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Info: When did Estes change the Alpha to have self-stick decals?

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K'Tesh

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I picked up a pair of Alpha's for my student's and my build, and I was surprised to see that the Alphas had self-stick decals. Since the kits were clearly from an educator's pack, I figured that the decals were simplified for those. Now investigating the change, I notice that the decals in the standard kits are listed as self-stick. When did that happen? I happen to like the waterslide decals, and wish that I could score them (black and red preferably) for my build.

Thanks!
Jim
 
Jim,

Based on the extensive catalog and instruction sheet research I did for our recent Alpha 50th celebration last September, backed by a bunch of eBay Alpha kit acquisitions, the blue/red peel-n-stick Alpha markings first appeared in about 1996 and show as such with the 6-95 dated version of the second half of the then-eight-page instruction set. This is the second iteration of that 8-page/two-catalog-number set of Alpha instructions. (The first had no dates on either part.)

Black and red decals (which appeared circa 1982) were supplanted by blue/red water slide decals circa 1990. That color livery was first mentioned in the 1990 catalog. I have examples of kits with the 82925 rev. G instructions (the ones that show a blow molded nose cone close to the original BNC-50K shape OR an Alpha III nose cone) with both the red/black and blue/black waterslide decals.

I don’t think I have any spare copies of red/black but I can look. I also had a red/black rendition in vinyl done by Callie Graphics in Magdalena NM last year. These were based on a red/black scan I sent to Callie.


Added: .pdf of an Alpha timeline that was part of our Museum of Flight display last September. I had to take the pictures out to get it to be small enough to post. *sigh*

Added later - I was able to get a version with reduced quality pictures that was plenty small enough by exporting from Pages on my Mac rather than iOS as I'd tried before.

View attachment Alpha display timeline2.pdf
 
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Thanks for the info BEC.

Dear Estes,

For the educator's pack please continue to use the peel and stick decals, but give us old guys a break and sell the full price individual kits with waterslide.

Thanks!
Jim
 
lol, based on the year the decals first appeared, I think the really old guys don't get any!
 
That's true....just a suggestion in the instructions for a paint scheme - the classic white with red for the nose cone one fin and fin panel.
 
FYI, I have a .SVG file created from Bernards PDF of both the red and blue and red and black decals with Bernards permission I would be willing to share them. The were crested using Inkscape.
 
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