- leave it recognizably SEMROC but give it a sharp and smooth new look.

+1 on updating the website.

While we're on website topics...

I loved shopping the SEMROC nose cone listings. Yet, navigating those pages was slow... they took a long time to load and didn't seem to cache, so every back and forth click seemed to force a reload. While the basic table split into row sections with columns listing shape, length, etc. was serviceable in it's own right, I'd like a function where I select a tube diameter, and it lists all the nose cones for that diameter with thumbnails for quick visual ID. And, when there is the same cone in different BT sizes available, a button to click to bring up the up- and down-scales of that cone would be nice.

Best wishes Randy. I'm looking forward to being your customer!

As a previous post stated, I would like it to be as it was. But seeing how that could be a while, I would like to get my hands on the BANDIT, SLS ARCAS, SLS HUSTLER & the parts to clone OOP Kits.
I thought about finishing a rocket dedicated to Carl, Bruce, and Sheryl, even decided to do it with the SLS HUSTLER (if & when it comes out), but it would be great if they came out with dedicated kits (with great decals) to honor the the great rocket family!

JStarStar said:

I would guess Randy will make an announcement soon on which retro kits he plans to return to the lineup. Obviously he knows more than any of us what the Estes-SEMROC licensing arrangements entail.

I would think SEMROC under RB would have rights to continue offering the retro kits Semroc had in stock at the time of Carl's passing.

I don't know exactly how the procedure for adding new kits worked (or works) but I believe SEMROC had to get the go-ahead from Estes that they did not plan to return a particular kit to the active lineup for a certain period of years, and then could begin introduction and then production. Estes occasionally does return "classic" kits to the lineup and obviously they don't want SEMROC releases conflicting with that.

The arrangement would certainly seem to be beneficial to Estes in that they still realized a nominal licensing fee for products (deleted kits) they had no intention of producing for the foreseeable future, and also of course the completed kits become (mostly) users of Estes motors.

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I kinda figured that what was is what will be. My main concern is that Estes has presently producing the "Classic Series".
But, they have not, so far, offerd the legendary kits. Which I am interested in.
I would love to see a SR-71 from Semroc. And a few others from around the 2006 to 2010 era.
The time I was out of the excitment when I was working 3 times the hours w/travel time to sleep time.
I missed out on A LOT of what I would call Fananoumous kits. A 2nd chance would be nice.

TALON said:

As a previous post stated, I would like it to be as it was. But seeing how that could be a while, I would like to get my hands on the BANDIT, SLS ARCAS, SLS HUSTLER & the parts to clone OOP Kits.
I thought about finishing a rocket dedicated to Carl, Bruce, and Sheryl, even decided to do it with the SLS HUSTLER (if & when it comes out), but it would be great if they came out with dedicated kits (with great decals) to honor the the great rocket family!

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I could see the Bruce rocket having a shark theme... :wink:

I SO want a Mars Lander...

So I was at eRockets/Semroc last night and Randy wants to tell you that they are making parts!

They have the nose cones lathes set up and have made some balsa nose cones. So last night some of the guys from the club were fiddling with the lathe software and making their own nose cones, or at least trying to. The learning curve looks a bit steep on this guys, so don't expect nose cones to start flying out the door for a while.

I also sent Randy the list of comments on this thread so he knows what you guys are interested in.

Yes, parts.

Especially nose cones. I would like to see more of a variety of nose cone offerings for the BT-70 and BT-80 tubes.

My nirvana would be that Semroc offered at least the same level of parts as was available in the Estes and Centuri catalogs circa 1972 - and then some!

I realize that Semroc must operate a lucrative business, and that may very well mean a concentration on kits. But those of us who primarily scratch build in the low and mid power range, are underserved by the current vendors

This may get buried in all the wish list posts, but I have a special request.

Back at NARAM 50, I loaned Carl a 1966 Czechoslovakian kit (old style blue box, white plastic nose cone, parallel wound tube) that he was going to use to produce a clone of to benefit the U.S. Internats team effort. I never bugged him about it because I figured he'd eventually get around to it. If you find that kit amongst everything, I'd like to have it back.

(The box probably says something like (in czech) "includes ADAST rocket engines". I took those out of the box before I loaned it to Carl.)

On the subject of the website, I can hack old style ASP code pretty well (I worked on a couple of classic Priceline sites back in the day), and possibly bring it up to modern standards to help speed it up (though just upgrading the hardware and the net infrastructure would probably help immensely)

I've got nosecones aplenty... I need Centering Rings!!! Can't glue in any fins w/o having the mmt's in place.

I would like to see the retro-repro's, particularly Centuri, and the SLS line Semroc had.

I have a request for a new SLS kit: The Centuri two-stage Centaur, with option of 29mm or 24mm motor mounts.