Estes Pro Series II "Bring Back: Special Edition"

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Scott_650 said:
Or skip the whole Estes PSII mania and buy a Balsa Machining Service 3” School Rocket with all the fixin’s for $50 - it out Leviathans the Leviathan by nearly a foot and a half and includes a payload bay
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I'd swear I argued exactly this about 2 months ago. And then I bought yet another BMS school rocket and made a very nice custom rocket from it. I'm not exactly in need of a Leviathan anyhow. If I want a rocket who's claim to fame is that it is "big", I can make that from 4" tube and be even bigger.
 
Dose anyone know if there is a fin slot guide for a 3 inch tube? The Super Big Bertha you have to cut your own fin slots. I never tried it.
 
Scott_650 said:
Or skip the whole Estes PSII mania and buy a Balsa Machining Service 3” School Rocket with all the fixin’s for $50 - it out Leviathans the Leviathan by nearly a foot and a half and includes a payload bay 😉
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What’s it called? It’s taller than the Leviathan?
 
FYI: If you're willing to go "whole hog", for about $80, you get a 5-Foot tall 3" diameter rocket.
That's about as big as you'd want to go for a 29mm motor mount, because I have that, and it barely cracks 1000 feet even with a G motor.
 
I have all kinds of aluminum angle cut to different lengths and lots of different fin guides from different manufacturers but I never tried my skill at cutting them. I’m always afraid of ruining a tube.
 
flyingeagle said:
I would have liked to buy the Leviathan kit but couldn’t afford it. I have 4 Estes Big Daddy kits and found a conversion kit to turn one of them into the Leviathan. The BT for the Big Daddy and nose cone are the same as the Leviathan with the same part number.

I bought the conversion kit that comes with a heavy 29mm motor tube, laser cut plywood centering rings and fins, 12 feet of kevlar 500 lb shock cord, 1/4 inch launch lugs, upper body tube, and rail buttons for $40.00. Now I can have a Leviathan. Decals sold separately. Maybe the next one I can afford.
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The original Leviathan or for that fact most of the PSII kits had no decals, they were just tubes, fins, rings, nosecones and a few other miscellaneous parts. There were paint schematics iirc on how to paint them to look like the original face cards.
 
Scott_650 said:
Or skip the whole Estes PSII mania and buy a Balsa Machining Service 3” School Rocket with all the fixin’s for $50 - it out Leviathans the Leviathan by nearly a foot and a half and includes a payload bay 😉
Click to expand...
I've got a BMS 3" school rocket on the way, but that's not really gonna scratch the Leviathan itch for me any more than getting one without the extra tube would scratch my itch for an NCR Big Brute. Similar ain't the same.

Wish I hadn't missed out on this but I did, so oh well.
 
DocSeuss said:
I've got a BMS 3" school rocket on the way, but that's not really gonna scratch the Leviathan itch for me any more than getting one without the extra tube would scratch my itch for an NCR Big Brute. Similar ain't the same.
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That’s fair. Never had a Leviathan of my own, so the only itch I had to scratch was a BFR for a currently LPR flyer. And the BMS 3” scratches that gloriously.
 
Scott_650 said:
Or skip the whole Estes PSII mania and buy a Balsa Machining Service 3” School Rocket with all the fixin’s for $50 - it out Leviathans the Leviathan by nearly a foot and a half and includes a payload bay 😉
Click to expand...

I think a lot of people just don't love the fins on that one. But I suppose you could always make different fins or just paint the BMS-SR in the Leviathan paint scheme and call it good. It would look a lot better than white airframe, red nose cone and blue fins with no graphics.

If you prefer the lighter and shorter Estes nose cone, the Doorknob comes with pre-slotted body tube and has cheap plywood upgrade kits available. The 29mm MMT with threaded retainer and nylon chute make it a far better point to start upgrading than a Big Daddy. Add a chunk of tubing and a coupler for cheap if you want to make it taller.
 
SolarYellow said:
I think a lot of people just don't love the fins on that one.
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That's true. That's why I never build it "stock". I use the kit as a base and modify. I've added "strakes" to the fins to give them more character.
If you don't like the fins, the can make your own or take the existing fins and add to them.
 
rharshberger said:
The original Leviathan or for that fact most of the PSII kits had no decals, they were just tubes, fins, rings, nosecones and a few other miscellaneous parts. There were paint schematics iirc on how to paint them to look like the original face cards.
Click to expand...
Here are the original Leviathan painting instructions from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine version from the April 2012 version of the Estes website: https://web.archive.org/web/2013040...nstructions/009700_Leviathan_paint_scheme.pdf

Incidentally, the original Leviathan sold for $64.99 in 2012 (https://web.archive.org/web/20130402025846/http://www.estesrockets.com/rockets/pro-series). I wish they'd brought more back from the vault! Of the ten PSII rockets currently listed on their site, Leviathan was the only one that sold out in 2 days this summer.
 
lhelseth said:
Here are the original Leviathan painting instructions from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine version from the April 2012 version of the Estes website: https://web.archive.org/web/2013040...nstructions/009700_Leviathan_paint_scheme.pdf

Incidentally, the original Leviathan sold for $64.99 in 2012 (https://web.archive.org/web/20130402025846/http://www.estesrockets.com/rockets/pro-series). I wish they'd brought more back from the vault! Of the ten PSII rockets currently listed on their site, Leviathan was the only one that sold out in 2 days this summer.
Click to expand...

