Vintage Alpha III decal to scale up to Maxi-Alpha3

Greetings all,

This is my first post to this group, so bear with me and my ignorance of the latest lingo. I've recently taken up rocketry again (yes, a BAR) and am getting my young son involved. I've recently acquired a Maxi-Alpha3, and was thinking about styling it after my first rocket of my kiddom, an Alpha III from about 1979-80 with the white body tube and black decals. I've been over to rocketreviews.com to read up on some of the maxi-alpha reviews and have been searching for a scan of the old alpha III decals to see if I can't have one of the vendors print out a scaled-up version that fits the larger tube.

Which reminds me...anyone got an old Alpha III for sale? All I see on ebay are the newer black/orange ones.

Thanks,
Bryan

The best source of old plans and decal scans would be Jim Z's site https://www.dars.org/jimz/rp00.htm though I'm not sure which Alpha you're talking about. He lists the original Alpha with white body tube and black trim, though that was painted, no decals. He also has the more modern 1225, with white body tube and red/blue trim decals.

Excelsior makes some great reproduction decals, including up/downscale. They list an Alpha III upscaled to BT-80 for $14.00, though I'd bet that's the orange/black one you're talking about. https://www.excelsiorrocketry.com/

By the way, if you're interested in the red/blue Alpha, I've got a pile of original (BT-50) decals on that one. If "southwestern OH" works out to a QUARK launch, I can bring one out sometime.

--Chan Stevens

Found one that might be your Alpha-- https://towrowrow.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/alpha1.jpg . Excelsior calls this a plain "pre-D" alpha, not the Alpha III, and you could probably get BT-80-sized decals from him for less money/hassle than upscaling and printing your own.

By the way, are you going to wind up painting the red plastic fin can and nose? And the red coupler/trim piece? I can appreciate the nostalgia for the black & white Alpha, but think the Maxi-3 looks pretty good in its own scheme, especially if you add a nice "real" red paint finish to the faded plastic.

--Chan Stevens

He said Alpha 3. See his sig. Bryan, check out Excelsior rocketry. This link has a decal set for an upscale Alpha 3 for BT-80 halfway down the page for $14. Might want to check with Excelsior (AstronBoy on this forum) to check if it is the red, white, and black version that you desire, or the newer orange/black scheme. Hope this helps!

-Eric-

Hi Chan,

Thanks for all the information. Yes I'm in the northern Cincinnati area, and I'm expecting my kit(s) this week...I'm currently at 0 rockets.javascript:smilie('')
wink '' I'm starting off slow and small to refamiliarize myself with the sport; don't want to run out and get high-power rocket just yet (or should I say my wife might not want me to go out and start getting big rockets just yet...she'll make me throw out my half a dozen or so computers around the house for the space)!

I've enclosed an image of what I had in mind in terms of decals from an Alpha III. Actually, the decalsl ook to be the ones on the Sprint, just below the Alpha on Excelsior's site. To answer your question about the paint scheme, I'm planning on painting the nose and fin pieces a "fire engine"gloss red. Not sure if I'll paint the space between the fins...as you said the original scheme is nice, though I've seen a really sharp black and yellow paint scheme. I've been to apogeerockets.com and liked the RockSim8 program...I might have to get that some day too for real retentive flight planning.

Bryan

Thank you too, Eric, I think that fits the bill, or rather the tube!

Regarding YOUR sig, strange as it may seem, I've actually been to Manitowoc on my way up to Sister Bay in Dorr County.

Bryan

I've actually been to Manitowoc on my way up to Sister Bay in Dorr County.

Click to expand...

Hope you enjoyed your brief stay! Door County is a nice escape from the hustle and bustle; enjoyed by many from N. Illinois, etc. Many of the people I work with commute from Sturgeon Bay (in Door Co.) daily (big boat industry).

I forgot in my earlier post: Welcome to the forum! Chan's reference to Jim Z's is right on; good stuff. Here's another neat site. The Ninfinger site shows all the old Estes catalogs and much more. Great for BAR's and cloners!

-Eric-

Excelsior should have no problem at all printing that decal. Even if he shows it as the orange version he can print them out in black.

Thanks Scott and thanks to everyone for the help and suggestions. I've been to JimZ's great site and to ninfinger, lots of nifty stuff that brings back memories. Astronboy emailed me and let me know that the Alpha III he has is the black and white version, FYI, so I'll go and get it. It's always nice to support the small companies that take a real interest in the hobby and customers.

Bryan

Bryan, where did you find the picture and the Avatar?

Hm, it would appear that I got it from your site. I had been searching high and low for a decent picture of that particular type of Alpha III but hadn't found any until I came across your site last week. It was such a nice clear picture that I thought it a catalog scan/stock photo and used it to illustrate in my post what sort of decals I was looking for, and worked pretty well for a small avatar image.

If you prefer, I will user another image for my avatar.

Bryan

If you are planning to print the decal yourself I can post the .jpg up. or I will have to email it to you if you want a high res .tif file (about 1 meg).

Speedtek,

Could you email me the *.tif file? I bought an upscale decal set from Astronboy/Excelsior but it would be nice to have an electronic form for reference.

Thanks!
Bryan

Hi Guys. I just saw this thread. Yes, the ALPHA III, and ALPHA III BT-80 upscale decal I offer are the classic black roll patterns for the classic white tube, red plastic ALPHA III. I will update my website to avoid any confusion.

Just a note... if anyone really NEEDS this decal in orange, color changes are easy (Like maybe the 'Red Bird ZERO in metallic red, or Cherokee D decals in Blue/Black rather than red/black.) just let me know.

As always, thanks to all of you on TRF for your support!!

Phred

Hello Bryan, and welcome! You should feel right at home here, I surely feel that way even though I am neither a BAR nor american or from the UK.

You asked where you might get one of them older Alpha III's. But apparently you alreday found one, right? I might as well tell you anyway, just in case. I ordered my first rocketry stuff just this past christmas. And in my second order from Deepsky, UK, I got exactly what I ordered; 4 Alphas.

All of them being the older, white version...

(Did I get old stock that he couldn't sell to anybody else? I don't know and frankly - I don't care. They look much better in white than in black! BUt the same thing happened again when I ordered a Big Bertha for a friend of mine - he got the Yellow version...)

Per

Hello Per,

Thanks for the welcome. Actually I have not (yet) found one of those red and white Alpha 3 kits yet. I checked out the Deepsky site and found they had some of the "older" Alphas but saw no apparent older Alpha IIIs. I may just email and inquire to be on the safe side. I suppose I'm a bit attached to that rocket since it was my first.javascript:smilie('')
wink ''

Best,
Bryan

Here are the decals I used for my A3MAXI in BT-80. Let me know if there are any errors. I didnt use the original fonts......but they are close (GIF FILES)

here is the tif files zipped up

AND For those of you who requested the BT-60 Sized Decal

Originally posted by bryguy
Hello Per,

Thanks for the welcome. Actually I have not (yet) found one of those red and white Alpha 3 kits yet. I checked out the Deepsky site and found they had some of the "older" Alphas but saw no apparent older Alpha IIIs. I may just email and inquire to be on the safe side. I suppose I'm a bit attached to that rocket since it was my first.javascript:smilie('')
wink ''

Best,
Bryan

Click to expand...

I have (1) of those kits.....still in the bag.

A collector's item now, or possibly for sale?

Shoot, I should just buy a new alpha 3, paint the thing red and white and be done with it and stop pestering people. ;-)

Bryan

Hrmmmppffff.... don't say I should have tried to sell those four kits on eBay instead of building them

Oh well, nose cone and fins were not red really but orange-ish.

Per