When did Estes start die-cutting fins?

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I thought about repainting, but decided against it. At some point you have to proudly wear the scars from the battle with gravity.. and time... and the moving van.

I may give it a light sanding and a little clear-coat before its retirement flight.

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Kintsugi is a great concept to embrace with model rockets.

"As a philosophy, kintsugi is similar to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, an embracing of the flawed or imperfect.[11][12] Japanese aesthetics values marks of wear from the use of an object. This can be seen as a rationale for keeping an object around even after it has broken and as a justification of kintsugi itself, highlighting the cracks and repairs as simply an event in the life of an object rather than allowing its service to end at the time of its damage or breakage, and can be seen as a variant of the adage "Waste not, want not"."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi
 
A plain old end-grain butt-joint may have been strong enough, but the woodworker in me just couldn't do it. So I went with balsa splines.

Not dovetails? Sad.
🤣

Seriously, though, it's awesome that you still have your first rocket, and that it's going to fly again! WIsh I had some of mine. I don't remember if they got thrown away, or just didn't get recovered.
 
Not dovetails? Sad. 🤣
Couldn't find a chisel small enough. ;)

I've never used dovetails for anything other than right-angle joinery. Now that I think about it, I can't even remember the last time I needed to join two boards end-to-end...
 
Die-cut fins existed in the early 70s - the Goonybirds all had them, and I think those were released around '72 or '73?
 
I don't know when Estes first used die cut fins, or when it became standard. I know that when I started Estes kits contained templates that you cut out and traced onto balsa sheet stock. Cutting out the fins was never a problem for me and I liked that you could keep the templates for later repairs pr scratch building. Of course those templates always got lost or discarded. I have not seen much "die crushed balsa" in kits. However my Starship Vega had die crushed balsa in the concave area for the pods, but that was covered up with putty.

My complaint with die cut parts is that they always leave a border of wasted wood around the parts. For example the MPC Delta Katt has die cut wings cut from standard 3" balsa. When I scratch build one I enlarge it to better utilize the 3" balsa stock.

If one were to specify or select balsa sheet for die cutting in kits, would you select wood differently, such as such as A, B, or C grain or density?
 
I will note that à drop or two of vinegar will soften white glue, often to the point of part removal.
Rex
 
Well almost a year later, my 51-year-old Astron Starlight made two last low-and-slow flights on A8-3 motors. Here's a (4X slow-motion) video of the final flight. The last flight didn't drift very far downwind, and it almost landed in the (very hard) infield where we were launching. Fortunately it make it a couple feed into the grass and suffered no damage.

 
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