Hobby Lobby

turbofireball said:

The SKU # for the Vapor is ESTT7294. And it was me who answered the question on FB.

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Can they legally sell these in Canada without the "u"?

samb said:

Right. But, UPC <—> SKU is like apples <—> oranges.

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As someone who makes his living running inventories for multiple different clients, sometimes it's apples <-->oranges, sometimes it's apples <--> apples. Depends upon the client and what they use for a SKU.

John Kemker said:

As someone who makes his living running inventories for multiple different clients, sometimes it's apples <-->oranges, sometimes it's apples <--> apples. Depends upon the client and what they use for a SKU.

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Quite right. SKU's are not standardized. I think for the purposes of this thread we've determined that Hobby Lobby has a numbering system unrelated to UPC or part number for their rocket inventory.

gpoehlein said:

Anyone else have the experience that HL will not honor the 40% off coupon on these rockets because all of them have the "Your Price" stickers on them? Bought three rockets Saturday and all three were not eligible for the discount.

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Same thing happened to me yesterday. Purchased some motors and they said I couldn't use the 40% on "your price".

greenrocketfish said:

Same thing happened to me yesterday. Purchased some motors and they said I couldn't use the 40% on "your price".

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None of HL’s “Your Price” items are eligible for the additional discount - their price on Estes stuff pretty much jives with the online discounters - AC Supply, Belleville, Hobbylinc - 30-40% off Estes list price. Personally I like buying multiple items at 30+% off all at once rather than making multiple trips to get 40% off one item

Yes, I went to one HL and got the A8-3 bulk pack and the cashier said, where's your coupon. Then last night at a different one, no go.

The HL SKUs are the same as they have been using for the Flip Flyer and the Nike-X. The Flip Flyer SKU is now used for OIympus and the Nike-X one for the Vapor. At the second-nearest HL to me they have a Vapor hanging behind two Nike-Xs. They've moved the Flip Flyers (they still had two) and now have a hook marked for the Olympus. They had two when I got there today. Now they have one.

Some comparison info with the Green Eggs model (since this came up earlier in this thread):

Olympus is six inches longer (all in the main body tube). It uses the screw-on 24mm motor retainer and is set up to take 24mm Es while Green Eggs, stock, only takes C11s and D12s and uses a regular motor hook. The plastic parts appear to be the same save for color - nose cone, payload adapter and payload section tube. The four fins are surface-mounted instead of three TTW fins on Green Eggs.

I'll put the Olympus in the near term build queue and will see if there is anything else significant.

I'm amused at the Olympus face card showing an Estes Altimeter hanging down inside the payload section, since there is no provided way to attach one the way it's shown.

That particular HL had four or five Luna Bugs in stock, BTW, in case anyone in the South Puget Sound area is looking for one or more (Puyallup South Hill store).

Inventoried an HL this last month and found out something interesting from one of the employees:

HL does NOT use barcodes. For anything. Evidently, the CEO/primary shareholder believes that barcodes are the Mark of the Beast. Explains why they are a Financial Count and not a Scan-Based Count. We enter the price, then count everything that has that same price until we get to a different price. Then we enter that price and do the same. So, if I'm counting Estes Rockets and the first five kits are all the same price, they all get counted together.

Was REALLY tempted to buy a Cherokee-E before I left, but the future XYL would have a fit if I came home with a new rocket kit, right now.

No slam intended. Just something I heard.

Religion is for man.
Spirituality is for God.

AND I AM NOT TRYING TO START A NASTY THREAD ABOUT THAT!

Please don't ban me!

Got my Vapor today - picked up a Goblin too while I was there. Wish I had more to spend, I would have picked up the Olympus too.

Initiator001 said:

The Olympus and Green Eggs models use many of the same parts.

The Green Eggs kit uses a 24mm motor mount and that is what the Olympus appears to use.

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Having now built and flown both of them, I can confirm Bob's comments. The nose cone, payload tube and payload adapter are the same parts save for the color. The nose cone/adapter part is white as supplied in the Olympus kit.

Both use 24mm motors. Green Eggs is set up for C11s and D12s only and uses a conventional motor hook. Olympus uses the 24mm screw-on retainer and can also take E12s (and E9s).

Green Eggs takes a large egg to about 500 feet on a D12, Olympus to about 400. Olympus takes the same egg to almost 900 feet on an E12.

This image taken yesterday before the first two flights on Olympus and the second flight on Green Eggs (which means I need to go update the Newton Tally 2020 thread again....)

So, if I upscale to a 4" with 54mm MMT, that would be a Big Green Egg?

EDIT: Oooo! Wait! Put a 70cm Eggfinder on it for Green Eggs and Ham (radio)!

John Kemker said:

So, if I upscale to a 4" with 54mm MMT, that would be a Big Green Egg?

EDIT: Oooo! Wait! Put a 70cm Eggfinder on it for Green Eggs and Ham (radio)!

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NAR does have an unused/abandoned sport code for High-power competition.

Your upscale could be a good candidate for Multi-egg launch

John Kemker said:

So, if I upscale to a 4" with 54mm MMT, that would be a Big Green Egg?

EDIT: Oooo! Wait! Put a 70cm Eggfinder on it for Green Eggs and Ham (radio)!

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I actually have an Altus Metrum TeleMini and got my Technician ticket mainly so I could use things like that legally.....so I could really do Green Eggs and Ham. I like it.

Also....you can't see it really in that picture, but I have a couple of Sam-I-Am decals on the model. They are decals for the discontinued Semroc SAM-3 rocket. eRockets was blowing out the decals at 50 cents each not long ago....

John Kemker said:

HL does NOT use barcodes. For anything. Evidently, the CEO/primary shareholder believes that barcodes are the Mark of the Beast.

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Wow, this is mega-weird.
I knew HL has a whacky management philosophies, resulting in staying closed on Sundays (major PITA).
But this testifies to whole new level of crazy.

Also explains why they always have semi-random inventory fluctuations for rocketry items at my two nearest stores.

greenrocketfish said:

Same thing happened to me yesterday. Purchased some motors and they said I couldn't use the 40% on "your price".

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I've noticed that my stores have recently moved to label ALL rocketry supplies with yellow tagged "final sale" prices. Those are discounted at exactly 33.3% of MSRP, are not eligible for 40% off coupons.

For example, D12 motors are now marked $7.99, or 66.66% of $11.99 MSRP.
In the past, you could have bought one pack at 40% off for $7.19 (same as from www.acsupplyco.com).

Thus one-off purchases were a little cheaper in the past, but if you are buying 2+ items, you are better off with the new system.

YMMV,
a

afadeev said:

Wow, this is mega-weird.
I knew HL has a whacky management philosophies, resulting in staying closed on Sundays (major PITA).
But this testifies to whole new level of crazy.
...

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You may say crazy now but some us old farts remember when transacting business on Sunday was against the law in most of these United States. I think the fact that HL carries a selection of model rocket items is a net good-good. [emoji106]

Just restocked on motors today when my Son-in-Law, Grandson and I went there today, seven 3-packs, $49. And he picked up a few kits for his family.

samb said:

You may say crazy now but some us old farts remember when transacting business on Sunday was against the law in most of these United States. I think the fact that HL carries a selection of model rocket items is a net good-good. [emoji106]

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I remember all the Blue Laws too, it was good for employees.
Walmart doesn't carry rocket stuff anymore so Hobby Lobby carrying Estes is VERY good for the hobby
and their discounts are fantastic!