Build threads: EAC.....

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Estes recently started selling these Estes Aerospace Club (EAC) T shirts on their website:
0306201500.jpg
The EAC was a mail order club you could join and receive exclusive freebies, including an EAC Viper kit.
Another kit, the EAC Firecat, was added later on.
The club is long defunct, but I decided to make myself an honorary member.:D
Plans and decal scans are here:
https://www.spacemodeling.org/jimz/est0820.htm
https://www.spacemodeling.org/jimz/est0821.htm
I ordered the laser cut fin sets, nose cones, specialty tube and centering rings from erockets a few months ago and bagged them and put it into my build pile.
0306201503.jpg
Other off the shelf parts will be from my parts stash.
With all the depressing news circulating lately I needed something to take my mind off things.
This will also give me a chance to try out my new Dell laser printer which has been lying in the patio still boxed the past three months since it arrived in the mail.
First build will be the EAC Viper.
TBC.
 
Good stuff. I fondly remember my EAC Viper, but I think I faded out of rocketry before the Firecat was offered. I absolutely love that design.

Subscribed. :)
 
After becoming a BAR I found out about the jimz site. Good stuff there. Lots of it. When I looked over the EAC Firecat i thought I remembered the fin pattern set. I had looked at a LOT of rockets. Going back through the site I discovered that it shared the pattern with another rocket. Like the Mini Bomarc and Firefly parasite glider shares it's pattern set. I need to replace my Viper with an upscale. I had the the t-shirt iron-on, never did get anything mailed in to get the "Thrust Bars"
 
I built the EAC Viper years ago. Great little Kit. I liked it so much that I cloned it. But I cut the fins by hand, none of this modern laser cut stuff :) Guess which one is the clone.
 

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I made my own Centuri T-shirt from an old iron on I found, I scanned it and re-colored it with GIMP


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I was a club member, I am sure I had the rocket but I don’t really remember it.
Nice lines
 
Captain Low & Slow (qquake2k) built an upscale EAC Viper awhile back. Turned out really nice.

Surprised he has not yet weighed in on this thread.

I’ll mention it to him this Sunday at the First Annual DarkMatter Drag Race at Snow Ranch.
 
First build: EAC Viper
est0820@.gif


After downloading the plans and scans from JimZ's, I used Inkscape to clean up the yellowing on the decal scan:
est0820e.png
This will make for a cleaner home printed decal later on.
 
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Man that makes for some memories. I remember my parents carefully taking out my entry fee from the envelope and putting in a check instead of the creased singles and change I had intended to mail.
 
After downloading the plans and scans from JimZ's, I used Inkscape to clean up the yellowing on the decal scan
Nice work. I really oughta build an upscale Viper, maybe BT80 or so.

Really it would be great if Estes could start up the EAC again, although it would undoubtedly have to be redesigned to appeal to today's youth. I of course have no suggestions whatsoever on how to redesign it. :eek:

If I may nitpick your artwork, which is darn close to perfect, I feel like the U and B in CLUB should be a bit further apart, possibly at the expense of faithfulness to the original. The kerning on that font is a bit weird. Also the flame is slightly off center in the logo in the second row middle.
 
This is a simple build. These are the parts:
Engine tube - BT-5, 2" long
Mini engine hook
Thrust ring
Centering rings - RA 5-50
Body tube - BT-50, 9.5" long
Fin sheet - laser cut from erockets.
(I usually cut fins for my clones from templates but since laser cut ones were available.....)
Launch lug
Shock cord
Kevlar leader (subbed for tri-fold shock cord mount)
10" chute, shroud lines, tape disks
(Subbing a 12" salvaged chute)
Nose cone - BNC-50Y (Original used a PNC-50Y)
Screw eye
Original apparently included a display stand which I'm foregoing.
As aforementioned, decals to be printed on laser decal paper.
0307201450.jpg
 
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If I may nitpick your artwork, which is darn close to perfect, I feel like the U and B in CLUB should be a bit further apart, possibly at the expense of faithfulness to the original. The kerning on that font is a bit weird. Also the flame is slightly off center in the logo in the second row middle.
Feel free to nitpick, buddy. But it's not my artwork, just a cleaning of the original decal scan. It was yellowed with age so I whitened the background. The graphics remain unchanged. Also removed a few stray blobs.
BTW I went back and magnified the space between the "U" and "B" and cleaned that up also. Wouldn't make much difference in a full size decal though.
est0820e.png
 
