I've visited two different HL's in my neck of the woods (east TN) in the last few days, and they have been rearranging the area where the model rockets, and other hobbies, are found. It appears they are cutting back on the amount of space they are allotting to model rockets, by maybe 25%; bummer. I also noticed that HL took the Olympus off their website in the past week. There were two at the closest HL to me, and I bought one, now have three. So, if anyone wants one they may want to get it ASAP. Is this what you are seeing in your area?
Hobby Lobby and Estes Olympus
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Yeah, my nearest store is doing some rearranging.
Yes rearranging... at the two closest stores.... all the rocket stuff was in boxes with ZERO on the shelves. (Person told me come back in 2-3 days, and stuff would be back out.)
It's about that time of year. I'd better go look. I have two Olympii in my unbuilt kit stash and two flyers (one I built for and used to fly in Precision Fragile Payload at NARAM-64). I may want to get another one or two....and see what else is being closed out. It will probably be awhile before we see what's added, if anything.
Well shucks.
I better go over to H.L. and take a look around.
The last time I was there they were preparing to remodel but nothing had been moved.
I hope they keep their Balsa, Basswood, Plywood display and all the Estes stuff.
Shucks, I wish they would add some Quest models and motors, especially at their relative price points !
-- kjh
I better go over to H.L. and take a look around.
The last time I was there they were preparing to remodel but nothing had been moved.
I hope they keep their Balsa, Basswood, Plywood display and all the Estes stuff.
Shucks, I wish they would add some Quest models and motors, especially at their relative price points !
-- kjh
astronwolf
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Many children of men with dying hobbies were introduced to those hobbies. They are just not interested. "Love ya Dad, but I gotta do my own thing..."
kbliznick
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A3-4T engines are gone from their website too.
Cherokee-E is now available at Acsupplyco so I was expecting to find it on clearance this weekend at Hobby Lobby after rearranging things at stores here, but did not see anything missing in store from last week.
Cherokee-E is now available at Acsupplyco so I was expecting to find it on clearance this weekend at Hobby Lobby after rearranging things at stores here, but did not see anything missing in store from last week.
This just came out in an email from Estes, new STEM kits:
https://estesrockets.com/collection...pnD9XdL3Xj9qVEBn7HK9ebc5l3x5th7mtU4bk=.WF3xvM
https://estesrockets.com/collection...pnD9XdL3Xj9qVEBn7HK9ebc5l3x5th7mtU4bk=.WF3xvM
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It's possible HL reduced its orders enough that Estes started moving inventory to other sellers. Also possible that exclusives were only for a certain length of time. After all, we (should) all understand that any given rocket design has a limited shelf life in stores. Sales are strong after introduction and then taper. Maybe the HL exclusives reached the point that they just aren't moving enough for HL to care anymore. Maybe it makes sense to move them to online sellers that move product to areas where there is no HL, as well as to customers who, for whatever reason, prefer not to do business with HL.
I just picked up the two Olympi that were in my nearby store. One of them still had the old $14.99 price tag on it and the manager watching the cash registers let the teller ring them both up at that price. 7x13mm clusters are in my future.
Scott_650
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Those Green Egg and Olympus STEM starter kits are interesting - 4 motors, a Mini Alti-Trak and some extra squares of clay in the Olympus set, 6 motors in the Green Eggs kit, Portapads with HD rods in both. I’d say these really aren’t aimed at the consumer market but at the educational market, either set would be a solid core to build out from for classroom or home school use without costing big money.
Hopefully this is an indication that we’re going to see more BT-65 based kits but I’m not getting my hopes up - it’s a nice size, just enough bigger than a BT-60 that I can get my JLCR to fit (I know folks use them in BT-60 tubes, my success rate is barely above zero with it in BT-60 rockets
). The lack of BT-65 and BT-70 kits from Estes continues to puzzle me.
Hopefully this is an indication that we’re going to see more BT-65 based kits but I’m not getting my hopes up - it’s a nice size, just enough bigger than a BT-60 that I can get my JLCR to fit (I know folks use them in BT-60 tubes, my success rate is barely above zero with it in BT-60 rockets
). The lack of BT-65 and BT-70 kits from Estes continues to puzzle me.Yeah, I believe BT-65 kits would do well. Produce another nose cone, perhaps ogive, for this BT would be good. I think this size BT is rather versatile, can be used to make rockets of different sizes that could probably be used from B engines on up.
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It's pretty clear that Estes doesn't want to have to order or hold inventory of any more body tube sizes than they have to. All the special edition PSII re-releases appear to be SPEVs. From what I can see, they want a product line consisting of
BT-5
BT-20
BT-50
BT-55
BT-60
BT-80
3-in
No more, no less. I reckon anything that comes out in any other size between now and when there's a major shift of product management strategy will be limited quantities; short runs to maintain a high selling price so they can sell out quickly at near MSRP. And repeat until all the old inventory of stuff not on the list above is gone, never to be ordered again. If Hobbylinc and AC Supply get inventory, you'll know there was a miscalculation of how much the other distributors would take.
