It was full of scale information and pictures of the Mercury Little Joe. I had always wanted to build this as a scale model but was never able to get enough information.
On the forums there was some discussion between Peter Alway and James Duffy about a mysterious black fin. James Duffy is an
authority on Mercury Little Joe scale builds.
As it turns out, three fins are silver. The remaining fin is orange on one side, black on the other. This is the only picture I could find of the black fin. Some thought this was a shadow.
The right side of this fin is pretty dark, the same density black as the capsule. The other side of this fin is painted orange.
This picture seems to be the Little Joe LJ5A or LJ5B.
If that were a shadow, the opposing fin would be dark as well (and it's not).
ReplyDeleteHi Unknown,
DeleteGood point! I didn't even look at the opposite fin. I can assume this fin was painted black so they could watch for revolutions during flight, like a roll pattern.
Is the leading edge of the black fin painted a different color, silver or orange?
ReplyDeleteHi Anonyous,
DeleteThis blog post shows the leading edge paint line: https://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com/2019/11/estes-little-joe-1-7255-build-part-16.html
Anonymous,
DeleteI re-read your question. I understand the black fin is an overall black with no color change on the leading edge.
On this model are there the orange stripes on the tips of the other three fins. Black fin is solid black and orange fin is solid orange. Now is the black fin tip end silver?
DeleteAnonymous,
DeleteIt looks like it might be silver. I'm not the scale expert. I built these for Estes and followed their color suggestions from the kit instructions.