Estes Little Joe I build thread

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I don't do a lot of scale builds but I have recently seen couple peoples work on here and it made me want to try my hand at another scale build. For this I grabbed the Estes Little Joe I.

I won't go over all of the parts included but it is impressive. If you are a model builder and have a lot of patients and the skills to modify stuff to make it fit then you will enjoy this kit. If you are the kind of person that just wants to glue on some fins and be done or expect things to fit together the first time this kit isn't for you.

Here are the parts included.



The build starts with the tower and this is the first piece that requires fitting. The first two pieces to go together are the top of the capsule. These two pieces fit without any issues and go together with a satisfying snap.




Next comes the tower. This consists of the top of the capsule that you just assembled as well as the three tower pieces.



When test fitting it becomes obvious that these parts don't fit together very well. As you can see from the pic. The lower part of the tower where it attaches to the top of the capsule is pushed out as the pointed tips that sick out are too long. Yes they do fit in the hole but they are about 1/64th too wide.



The solution to this is to sand down the tips so they don't stick out as far. I sanded about have of the thickness away. Forgive the pic with the crude lines. I neglected to get a pic after I sanded the piece down but this will give you an idea of how far I sanded it back.



From that point the rest of the tower went together pretty well. You do need to bend and hold the pieces together while the glue sets up. My tower piece were warped so yours might be better.

Best advise I can give here is to glue one piece on, let it completely cure then do the next. You cannot assemble this thing all at once as it will move around and make a mess.



Next I assembled the upper sections per the instructions. These all fit together nicely without any issues. Just a little force to snap them together.



Time to install the upper piece to the tower. The instructions tell you to install the jets before attaching the top to the tower. I don't recommend this as you will not be able to get the top seated if you install the jets first.




And here is the completed tower. I did go back and add some additional glue using a small push pin to get the glue exactly where I wanted it.



Now it's time for the capsule. This seems simple enough. A base and three side to the capsule. First, look at the outside of the capsule. There capsule door is split between two pieces you so need to ensure they are assembled correctly.



Test fitting and sanding the sides of the capsule is required. They pieces are far too wide to go together without some work. After about 10 mins of sanding I finally got them to fit into the groove in the base and line up. The instructions tell you to glue them into the base then go inside the capsule and apply glue along the seams. To do this you are going to need a stick or a junk paint brush as you cannot get the tube of glue inside.




After much sanding, fitting and a bunch of colorful language, I called it a night. This will be a nice rocket when completed but I'm constantly reminded that Estes is not a model company. Tonight we start on the motor mount.

 

[Back_at_it]

Back with an update. After letting everything cure for a few hours I took a look at the tower and I'm happy to say that it is nice and sturdy. I'm not going to glue the tower to the capsule at this point as I want to do some painting before final assembly. While it can be painted as a single piece, it's much simpler to do so when they are separate.

Continuing with the build. We first need to assembly the upper centering ring using the two piece shown. These come in a large sheet and are made of some decently rigid cardstock. I sanded the nubs off the outside of both pieces then lightly sanded the flat mating surfaces. These have a gloss to them and glue doesn't stick to it very well so knocking the shine off is a good idea. I also recommend beveling the edges of the top ring as it will make assembly easier later on. I used the motor tube to align them.




Next step is marking the motor tube. Make a mark at 1/4", 1" and 2.5".



Time to assemble the motor mount. For this need the thrust ring, motor clip and the ring to hold the motor clip in place.




Began assembly by gluing in the thrust ring. This gets set even with the end of the motor tube. Next I made a slit in the motor tube at the 1/4" mark and inserted the motor clip. The plastic ring was then slid into place at the 1" mark. I used CA around the plastic ring and along the upper section motor clip to keep it in place.



After letting the CA dry, I attached the centering rings. I started with the top ring as it sits flush with the top end of the motor tube. This was glued in place and left to dry. I then attached the lower ring at the 1/4" mark and let dry.



Making a modification here. I'm adding a piece of 350# Kevlar to the upper ring as an attachment point for the shock cord. A hole was drilled and the cord was pushed through. A know was made in the cord then glued in place. I did a fillet on the upper ring at this point as well and spread the excess glue around. It added a touch of rigidity to the upper ring.



Next was building the reducer. I really hate building these things as they almost never turn out perfectly round or the correct size. This one was no different. The reducer comes precut and it's just a touch too long but I'll deal with that later. The parts for the reducer are shown. Estes gives you a small piece that is used to connect the ends. When installing this be sure that it is centered. If you get it too low it will interfere with the ring, too high and it hits the body tube later.



The kit provides a nice marking guide to cut the fin slots as well as the required cutouts in the bottom of the tube. Here is the end result.



Next step is to install a centering ring in the upper part of the main body tube. This is to center the smaller inner tube. This piece gets attached flush with the upper end of the main tube.



Next step was applying a fillet to the inside of the reducer. Simply spread TBII around the inside and allowed it to cure. From this angle the ring looks pretty good. What you can't see is the gap where the two piece meet. They do not touch the inner ring as the reducer was a touch too long. If yours doesn't fit exactly right then my recommendation is to do the fillet around the inside of the ring but NOT where the two piece butt together. I left about 1/4" inch on both sides of the slit without a fillet as I will fix the fitment once this piece is in place on the body tube.

 

[Back_at_it]

Made some decent progress over the past couple of days.

Installed the motor mount into the main body tube. The mount gets inserted until the rear ring is flush with the upper part of the cutouts. For this I used TBII but I would use epoxy if I had to do again. When installing the mount you need to line up the motor clip with one of the fin slots. Using TBII you don't really get a chance to adjust the mount as it grabs the paper centering rings and doesn't move. Mine is about 2 degrees off but it's close enough. Another reason is that the TBII shrinks when it dries and there is a visible line around the tube that will need to be filled.



