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And the nose hook turned out to be easy to replace with 3 dowels glued together, plus not having to hog out the nose cone. Pictures near the beginning of the thread should show how I did it.

Finishing up finally..... If I had one overall message to deliver on this one, it would be to mask off the attach areas for the orbiter cradles so that the external tank and the rest are all painted separately. Even with all the masking, I managed to have some overspray that is annoying. For...

Decals make a huge difference. And if anyone is interested, the orange for the external tank is Rustoleum "Rustic Orange" in satin finish.

And the orbiter. for the vertical fins, I'll mask them and use a permanent marker for the black leading edges.

I got all eager about attaching the SRBs and the orbiter attach structure, so I didn't paint first and attach later. Thus, I had to do a lot of masking for the paint job. First was a coat of white on all of it, then the masking so that I could paint the external tank. The orange is a Rustoleum...

The nozzle bells had my scratching my head, as they were smaller than the 4 "booster" body tubes. Then I looked at the instructions and saw that they get paperboard rings on them that will have them fit the booster tubes. Mystery solved (and insert punchline about reading instructions). I...

Once you get past all the fiddly little bits that go into making the orbiter, the rest of the shuttle kit goes together fairly easily. The paperboard brackets needed a touch of sandpaper on the inside so the booster tubes would slide in. The trick is to get them glued in place square to the...

The Shuttle is another build that got started and then languished, but I've recently returned to it, along with the Screaming Eagle. The orbiter body is mostly unremarkable other than, if I had to do it again, I'd do some more darts in the paperboard skin of the orbiter. It has a minor...

After painting on the white bursts, it was back to decal work. For the most part, no issues, but the one on top that extends onto the nose cone bit me in the backside by folding up on itself for the part forward of the cut. Just dang. The nose cone paint looked fine, but a small nick in the...

After getting the fuselage painted, I thought I was ready to start applying the decals. When I did so, it quickly became apparent that some of the scheme was paint, not included decals. I decided to go with the white bursts, but not the additional blue part on the top of the wing. So I...

I like the P-61! Is that a kit? Scratch built?

I have a Screaming Eagle kit that I started with one of my sons something like 13 or 14 years ago. For reasons I can't quite explain, components of the kit dispersed to several locations in the house. Some items like parachute and shock cord are still MIA, though easily replaced. However...

Places like Hobby Lobby or Michaels.

I don't know whether it would do loops or just enter a very high drag deep stall flight regime. Without the weight of the engine and engine pod, I'm thinking it would just do a flat-spin(ish) tumble. It would be interesting to build another one just to see what happens. Hmmmm

After the paint was dry, it was time to attach the ailerons. I cut the adhesive strips into rhomboids appx 1.5" wide and put them on either side of the vertical fins. The hinge strips are meant to be applied flat across the hinge line on the side that the fin moves to, and be folded into the...

On the same trip where I spotted the Lunar scout, I also saw the Tazz and grabbed it since (a) it was marked down and (b) it is something different than 3FAANC. Per the plans, the ailerons (for want of a better term) are attached to the fixed fins with stickers prior to painting. I figure...

Ditto on it taking a little longer than I thought, mostly due to painting it.

I saw this at the Hobby Lobby and it looked like a fun low-power rocket that wasn't the usual 3-fins-and-a-nose-cone. It'll look good on the shelf and be good for backyard launches. The Lunar model uses paperboard instead of balsa, but maybe it is better than such thin balsa. Construction...

1. Thank you to all the people who have posted to this thread. I have read and re-read it so much that the print would be fading were I to have printed it; the build tips, lessons-learned, and insights have been invaluable. It has been a rather time and detail-intensive rocket, but I wanted to...

I have never had an issue with the 29mm E and F motors from Estes. The only ones that I have had CATOs with have been the smaller E9 size motors.