Scratch 1961 Estes starter kit

[JohnNGA]

Way.... back when I got into rocketry, this is what a starter kit looked like. I ordered my first kit and engines from an ad in Popular Mechanics. The launcher has 'C' batteries instead of 'D' and is functional. The Scout has a rolled body tube and gauze (I hate gauze). The engines always came in the tubes, which could be made into a rocket. Sorry about the photo quality, need a new camera.

[Rocketcrab]

Hey, that's pretty cool stuff! My first rocket also was the Astron Scout, back in 1968. The tubes the motors came were blue.

[bjphoenix]

My first purchases were somewhere around 1965. I remember seeing pictures in the catalogs of the launch system made from the block of wood. At some point they changed to the plastic box and that is what I bought some years later. My first launch system was a thick cardboard box with some large dry cells inside and a house light switch for the launch switch.

[StefanJ]

What a wonderful thing to have recreated! Was this the controller with the spring metal launch button?

Yes, if you can get a better focus, it would be great to stage a launch scene out in a field.

Do you have any remnants of the original, like instruction sheets?

[JohnNGA]

What a wonderful thing to have recreated! Was this the controller with the spring metal launch button?

Yes, if you can get a better focus, it would be great to stage a launch scene out in a field.

Do you have any remnants of the original, like instruction sheets?

Yes, this launcher did use a piece of aluminum as a launch button. It also used a piece of furnace paper(asbestos) as a blast deflector. I never had one of the starter kits, just the scout kit. I cloned from photos and info I got from Estes.

[hcmbanjo]

Very nice!
Thanks for sharing the pics.

[bradycros]

They don't make 'em like that anymore!

[Fishhead]

Way.... back when I got into rocketry, this is what a starter kit looked like. I ordered my first kit and engines from an ad in Popular Mechanics. The launcher has 'C' batteries instead of 'D' and is functional. The Scout has a rolled body tube and gauze (I hate gauze). The engines always came in the tubes, which could be made into a rocket. Sorry about the photo quality, need a new camera.

Awesome!

[JStarStar]

The Scout was about my 6th-7th rocket (behind an X-Ray, an Alpha, a Sky Hook, a Bertha, a Mark, a V-2 and maybe a couple others).

Yeah, the gauze was kind of messy to glue on there.

Actually the launch-pad platform -- the wooden box with the micro-clips attached by wing nuts, with a fluffy asbestos pad -- was used as late as the mid-1970s for one of Centuri's beginner-level launch pads. I had one for several years. (Hopefully I didn't inhale too much asbestos. )

By the time I got into rocketry seriously in 1968 or so, Estes had gone to the red plastic Electro-Launch design as its basic entry-level launcher.

I never liked the small square launcher platforms, whether they were wood or plastic. Too prone to tipping over. If you gave the launch-controller wiring any kind of a tug, the whole thing could tip over right at you.

[JohnNGA]

Hey, that's pretty cool stuff! My first rocket also was the Astron Scout, back in 1968. The tubes the motors came were blue.

Thanks...My Scout came in the same type tube that they used to mail engines. I lost my Scout on first launch, so glued some fins on the mailing tube carved a n/c and the rest is BAR history.

[JohnNGA]

My first purchases were somewhere around 1965. I remember seeing pictures in the catalogs of the launch system made from the block of wood. At some point they changed to the plastic box and that is what I bought some years later. My first launch system was a thick cardboard box with some large dry cells inside and a house light switch for the launch switch.

Yeah, I have one of the early plastic electro launch (1965). I've thought about using it but I think the plastic might be a little brittle. My first pad was a block of wood, a straightened coat hanger , and a lantern battery.

[JohnNGA]

Very nice!
Thanks for sharing the pics.

Thank you..As the song goes "Lost in the 60's"

[JohnNGA]

They don't make 'em like that anymore!

No they don't..good old American injunuity.

[RoyAtl]

Hey, that's pretty cool stuff! My first rocket also was the Astron Scout, back in 1968. The tubes the motors came were blue.

yep, before the change to metric in 1968, the tubes were red. Afterward they were blue. "D" motor tubes introduced in 1970 were green. And there were some black tubes, which I think were Centuri's (though I always got motors from Centuri in small wire-clasped shipping cartons) and plain brown tubes, which I think were stop-gaps before the non-shippable diamond tubes for retail came out in 1971.

[JohnNGA]

The Scout was about my 6th-7th rocket (behind an X-Ray, an Alpha, a Sky Hook, a Bertha, a Mark, a V-2 and maybe a couple others).

Yeah, the gauze was kind of messy to glue on there.

Actually the launch-pad platform -- the wooden box with the micro-clips attached by wing nuts, with a fluffy asbestos pad -- was used as late as the mid-1970s for one of Centuri's beginner-level launch pads. I had one for several years. (Hopefully I didn't inhale too much asbestos. )

By the time I got into rocketry seriously in 1968 or so, Estes had gone to the red plastic Electro-Launch design as its basic entry-level launcher.

I never liked the small square launcher platforms, whether they were wood or plastic. Too prone to tipping over. If you gave the launch-controller wiring any kind of a tug, the whole thing could tip over right at you.

I have cloned that pad, Centuri LIA-50, minus the asbestos.

[JohnNGA]

yep, before the change to metric in 1968, the tubes were red. Afterward they were blue. "D" motor tubes introduced in 1970 were green. And there were some black tubes, which I think were Centuri's (though I always got motors from Centuri in small wire-clasped shipping cartons) and plain brown tubes, which I think were stop-gaps before the non-shippable diamond tubes for retail came out in 1971.

I remember getting the 'Little Hercules' kit in that same shipping box, I have a Centuri brown shipping tube somewhere. I will try to bring this launcher to the Hoschton launch on the 25th.