Next was inserting the inner tube. The bottom side of this tube needs to slide over the outside of the centering ring at the bottom of the main tube. TO make this easier, I ran my finger nail around the inside the lower part of the tube to give it a bit of a taper.

I also recommend that you insert this without glue. Once you have it where you want it, you can put a couple of small drops of glue around the top and run a filet around the inside of the lower part of the tube.



Next came the reducer. I only used glue around the base to hold this in place for now. I'm going to come back later with epoxy and run a thin coat around the upper connection then wipe away the excess.



Here is the installed reducer.



Time for the fins. Fins on this kit are made up of six pieces. You have the main fin, four edge pieces and the paper outer cover. Thankfully, Estes does fins really well and these fit together perfectly. If I had one complaint it was that the Balsa was very soft and VERY flexible.



Here is the first fin assembled before sanding. Only the lower piece needed to be sanded for assembly. The instructions tell you to sand the remaining edges after assembly which I agree with.



And here is that same fin after sanding.



As I mentioned earlier, the balsa was very soft and very flexible. I hoped they would become more rigid as the edges were attached but this wasn't the case. To solve this issue, the entire fin was coated in a small amount of BSI30 min. epoxy then warmed to allow the epoxy to soak into the material. Once cured the fins are rock solid.



Time for the outer skins. These are made from a decently thick card stock that was easy to cut and bend. These were glued on with more epoxy. Since the fins were coated in epoxy, wood glue won't stick to it so epoxy is required from here on out.



The skins are a touch oversized so they hang off the edges a bit. These are easy to clean up with a hobby knife and the epoxy made them stiff so they could be sanded without the paper getting all fuzzy.



After trimming and sanding, I used wood filler to clean up the edges and did a rough sanding. Here are all four fins ready to install.



While waiting on the fins to cure I spent some time and did some filling and sanding the body tube. I started with a decently heavy coat of filler primer then kit the bad spots with some wood filler. Knowing that this rocket is going to be silver, it is going to show every little minor imperfection so I figured i'd take advantage of the easy of filling and sanding before anything was attached.

Next it was time to install the first fin. I trimmed away the outer layer of the tube so I had a solid surface to attach to then epoxied the first fin into place. Take note, there is one fin that has a hole in the fin tab. This fin gets installed in the fin slot above the motor retainer clip. There is a small bevel in the fin tab to all the motor clip to move. Mine was a bit too tight so I had to sand the bevel until it allowed the motor clip to move freely.

Only apply glue to the root edge of this fin. Do not put any on the edge of the fin tab as it will glue itself to the motor clip.



I'm going to continue with the fins tonight and be back this weekend with an update.

 

[Back_at_it]

Sorry for the long delay. Finally back with an update.

Finished installing the remaining fins. all installed without issue using epoxy.



Next it was time for fillets. Because of the holes in the rear centering ring, I was able to do both internal and external fillets. Once completed, these fins are actually pretty sturdy.



Launch lugs were added.



After letting everything cure, I added one last coat of SEM high build before sanding with 600 grit.



First coats of paint applied. Used Tamiya TS Silver and for the main body. Unfortunately, every little nic, or sanding mark stands out like a sore thumb even though I sanded with 600 grit. I'm going to give it one more heavy color coat to fill in the scratches then flatten it out with 1000 and maybe 1500 grit before doing a final top coat.

The tower was painted with Tamiya flat red and the capsule was painted with SEM trim black. Still need to do all the detail but it's getting there.

 

[Paul Howard]

Wow! Cool Rocket!

 

[Back_at_it]

There has been so much going on in the shop with the new laser that I kinda pushed the existing projects aside. Getting back with an update on the Little Joe I.

I shot on another heavy coat of Tamiya TS Silver and let that cure for a couple of days. I then knocked that down with ever finer grits of sandpaper until I got down to 1500 grit. At this point the scratches were all sanded out and it was time for one last coat of silver. After letting the Silver cure for a day I shot on two coats of Tamiya clear coat.

One fin and the fin tips were then sprayed with Duplicolor Orange paint. I the went back and painted the leading edges of the fins with Tamiya Flat black.

The tower was given a second coat of Tamiya flat red and detailed were painted added using Tamiya flat black. The red line around the capsule was also painted with flat red.

Finally, I sprayed the jets with Krylon Metallic dark gray.

Final assembly will happen this weekend.

 

[Cape Byron]

Nice build. Nice silver.

 

[GlenP]

I have a hard time with masking for a different color over a metallic base. The tape peels up the metallic gloss, it never seems to work for me. How did you mask the fins when adding the orange and black trim over the metallic silver base?

Edit- oh I see now that you covered the metallic with clear coat, that probably is the trick!

 

[Back_at_it]

I have a hard time with masking for a different color over a metallic base. The tape peels up the metallic gloss, it never seems to work for me. How did you mask the fins when adding the orange and black trim over the metallic silver base?

Edit- oh I see now that you covered the metallic with clear coat, that probably is the trick!

Yes. Tamiya clear was sprayed between color coats. I realized after the first coat that touching the silver killed it's shine. After the final Silver coat I let the rocket sit on the stand for a day untouched and shot on the clear before ever handling the rocket.

 

[Back_at_it]

Got the decals added yesterday. The decal that goes around the top is a real paint in the butt to get aligned so just take your time with it. Mine isn't perfect. It's worth noting that the decals are very thin and tear easily even just sliding them off the paper. If I had to do it again, I'd replace them with vinyl and that still might happen at some point but I'm trying to be ok with them for now.

Calling this one in done.