2X Upscale Estes Strikefighter

I got everything kitted up except for the dowels and bulkheads for the "guns" but they are on the way. Those should arrive around the same times as the parts for the USS Atlantis upscale. In the meantime I'll get this guy mostly finished. I'm not good at documenting builds, so the next post might be when I'm finished...

I altered the fins for TTW mounting, scaled up the wing thickness for strength, and added 2" in length to the main body tube for stability and parachute room. This will be built "zipperless". MMT is 38mm. Nose cone was a LOC 2.56.

Untitled by Kris Flory, on Flickr

I love a good upscale. I like the adjustments you have made to the kit to make it more practical on the larger scale. Should be a beauty.

I noticed in the "what did you do..." Thread that you got what looked like multiple copies of the decals. You got a whole fleet planned?

Subscribed, even if it only ends up being for the finish pic

Cl(VII) said:

You got a whole fleet planned?

Click to expand...

If so, they must all be launched at once!

Thanks, just building this one! My vinyl guy has always given me extra copies in case of a printer or installation error. I redid a telescope a year ago and now I have enough Meade decals for the rest of my life. Once this build is done I'll throw the extras in the classified section.

Nice pieces. Looking forward to the build!

Can't wait to see the build on this kit

It feels small, but this was just supposed to be a quick build to waste time while waiting on parts for another build. It would be possible to build one in 5 and 7 inch flavors with available parts. The canopy is the limiting factor for me, since I can't make them.

The nose cone tip has an embedded 1/4-20 nut that holds the eye bolt in place with X2 1.5" bulkheads and 38mm motor tube. Now the part I've been dreading, gluing on all 14 of those strakes to the 24mm tube.

Untitled by Kris Flory, on Flickr

Untitled by Kris Flory, on Flickr

Untitled by Kris Flory, on Flickr

Finally got around to finishing the gun pods, just need two disks for the small dowel. If I rush, I can have it ready for primer by tomorrow.

Untitled by Kris Flory, on Flickr

Just fins, fillets, paint and canopy left! Now that it's coming together I'm excited again.

Untitled by Kris Flory, on Flickr

Very cool.

This is just awesome. Coming together very nicely. How did you make the nose cone?

This is too cool not to subscribe too.

Will have several questions once this is done I think!

The first is, how did you make the nose cone? I must not be reading the start correctly.

It was a standard LOC 2.56" cone, I cut it off at about 6" on a little band saw and removed the bottom too. I then cut the tip part off about 1" long. I carefully sanded the inside to fit a short bit of 38mm tubing. There is one bulkhead epoxied inside the tube, and the inside of the cone is filled with epoxy barely over the top of the bulkhead and tube. A 1/4-20 eye-bolt is inserted using a notched dowel. The cut off tip is filled with epoxy and has an embedded nut, so the eye-bolt can be removed for replacement of shock cord. The bolt and nut sit down inside the lip of the cone.

Originally the second bulkhead was going to be flush with the end of the larger portion of tube similar to the original strikefighter nose cone, but the mock-up looked just terrible so I decided to set the second one back inside like compressor blades on an intake would be. The decal will no longer fit, but it should be easy to paint on.

I'll take some pics after the primer is on, I have the NC all taped up now waiting for rain to stop.

Wow it's been a year already?

IMG_20170413_102016640 by Kris Flory, on Flickr