Destination Mars Longship instructions problem…now my problem!

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billeblurzz

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Well I was following the directions too closely and not paying attention to the box art! There is a problem with the dimensions for laying the marks to attach the second set of plastic details.
 
Bummer. On my son's the fin alignment was a mess! Definitely wrong dimensions! How did you glue it? Might be able to get an x-acto blade under and pop it of, especially one of the chisel shaped ones. Alternately you could split the decals. I'm not one for matching every rocket to the face card.
 
Luckily I caught that glitch when I built mine. Forgot to publicize it though. :(
 
Would you finish as is?...or try to correct the problem. The forward plastic details cannot be removed without messing up the body tube I believe...attached with thin layer of 5 min epoxy.
 
Thanks for the replies! Well last night I thought I could cut the body tube away at base of the forward details and couple another tube in place...recover plastic pieces from freed tube. There is then enough space to correctly reattach pieces! The decals lining up correctly would be reason to attempt this. Or just go ahead as is. Any foreseeable problem with this approach?
 
Thanks for the replies! Well last night I thought I could cut the body tube away at base of the forward details and couple another tube in place...recover plastic pieces from freed tube. There is then enough space to correctly reattach pieces! The decals lining up correctly would be reason to attempt this. Or just go ahead as is. Any foreseeable problem with this approach?

That seems reasonable to me.

You could also contact Estes Customer Service, let them know about the error in the instructions, and ask for some replacement plastic parts. There’s a decent chance they will just send you a replacement kit if it’s still in stock. It’s worth a shot, and it would be good for them to know about the error regardless.

Good luck with whatever your solution. It looks like a very cool kit.
 
Its a good kit, BUT it has a bad tendency for the nosecone to snap back and damage something. Even replacing the stock shock cord with 4' of kevlar and 4' of 1/4" elastic didn't help much. About 50% of my flights with it resulted in damage. Last flight it took major damage - nosecone took out one of the large struts and one of the plastic pieces, so I retired the rocket.

I built a second kit, and lost it on its maiden flight, so I ended up breaking out the first one and put in a fair bit of effort to rebuild it, making a fake plastic piece out of a section of BT-50 body tube, some thick cardboard for the ends, and a balsa brace running down the inside middle. Can't tell if the weight is close to the original or not, but the shape is close enough I hope. I'll know better after I fly it in a week or so.

Its a good flier on E12-4s, not so hot on D12-3 (first flight resulted in fin damage, hadn't tried again after that), and quite nice on Aerotech E20-4s.
 
Yeah epoxy would make it hard to remove. You could add length to the front with a coupler and some tube the extra volume may help with the energetic ejection issues Bill has seen. We haven't flown my son's yet.
 
I hope that doesn't affect the stability too much. I probably would have kept the same overall body tube length to be on the safe side. I'll be watching this to see what your flight report is. :)
 
View attachment 522593
…the Destination Mars Shortship!🙄

Ha! Shortship!

Are you still going to try to salvage the plastic parts from the other tube? If you can’t cut the parts free of the tube, you might consider just cutting the tube itself around the base of the parts, so that each plastic part is still glued to a small section of tube just slightly larger than the part. Clean up the edges a bit and then glue the salvaged part+tube pieces to the body tube.
 
I just received a replacement body tube and coupler from E Rockets…an insignificant order actually…that I just placed late last week! They are the best!
 
I have that one ready to build soon, so I went ahead and pulled out the instructions and made the changes to the tube markings. Thanks for catching that!
 
Well I just received an email from Estes stating that the box art is just a representation which may be shrunk or enlarged to fit the box...and that any model should always be built according to the directions! In my opinion not a great response since the decals won't fit. Now I love Estes and am not looking to raise a stink or even request parts since I have already corrected the model with extra parts. But I do think most would like to build like the box art?
 
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