Binder Design Exocet

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This a great kit. Congrats. This is one of my all-time favorite missiles. Please do a build.
 
Mine is still racked in the basement, still in the filler/finish stage due to a combination of work and 4 years of health issues. But things are looking up so I may get back to it soon.
P_20190608_082203~2.jpg
 
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Ok... So, this brings me to questions I should direct @Binder Design... How many of these kits were made by Mike? And of those, how many used the fiberglass nosecone, the RWW nosecone, or even the ACE nosecone. Determining if a kit was made during Scott's time at the helm or Mike's should be easy presuming that the instructions were preserved by the buyers/builders as the addresses for Binder Design would have changed (unless Mike forgot to do so before shipping the kits he produced). Or if owners remember when they bought theirs (presuming enough time had elapsed between the change of ownership of Binder Design occurred).

In my chats online with Scott, he said that only about a dozen were produced by him, and few of those had the fiberglass nosecone (the remainder having the ACE nosecone). With the low number of Scott's kits produced, it's kind of interesting how many of the owners of this kit (Both Scott and Mike kitted) have weighed in on it. The original owner of the kit I've got is presumed to have passed away (I bought it from Josh, who bought it at an estate sale (and I don't know of any estate sales that don't involve someone dying)), though we don't know who that person was. I have read somewhere, or was told by someone that one of the kits was destroyed (can't remember if it was a CATO, or a recovery failure). I'm wondering if it would be possible to find (and unify) all the owners of the kits, and perhaps someday organize some kind of group launch (I know fantasy... But it's MOSTLY Harmless).
 
K'Tesh said:
Ok... So, this brings me to questions I should direct @Binder Design... How many of these kits were made by Mike? And of those, how many used the fiberglass nosecone, the RWW nosecone, or even the ACE nosecone.
Click to expand...

I only kitted one as a favor to someone that really wanted one. I sent him the cone from my prototype and he reshaped it. The crashed one that you head about was my prototype that used a 4X38mm mount. I did one flight with two 38mm research motors lit on the pad and airstarting two in flight. The airstarts never lit, but it flew and recovered fine. There is a grainy photo in this thread somewhere that shows this flight on two of my blue motors.

I tried the same flight profile again and only one motor lit on the pad so it barely had enough thrust to clear the rail before it keeled over and crashed and burned in the Brothers sage. At that point I decided not to re-release it as a cluster, but kept it on the drawing board. Down the road I just abandoned the whole idea when I discontinued our only other scale kit, the Iris due to very low demand. I checked how many Iris kit we sold and it was one kit about every three years, so that didn't motivate me to pursue the Exocet any further considering I'd need to make a new nosecone mold for it.

And that's the way it was.
 
For what it's worth: the Exocet is way cooler than the Iris. And what that statement actually is worth is exactly nothing, because I only do LPR anyway. :)

In any case, I do look forward to an eventual build thread. We should have an over/under contest about when K'Tesh is actually going to get around to starting. ;)
 
Binder Design said:
I only kitted one as a favor to someone that really wanted one. I sent him the cone from my prototype and he reshaped it. The crashed one that you head about was my prototype that used a 4X38mm mount. I did one flight with two 38mm research motors lit on the pad and airstarting two in flight. The airstarts never lit, but it flew and recovered fine. There is a grainy photo in this thread somewhere that shows this flight on two of my blue motors.

I tried the same flight profile again and only one motor lit on the pad so it barely had enough thrust to clear the rail before it keeled over and crashed and burned in the Brothers sage. At that point I decided not to re-release it as a cluster, but kept it on the drawing board. Down the road I just abandoned the whole idea when I discontinued our only other scale kit, the Iris due to very low demand. I checked how many Iris kit we sold and it was one kit about every three years, so that didn't motivate me to pursue the Exocet any further considering I'd need to make a new nosecone mold for it.

And that's the way it was.
Click to expand...
How many of the 4 inch Hones Johns were produced. I have one that I fly on rare occasions. The fiberglass tail cones, nose cones and vacuform spin nozzles were awesome.
 
neil_w said:
For what it's worth: the Exocet is way cooler than the Iris. And what that statement actually is worth is exactly nothing, because I only do LPR anyway. :)

In any case, I do look forward to an eventual build thread. We should have an over/under contest about when K'Tesh is actually going to get around to starting. ;)
Click to expand...
Perhaps I need a "Go Fund Me" to get the rocket here and fund the materials that I can't seem to source locally (wood hardener, primer paint, etc.). I know that China must have them, but my searches for them have been fruitless, and the people I've asked to help me haven't been able to turn up anything either.
 
Binder Design said:
I only kitted one as a favor to someone that really wanted one. I sent him the cone from my prototype and he reshaped it. The crashed one that you head about was my prototype that used a 4X38mm mount. I did one flight with two 38mm research motors lit on the pad and airstarting two in flight. The airstarts never lit, but it flew and recovered fine. There is a grainy photo in this thread somewhere that shows this flight on two of my blue motors.

I tried the same flight profile again and only one motor lit on the pad so it barely had enough thrust to clear the rail before it keeled over and crashed and burned in the Brothers sage. At that point I decided not to re-release it as a cluster, but kept it on the drawing board. Down the road I just abandoned the whole idea when I discontinued our only other scale kit, the Iris due to very low demand. I checked how many Iris kit we sold and it was one kit about every three years, so that didn't motivate me to pursue the Exocet any further considering I'd need to make a new nosecone mold for it.

And that's the way it was.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info... I thought it was yours that had crashed, but I didn't want to say it without being able to check my sources. With that, it is more and more likely that my kit is the one I saw all those years ago.
 
neil_w said:
For what it's worth: the Exocet is way cooler than the Iris. And what that statement actually is worth is exactly nothing, because I only do LPR anyway. :)
Click to expand...

In my early days of owning Binder Design I ended up chasing my tail a lot. Human nature being what it is, people would get excited about a freshly built prototype out for a flight test, but if I said I had 20 of them kitted in the back of my car people would look at their feet and slunk away. I now choose very carefully where to expend my energy because I'm not getting any younger.
 
Brent said:
How many of the 4 inch Hones Johns were produced. I have one that I fly on rare occasions. The fiberglass tail cones, nose cones and vacuform spin nozzles were awesome.
Click to expand...

Dunno, you'd have to ask Scott Binder. I had a falling out with Scotglas the producer of the fiberglass parts. One of the partners of Scotglas decided to start kitting Honest Johns with the Binder Design molds.
 
Binder Design said:
In my early days of owning Binder Design I ended up chasing my tail a lot. Human nature being what it is, people would get excited about a freshly built prototype out for a flight test, but if I said I had 20 of them kitted in the back of my car people would look at their feet and slunk away. I now choose very carefully where to expend my energy because I'm not getting any younger.
Click to expand...
Totally understood. It's incredibly easy to have enthusiasm for a kit before it comes time to take out your wallet.
 
Tobor said:
Sweet acquisition!

How many bars of "Gold Pressed Latinum" did that set you back? ;)
Click to expand...
A few... It's an open bag, partial build (the body tube was slotted by the previous owner, not by Scott).

Here's the photo of the kit at my Mom's house... I'm a little concerned about the discoloration at the tops of the two body tubes. I know that if I have to, I could pick up some replacement body tubes from Mike.

IMG_0435.jpg
 
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