Vintage Estes Black Hole Probe build

Here is my next vintage build that I will start in the next couple of days, should be fun.

durn helpful software, thread title should read 'Black hole probe' not 'black hold'
Rex

Great choice Scigs:
The Black Hole Probe was such a KEWL lookin rocket I had to downscale it for MMX flying.
While on the heavy size she still gets pretty good altitude and is fairly quick off the pad.

Hope your classic kit finishes as well and flies like a bat

Nice, I saw a big upscale fly at NARAM 60 a couple months ago.

Excellent choice! I have always thought this was a cool, beautiful rocket! Never built one, never seen one, never saw a thread on one. Thank you for this thread! This would be a kit that would, eventually, end up in my office at work!

I'm looking forward to seeing this completed,I had one of these when I was a kid. I never flew the one I had and it hung from by bedroom ceiling for many years. I keep telling myself that I'll do a clone some day...some day...

Another fun old Estes kit built out of the bag and ready for paint. The instructions call for Light Metallic Blue, and I always thought this rocket was black. I will not be using my usual Old formula Krylon since they don't have this color so I will be using Testors Metallic Blue spray paint. The most challenging part is using the old die crushed balsa parts. Non of the fins are the same until you sand them stacked together. We are sure spoiled these days with laser cut kits or cloning and cutting out perfect parts. I sealed the wood with 3 coats of Brodak Sealer for a grain free smooth finish and sure did a lot of fillets.

Nice picture! The text, though, confuses me.

My vintage Black Hold Probe is all painted waiting for decals. The 3 coats of good Brodak did a great job of sealing the balsa for a smooth finish. This was tough to paint because of the angles and crevices made it a challenge. I did one light coat of grey primer followed by light coats of Metallic Blue paint.

Beautiful.

Congratulations!
Could you possibly send a scan of the decals to me at [email protected] Please?
I printed out the instructions and templates couple weeks ago.
I believe I'm going to clone it in the coming winter months.

Woody's Workshop said:

Congratulations!
Could you possibly send a scan of the decals to me at [email protected] Please?
I printed out the instructions and templates couple weeks ago.
I believe I'm going to clone it in the coming winter months.

Click to expand...

The scan of the decal on the rocket shoppe plans page is better than mine.
I’ll print it out and confirm the correct size.

Very nice. That would make a great steam-punk themed rocket I suspect.

I can call this vintage build complete and ready for flight. The old decals were in pretty good shape but did have some issues with them lying flat on the metallic finish. I don't like using products on these old decals since I had some bad experiences. Also the black decals did not show up well on a the dark rocket. I kept the build simple with the only sanding being with the brodak sealer, easily and fast. I used Brite Touch primer, great stuff and cheap. It is not a filler primer but if needed it will sand easily even though I don't sand it since I don't like sanding. Plastic model builders use this primer since it is thin enough and does not hide the plastic models details.