Friday, April 13, 2018

Estes Little Joe II (Small) Build, Part 1, Ebay Partial Kit


I bought a partial kit on Ebay. The only things I received were the instructions, decals, "embossed" body wraps and fin pattern on the back of the face card. The seller was very clear, I understood what I was bidding on. I couldn't simply order these parts or reproduce them at home.
No standard kit parts in the auction - no body tubes, engine mount, fin material or parachute. All the missing parts can be made up or ordered.
I couldn't find the earlier Centuri 1/100 Little Joe II instructions online. To see the Estes instructions for the reissued kit: CLICK HERE

To find kit body tubes and their lengths go to:
http://www.psc473.org/howto/EstesTubes.pdf

When I looked up the Estes Little Joe kit #0892, I found this:
#30398    BT-58     5.375"
#30304    BT-5BJ   2.00"
#38175    1/8" Launch Lug  1 1/4" long

No real problems, you can still buy the (Estes) BT-58 tubing from ERockets.biz.
The BT-58 was originally made for the uppermost tube of the Saturn V kit. The outside diameter of the 58 tube is 1.540"
The 1/100 scale Apollo capsule kit is available from Estes:https://www.estesrockets.com/033100-plastic-parts-set-2157
The balsa fin strip looks like it was meant to be a trailing edge of a larger flying plane kit. I'll make something up from 1/8" thick balsa.

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