Upgraded Estes Mercury Redstone

[Lord Rory Gin]

These are pictures of my upgraded Estes Mercury Redstone in progress.

• Instead of the regular balsa fins from Estes, I switched to the Boyce fincan and chopped a couple inches off the main body tube to suit.
• I switched out the 18mm card stock engine mount for a 24mm BT80 plywood engine mount. This required that I cut down and sand the plywood to suit.
• Then I added a length of 300# Kevlar cord and tied that to the rubber shock cord. I tied it to the engine mount rather use Estes Tri-fold attachement. The rubber can be replaced at any time but the Kevlar is likely going to last a long time.
• Obviously this added a bit of weight to the bottom end which would change the CG so I added additional weight via epoxy and steel BBs to the nose cone.
• Likewise the added weight will mean an up-sized parachute as well.
• Instead of the Estes waterslide decals I am going to be using the Accur8 wrap for their higher detail.

 

[Lord Rory Gin]

Pictures of the whole "fam damily" taken last fall.
Left to Right - Estes original 18mm 1:35 scale version; Boyce mini 1:100 Mercury-Redstone; 18mm motor for scale; Boyce-Estes-Accur8 24mm version; Boyce 29mm 1:17.5 scale.