Sunday, February 25, 2018

Semroc Mini Optima Build, Part 1, Parts




It's too bad Semroc is discontinuing the "Mini" line of kits. Carl McLawhorn (Semroc founder) called these his "Ready To Build" series.
There are some very clever features on these models.

Parts of very high quality. The only thing missing in this Mini kit are the sparkly orange and chrome trim bands. These are all there as orange and grey water slide decals.

The lower body tube has laser cut fin slots.
Body tubes are thicker walled Centuri style, ST-7 for the engine mount and an ST-10 for the main body tube.
The upper body is a payload section with a coupler and disk bulkhead connection. This model would be perfect for altimeter flights.

Parts of interest:
Two different sized centering rings. More on this later.
To the right is the coupler and bulkhead disk. The hole in the disk center is for the screw eye.
The long tube on the right is the insulating tube. It is an old style Centuri ST-9 and slides into the ST-10 tube.
In the center is the laser cut fin alignment tool. Notice there are fin slots for three and four fin kits. Some of the other Mini kits have four fins.

3 comments:

  1. Glad he is keeping some of the RTB in the line, they represent everything that was great about what Karl was doing

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  2. Hi Anonymous,
    I only saw the Cherokee C, Lil' Centauri and Mini Omega left in the RTB product line. I can certainly understand discontinuing kits that don't sell, I've done it myself!

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  3. Yup, that's what's left, 3 of the 12, I assume they sell better, sad to see the others go.

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