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Assembled the motor mount. Kevlar looped under the front of the engine hook, Semroc style. Blue vinyl electrician's tape to secure the hook, split aft centering ring.
0307201544.jpg

From Chris Michielssen's blog, a tip to prevent split centering rings from spreading as the glue is drying: Place the split ring inside the outer tube (but be careful not to glue it to the tube yet)!
0307201545.jpg

Will let this assembly dry overnight.
TBC
 
If I may nitpick your artwork, which is darn close to perfect, I feel like the U and B in CLUB should be a bit further apart, possibly at the expense of faithfulness to the original. The kerning on that font is a bit weird. Also the flame is slightly off center in the logo in the second row middle.

Neil,
You must have done some typesetting in your time to have noticed the spacing between the U and B in CLUB.
I spent a few years on a VGC Photo Typesetting machine in the late 1970s. Letter spacing was all by eye on that one.
Whatever machine Estes used may have only allowed for "machine spacing" which sometimes led to some tight
or very open spaces between certain letter combinations.
 
From Chris Michielssen's blog, a tip to prevent split centering rings from spreading as the glue is drying: Place the split ring inside the outer tube (but be careful not to glue it to the tube yet)!
TBC

Yay! Somebody used a blog tip!
Thanks for that . . .
 
For split centering rings, sometimes I cut them from the inside edge and leave that last outer strip in place until after it has been glued to the engine mount tube, same difference as using the body tube to hold its shape while glue dries.

nice work with Inkscape, that and GIMP are pretty handy for redrawing decal artwork, depending on the task.
 
nice work with Inkscape, that and GIMP are pretty handy for redrawing decal artwork, depending on the task.
I found Inkscape due to your recommendation on another thread, so thanks for that.
Learning by clicking and doing, not a manual reading kind of guy. Unless I absolutely have no choice.:D
 
This morning:
Glued the motor mount
Glued screw eye to nose cone, tied and glued shock cord to screw eye, attached snap swivels to connect shock cord to Kevlar leader. Attached chute.
Tacked on main fins and aligned with the Qualman fin guide.
0308200720.jpg
Love those fin guides. Also the Qualman stands.
Centering rings, not so much.
Anyhoo, forward fins, launch lugs, and fillets to be done later today.
I'll do another post tonight.
Gotta work on some other rockets today.;)
Layers, I mean laters.
 
Neil,
You must have done some typesetting in your time to have noticed the spacing between the U and B in CLUB.
I spent a few years on a VGC Photo Typesetting machine in the late 1970s. Letter spacing was all by eye on that one.
Whatever machine Estes used may have only allowed for "machine spacing" which sometimes led to some tight
or very open spaces between certain letter combinations.
Why did they use CAPS on CLUB?

estes aerospace CLUB

VS

estes aerospace club
 
The whole thing is a mix of upper and lower case (capitals T, P, L, and B). In hindsight it's pretty darn weird. Would have looked better in all lower case.
 
I resemble that remark. Being in my 70's and all.
Peace sign, flower power, long mop tops, op art, bell bottoms, lava lamps, I even had a dashiki!
I salute you sir. Fond memories.

Well, I got the forward fins and launch lugs on and everything got filleted.
So this assembly is complete.
Finishing to be done offline (Boring stuff).
Next post: EAC Firecat
0308201734.jpg
 
I cloned the EAC101_1459.JPG Viper a couple of years ago (switched up to an 18mm mount). For what it's worth, and if you can find it, Testors has an out of the bottle color match for the nose cone: Panther Pink - Gloss 2757.
 
Chris (and others), I'm curious about what you think the eac font might be. Estes made heavy use of Helvetica in a lot of 1970s+ decals and it looked like they were using good ol' Letraset dry transfer lettering because of not only kerning but also ragged baselines. The eac decal was something else entirely. Do you also know if they used a typesetter machine in those days? I meant to ask Dane Boles last NARAM but forgot.
 
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