BT-5
BT-20
BT-50
BT-55
BT-60
BT-80
3-in
No more, no less. I reckon anything that comes out in any other size between now and when there's a major shift of product management strategy will be limited quantities; short runs to maintain a high selling price so they can sell out quickly at near MSRP. And repeat until all the old inventory of stuff not on the list above is gone, never to be ordered again. If Hobbylinc and AC Supply get inventory, you'll know there was a miscalculation of how much the other distributors would take.
DocSeuss
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What would 3 inch be for? Just the Big Daddy? I notice their couplers have been out of stock for ages, which is inhibiting my BOMARC plans.
Too many metro club launch sites lost.
Agreed. Fills a niche between BT-60 and BT-70 which is a big jump in tube diameter.
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Scott_650
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FYI Balsa Machining carries T-300 tubes and couplers - same size and wall thickness as Estes 3” tubes.
DocSeuss
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Oooh nice. Thank you. I had purchased a 3" nose cone that was the same shape from Madcow but it won't fit in my Estes tubing, so I was worried only Estes couplers would work.
This is where I get most of my tubing but they're missing some types (BT-56/ST-13, for instance, is almost gone). I did get the parts to build the out of print semroc Aerobee 150 recently
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I like the oddball/obsolete stuff they have. I've bought lots of it. I know why it's not commercially viable to have it rerun by the factory, but I'm glad that a lot of it is still available. I wish @hcmbanjo had worked out his distribution deal for BT-20H with them instead of where he did, because I can't find anything else on that site that makes sense to me to buy there and the shipping is expensive for a few tubes.
Oooh nice. Thank you. I had purchased a 3" nose cone that was the same shape from Madcow but it won't fit in my Estes tubing, so I was worried only Estes couplers would work.
This is where I get most of my tubing but they're missing some types (BT-56/ST-13, for instance, is almost gone). I did get the parts to build the out of print semroc Aerobee 150 recently
The BMS ogive nose cone also fits Estes tubing, but it is longer and heavier than the Estes ogive nose cone. It is high-impact polystyrene, so you don't need adhesion promoter to get paint to stick to it.
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Big Daddy, Doorknob, DBRM.
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Great Goblin
They should do more. They could do a Mega Alpha if they combined the DBRM tube with the ogive NC. It's been done and covered here in the DBRM thread as a kit bash.
Likewise.
The one I visited today was in the middle of a major reset of several aisles, as others have noted. My discussion with the employee who was working there left me with the impression that if anything the rocket section will expand again a bit getting toward Christmas. There was one Olympus, but since I have two stashed I didn't buy it. I may check my closer-to-home store in the next couple of days, as I've seen some rather wide variations in the past between stores. But I got no sense that Estes stuff was going away.
hcmbanjo
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I have approached other vendors about stocking the heavy wall BT-20 tubing, but was told it would lead to confusion between the regular Estes style BT-20 and my heavy wall BT-20H tubes.
The heavy wall tubes fit the yellow 18mm Apogee plastic nose cones very well as the shoulder "lip" on the nose cones is slightly wider than the Estes BT-20.
CR-2050 centering rings only require an easy inside "peel" to fit the thicker tubes. The inside diameter is the same as a standard BT-20.
Heavy wall BT-20 tubes are used in my Odd'l Rockets kit engine mounts.
18" lengths are available through jonrocket.com
https://jonrocket.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=9_10_224&products_id=1686
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It surprises me that erockets wouldn't think that was a solvable problem, given that the already sell "+" versions of a few sizes and have an excellent chart for sorting it all out. Or BMS, with the three different versions of BT-50 they sell.
At JonRocket, I'm looking at $9.95 freight for a few tubes. Even if I do a "massive overkill" quantity of 10 tubes, it is still $9.95 on a $24.00 product order. I'm sure if I ever end up in a situation where there's something specific I'm looking to do and that's the clear way forward, I'll just do it. But not just to have it on the shelf in the rocket room. Which means I won't just reach for it when it would be a good idea, but not required.
Went to another HL today, the Rocket section was reduced and is now about half the size of when I started this about 2 years ago. They did have all 3 types of engines I needed so I'm fine. Perhaps they should stop selling all the different sizes and focus. No need for 13mm mini engines, you can always get an A8-3 rocket if you want to stay low.
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They have quite a few 13mm powered rockets for sale. Kinda need to sell the motors, too. Wish they'd pick up the A3-6Ts.
DocSeuss
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I would love to get a 3" Optima... Crazy talk, I know. I'd try to scratch build one but I dunno if there's a pnc-80k equivalent in that size.
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