Here she is all done and ready for flight. Looks just like the old kit and weighs the same complete, .7oz. The decals are pretty thin and fragile so be careful when applying. The older vintage kit had better decals. You can see from the up close picture of the white stripe on the orange paint that a chip of the white ink came off when I was pressing the decal down with soft cloth. You can also see there is no grain showing and that is with using just Aerogloss balsa sealer and old Krylon paint with no primer. Sorry I tried to get a good picture of the black fins but they are showing up either blurry and glossy or clear but dull looking, don't know what I am doing wrong with my camera but I am sure it has to do with the lighting. You can also see the nose looks pretty smooth with 4 coats of balsa sealer and top coat glossy old Krylon white I did dent the bottom of the nose when I dropped it, oh well. Speaking of finishing I was reading the new Estes builders manual and they now mention using primer to seal and fill the balsa. I don't quite understand why they don't recommend balsa sealer since it does a much better job. Now don't get me wrong, I did the primer to fill thing and it does work but it takes more than two or three coats. The problem I have with it is that sanding all the primer off creates a mess and is time consuming to say the least. Balsa sealer is much faster and easier to sand than primer. Also I like Aergloss sealer but there is another water based sanding sealer made by Deluxe materials called Sand N Seal and it works pretty well without the odor. Now I don't fill my spirals ever and after painting you really don't notice unless you get up close and look. Any way that is just my 2 cents on finishing a rocket I like to keep everything simple yet have a decent looking rocket. The rocket on the right is the OOP kit and left is the new kit.
