Sheri's Saturn 1b.

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Sheri's husband was the builder. He made scratch built models for museums. At some point he decided to sell mid-power rocket kits but he was not a rocketeer. I don't believe anyone on the forums ever met him or saw him or Sheri at a launch. The first kit they offered (Redstone?) had 32mm motor mounts. They shortly switched to 29 mm, but all of the tubes and stuff they used were not rocket company tubes, and very poor quality. Most of the kits are really pretty bad. I had a couple I never built and eventually sold. I've seen a few nice builds out of them over the years but those builders had way better than average skills and would have done as well scratch building. If I recall someone on one of the forums saying they had built a few of the Sheri's kits and really liked them. So your milage may vary. I don't ever recall seeing photos or videos of a built Sheri's shuttle.
 
I've never been interested in the shuttle program. And I did see the eBay auction. These kits are rare indeed and will fetch high prices. I have eBay notifications forwarded to my email so I get the news quickly.
 
Gus said:
Sheri's husband was the builder. He made scratch built models for museums. At some point he decided to sell mid-power rocket kits but he was not a rocketeer. I don't believe anyone on the forums ever met him or saw him or Sheri at a launch. The first kit they offered (Redstone?) had 32mm motor mounts. They shortly switched to 29 mm, but all of the tubes and stuff they used were not rocket company tubes, and very poor quality. Most of the kits are really pretty bad. I had a couple I never built and eventually sold. I've seen a few nice builds out of them over the years but those builders had way better than average skills and would have done as well scratch building. If I recall someone on one of the forums saying they had built a few of the Sheri's kits and really liked them. So your milage may vary. I don't ever recall seeing photos or videos of a built Sheri's shuttle.
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I concur with your view. My first SHR build was the Little Joe II, which was a decent kit. I flew it many times until I ran into a faulty ejection charge and it augured into a creek. It did not survive.

I also have the Mercury Redstone. That kit was OK and I'm still flying it minus some of the escape tower which invariably breaks off.

I also have the SHR Saturn 1B and Mercury Atlas. The 1B was a disaster, the tubes were bad and the instructions worse. I still think about making it but it will almost be a scratch build from the plans at this point, the build of the 1st stage was a complete loss. The Atlas isn't much better in terms of the instructions.
 
Gus said:
Sheri's husband was the builder. He made scratch built models for museums. At some point he decided to sell mid-power rocket kits but he was not a rocketeer. I don't believe anyone on the forums ever met him or saw him or Sheri at a launch. The first kit they offered (Redstone?) had 32mm motor mounts. They shortly switched to 29 mm, but all of the tubes and stuff they used were not rocket company tubes, and very poor quality. Most of the kits are really pretty bad. I had a couple I never built and eventually sold. I've seen a few nice builds out of them over the years but those builders had way better than average skills and would have done as well scratch building. If I recall someone on one of the forums saying they had built a few of the Sheri's kits and really liked them. So your milage may vary. I don't ever recall seeing photos or videos of a built Sheri's shuttle.
Click to expand...
I have some of the SHRs including the shuttle which is being sold.

I'd agree that it's not for everyone... actually not for most. However I believe I'm in the target market...I like the challenge of making a complex kit and getting it to launch nicely and if the kit is really daunting...all the better.

At one point I wanted to build and get a good launch on all of the "bad" Estes kits (Outlander, Venus Probe, Cosmos Mariner, etc.)...I guess I'm a glutton for punishment! :p

One past example was the Hangar 11 4" X-15 kit...that was quite a challenge because of the poor directions, poor/missing parts and the designer told me it wasn't possible to make dual deploy, but I did it and got my L2 on what wasn't possible. ;)

Other things I like about these "garage" kits is the subjects are usually less common in that scale and the parts are multiple media. I have the Titan kit and the metal bell nozzles are stunning. The Mercury chrome wrap really makes it stand out.

Of course one can try to scratch build, but in this scale it's tougher and I prefer a kit that supposedly the designer and others have actually flown.
 
You can do better than the 1/64th scale Sheri Shuttle. With all the effort you have in this 1/48th Saturn V scale build, and will have in the 1/48th Saturn 1B build, i suspect you may wind up building other rockets in 1/48th scale.

15 years ago, i started with ~1/70th scale Apogee Components Saturn V, Semroc Saturn 1B, and Semroc Little Joe 2 kits. Then i made ~1/70th scale paper models of Mercury Redstone and Atlas. I then fell into some other ~1/70th kits (Estes, Carl Campbell DFR Technologies, North Coast Rocketry). Then 10 years later replaced those paper models with Horizon Models plastic models. Then started scratch building 1/70th scale Space X rockets.

Bob
 

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Personally I'd rather scratch build other kits rather than the same scale (or larger) Shuttle because I feel the Shuttle stack has too many unknowns and to build something that complex untested & unconfirmed and launch it up may be tragic. With SHR Shuttle, at least others have built and flown and as noted above there was a build review on it. Scratch building any of the other rockets I think shouldn't be a problem since they're more conventional and is just the rocket alone.

But back on topic, I'd 100% agree with scratch building a Saturn 1B. :)
 
Yep, last I heard she was in Hawaii. And that was quite a while go. I had a brief PM exchange with her after building her Gemini Titan.
I made number of suggestions which she said she would take into consideration.

- Ditch the carpet store heavy walled tube and get something better. As George stated, body tubes were fuzzy, too heavy, hard to get a good finish.
- Redo the capsule mold. The resin Gemini capsule was made from molds that had seen better days by the time I got that kit (second hand). Junk.
- Who ever turned those fancy aluminum engine nozzles should have made the ID (where the mounting screws are located) wider as an Aerotech 29mm RMS would not fit inside the nozzle, and two single use G motors for this kit was a joke. (I took my 29 mm motor end closures to a hot rod machine shop, and had the ends tapered down a bit so they would fit).

Once the flame wars started she quit.. I ran into the Red Arrow guys and they were going to borrow the nozzles from me and farm them out...but they didn't get very far IIRC.

- wGemin Titan.jpgGemini Engine 2.jpg
 
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