Wanted Estes Citation Bomarc Nosecone Help

[K'Tesh]

Recently scored an Estes Citation Bomarc, unfortunately though the original nosecone was not included with the kit. Fortunately, the other vacuform parts are in original condition.

I forwarded the kit to JimZ, for documentation, and he has expressed interest in creating molds to reproduce the vacuform parts. But we need an original nosecone to create a mold for the nosecone. Or we need a buck made from an original nosecone, so we can reproduce the nosecone.

If you can help us out with this, please contact either James Zalewski, or myself. And we can see about getting what we need to reproduce this part.

Thanks!!!

 

[waltr]

Are these any help?
https://www.balsamachining.com/dwgs/cones/BNC5BA.gifhttps://www.balsamachining.com/dwgs/cones/cones_3.gif

 

[troj]

I happen to have an original nosecone, and also need a replacement for one of the vacuform parts.

-Kevin

 

[K'Tesh]

Hi Kevin,

Please check your FB PMs.

Thanks!

 

[K'Tesh]

Are these any help?
https://www.balsamachining.com/dwgs/cones/BNC5BA.gifhttps://www.balsamachining.com/dwgs/cones/cones_3.gif

Thanks, but we're trying to clone the original, using the same technology.

 

[troj]

Thanks, but we're trying to clone the original, using the same technology.

The original, at some points, used balsa - mine is a Citation Bomarc, and it has a balsa nosecone.

-Kevin

 

[troj]

 

[waltr]

That looks like the NC Balsa Machining sells.
I'm pretty sure that BMS nose cones are replicas of the original parts Estes used.

 

[mikeyd]

My original Bomarc came with a Plastic pre colored Copper nose cone. It only lasted a few flights as it appeared brittle, and actually had a weak spot in the plastic. I was surprised to find that later bomarcs came with the Balsa. I did also have a parachute recovery bomarc kit 0657, it came with the blow molded PNC-55AO, and I found if I just cut the base off of it, and cleaned up the edge, it would fit nicely over the old 0654 Bomarc Vacuum plastic base and worked well as a replacement. It is the one on the bottom left.

Here you can find the instructions for the Citation Bomarc with Balsa nosecone
https://www.oldrocketplans.com/estes/estKC-5/estKC-5.pdf

 

[mikeyd]

It appears that the difference on the Citation Bomarcs is the KC-5 version is Balsa, and MK-5 version was the plastic.

 

[K'Tesh]

It appears that the difference on the Citation Bomarcs is the KC-5 version is Balsa, and MK-5 version was the plastic.

That's what looks to have happened... I had no idea about the balsa version until this came up. I thought that my kit's NC had broken like so many others, and the rocketeer had replaced the NC with a balsa one. What lead me to that was that in the photo of the kit laid out on the table, you can clearly see the vacuformed part for the shoulder of the vacuformed plastic NC.

Anyway, now JimZ has the instructions (and a physical sample) to document of the balsa one, and we're trying to drum up a good vacuformed plastic version for cloning those as well. And he seems close to getting a better copy of the instructions for the plastic version too.

I'm hoping that I'll someday be able to compare the blow molded PNC-55AO to the vacuformed one, and hopefully find them to be an exact shape match (it'd make things easier now wouldn't it), I realize it's a functional substitution, but I'd like it to be indistinguishable from the original MK-5 Citation version and not the later 657 version. What would be even cooler is if Estes would put this out again with blowmolded parts that replicate the original shapes of the vacuformed ones to fill all our needs for Bomarcs.