A friend of mine had one... About a year ago or thereabouts I decided I just had to have one so with the help of bad boy rocketry (centering rings and fins) and some parts from Estes, namely the big daddy nose cone and slotted tube( since they weren't available as parts on the website, I had to beg for a custom order) and I managed to clone one. I have enough parts now for two more. One from the remaining parts, and since I have two 3 inch diameter slotted tube I purchased the vanderburn conversion kit. I really like that rocket.
 
DeltaVee said:
A friend of mine had one... About a year ago or thereabouts I decided I just had to have one so with the help of bad boy rocketry (centering rings and fins) and some parts from Estes, namely the big daddy nose cone and slotted tube( since they weren't available as parts on the website, I had to beg for a custom order) and I managed to clone one. I have enough parts now for two more. One from the remaining parts, and since I have two 3 inch diameter slotted tube I purchased the vanderburn conversion kit. I really like that rocket.
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Estes sold you Big Daddy nose cones as a separate part? If so, how hard did you have to beg, and how much did they cost? I like that cone, but I don't like having to buy a complete Big Daddy or Doorknob to get it.
 
When the Leviathan was no longer available, I scratch-built one based on the 3" BMS school rocket. But after sourcing parts and recovery and decals from different vendors and shipping , I'd say that it's a push as far as cost compared to a packaged rocket from Estes. Sure - it's a lot more convenient to purchase a kit, but I get satisfaction from building a rocket on my own that is comparable to an existing one. That's one reason I love to upscale.
 
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bad_idea said:
Estes sold you Big Daddy nose cones as a separate part? If so, how hard did you have to beg, and how much did they cost? I like that cone, but I don't like having to buy a complete Big Daddy or Doorknob to get it.
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Well that in and of itself is an interesting story. When I purchased it way back when, I got two of the cones and two of the slotted tubes. A friend of mine wanted one so that's why I got two. THAT time is cost around 8-9 dollars a cone. Since then I needed two more because of my penchant to get too many parts. The last go around (which was about 6 months ago.) it was $14... and that was after another several months wait because in January when I asked again, they were in too short supply and they needed them for kits! I wonder if that was when they were bagging the leviathans :) I wonder (worry) if too many people ask, what might happen then!!! On the pro side, they've used this nose cone for the BD, the Doorknob (I like the idea of using that with the vanderburn upgrade b/c of the chute) not to mention the original pro series 4xD motor patriot missile. So that cone has been around for quite some time. If I had to wait too long I would have just gotten the big daddy. They were much easier with the 3" slotted tubes!
 
I'd love to get that original pro series patriot! Or better still, take that 4" diameter mega red max nose cone and release a 4" Patriot (the OTHER Patriot) upscale!
 
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I really hope they re-release the Nike Smoke. I bought one last year from someone thinning out his collection and loved it. The nose cone is beautiful detailed and the fins are slick too. The tube is also sturdy and the centering rings are tough. It is simple, elegant and can be flown on H motors. It is comparable in weight to some of the recent re-releases but I am not sure how the weights compare post build. I built mine with some nose weight and a lot of epoxy so it came out heavy and not flyable on a F15. I doubt Estes will release a kit their motors cannot fly.

I really encourage Estes if they are reading these post to re-release the original Pro Series line from the mid 90s. Those kits were beautiful and the bigger ones were clusters so no concern on Estes motors being too small.
 
AlexBruccoleri said:
I really encourage Estes if they are reading these post to re-release the original Pro Series line from the mid 90s. Those kits were beautiful and the bigger ones were clusters so no concern on Estes motors being too small.
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I'd love to see some big cluster rockets from Estes, but in reviewing the '23 catalog, I don't think they sell any clusters at all anymore. Maybe I missed them, but if not, I'd be surprised if Estes went from having no clusters to selling large ones.

But if they did, 3x29 will fit in BT-80 if you use thin-wall motor mounts. 3x24 will fit BT-70. 4x24 will fit BT-80, but a commercial product would probably have to ship with D-length mounts, since the mass of the propellant in four blackpowder Es pushes it over the line into HPR. (But few among us build a kit stock anyway.)
 
bad_idea said:
I'd love to see some big cluster rockets from Estes, but in reviewing the '23 catalog, I don't think they sell any clusters at all anymore. Maybe I missed them, but if not, I'd be surprised if Estes went from having no clusters to selling large ones.
Click to expand...

Estes has one cluster kit, though it’s a bit unconventional - the #7287 Sidekick - which is a fun kit to build and fly. Now that the new StarTech starters have replaced the “cornstarch” versions maybe we’ll see more cluster kits - the built in clip whip on the PSII Controller introduced in 2015 seemed to point toward more potential clusters (it works well for them) - but those less than great starters would’ve made clustering with anything short of a 12V vehicle battery launch system very frustrating.
 
bad_idea said:
I'd love to see some big cluster rockets from Estes, but in reviewing the '23 catalog, I don't think they sell any clusters at all anymore. Maybe I missed them, but if not, I'd be surprised if Estes went from having no clusters to selling large ones.

But if they did, 3x29 will fit in BT-80 if you use thin-wall motor mounts. 3x24 will fit BT-70. 4x24 will fit BT-80, but a commercial product would probably have to ship with D-length mounts, since the mass of the propellant in four blackpowder Es pushes it over the line into HPR. (But few among us build a kit stock anyway.)
Click to expand...
I think they are fine clustering C11 and D12s. You can have a lot of fun with those clusters.
 

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