Retro Rocket...I think

I dont even know what to call this one. Built out of the last small pieces of BT I had laying around, a few transitions and a nose cone. I built it as a double cluster 13mm just for giggles. I was shooting for an early US Space Program look. The fins are Mercury Redstone more or less. It was a quick little project but its neat

Looks good to me. I think you captured the retro look nicely.

Cool! Kinda looks like an early concept for a minuteman.

Very nice!!!

Looks really nice!

"Blackstone 218"

Nice - your very own custom SPEV!

Love it! SO cool... Great balance of the design, great paint job and lettering... looks TOTALLY accurate.

It looks like the upper stages of a Vanguard installed on top of a Redstone... This could have actually been a NASA launch vehicle if someone got creative about mixing/matching parts...

KUTGW!!!

Later! OL JR

That is a nice looking rocket. Looks like it could've been a real one from the early NASA days.

Thank you very much sirs. It was a fun, semi-creative project Now I need to order more parts> I was thinking of putting the US Civil Colors on it instead of the common War Colors everyone is used to seeing.

That's cool enough I'd even order a kit! Nice job!

dpower said:

Nice - your very own custom SPEV!

Click to expand...

Ha...ha. That's exactly what I was thinking.

David

SPEV...I just looked it up...and all I can think is...."Ah goddamnit! Now I need to come up with something else!" Ive not seen the SPEV before now, and here I was thinking I did something original.....smdh

wagondriver42 said:

I dont even know what to call this one. Built out of the last small pieces of BT I had laying around, a few transitions and a nose cone. I built it as a double cluster 13mm just for giggles. I was shooting for an early US Space Program look. The fins are Mercury Redstone more or less. It was a quick little project but its neat

Click to expand...

Paging Dave Bucher. This would make a great addition to the new FSI product line! It has classic appeal, but just enough originality that it stands on its own. Also, don't you need some cluster models in your line up?

It looks really good! I think I'd enjoy building something like this of my own design more than building a real scale kit. With a scale kit, I think I would obsess over getting the details correct and might end up disappointed in the end. But if you do your own design you can be more free to improvise. Greet work!

There must be some kind of cosmic timing thing going on here, I just finnished a very similar scratch built model on the same lines, and same idea of an early 60,s retro look.

That is so wierd.

I know, right?

Pictures to be posted soon.

Very cool, very "Spev-y"

wagondriver42 said:

SPEV...I just looked it up...and all I can think is...."Ah goddamnit! Now I need to come up with something else!" Ive not seen the SPEV before now, and here I was thinking I did something original.....smdh

Click to expand...

Hey, your Spare Parts Elimination Vehicle is just as valid as anybody else's. You gotta love a well executed black and white roll pattern. And bonus points for dual thrust chambers. Well done !

Whoa...I need to build something like that.

ThirstyBarbarian said:

It looks really good! I think I'd enjoy building something like this of my own design more than building a real scale kit. With a scale kit, I think I would obsess over getting the details correct and might end up disappointed in the end. But if you do your own design you can be more free to improvise. Greet work!

Click to expand...

I was like you once... not really into "scale" rockets because "they're harder", "more parts", "more expensive", I'd "obsess about making it look right", stuff like that.

Then I tried a Dr. Zooch kit when I became a BAR... GREAT fun, it looks terrific, it stretched and increased my skills (giving me new skills I can use on other builds), his kits are VERY affordable compared to most regular "3FNC" kits produced by the manufacturers, which are all pretty much alike mix-n-matches of various standard tubes/cones/occasionally transitions, which has been DONE TO DEATH, and they're great fliers...

If you enjoy a TLP kit, you'll love a Dr. Zooch... Plus, you can either build 'em stock per the instructions, which will get you a nice looking bird that flies great, OR if you really want to doll it up, you can add more detail parts and stuff as your heart and skills allow, really making a museum-quality build if that's what you want to do. You'd be surprised-- I know *I* was, when I built one and thought "wow that looks terrific", and ya know, even IF some of the details are a little off, 99.9% of people won't know the difference... you have to be a REAL scale-nut rivet-counter to find fault; most people will just say "oh wow look, a Saturn V (or Saturn IB, or shuttle, or Atlas, or Titan III, or Juno, or Redstone, or *whatever*)", not "your APU's are slightly the wrong shape and 20% overscale for that size rocket" or whatever...

After I built my first one, I was hooked... now I'm not really very interested in building much of anything else BUT scalers and semi-scale rockets... Even the TLP's are not 100% accurate scale-wise--most rockets aren't for various reasons... commonly oversize fins and stuff to make them stable as a model rocket...

Later! OL JR

Thanks again folks. Hopefully in the next week or so Ill have the scratch for more build materials. Then again I DO have an Estes Saturn V kit in my closet.......