Estes Monarch Build, #7214, Finished

The Optima is a great design, at any size.

I'll worry about printing a name decal next time I make decals.

That Rusto Metallic Black Night paint is a favorite.

I didn't worry about the break line between the two body tubes. Normally I'd fill it.

I didn't notice it until now -

The Monarch face card art has the same trim style as the Optima! Different colors but the same idea - vertical shiny fin stripes and a body wrap around above that. 

Estes Monarch Build, #7214, Part 14, Placing The Upper Tube Trim

The upper body was spray painted gloss black, followed by two coats of my favorite Rusto Metallic Black. The black extends down 8.5" from the nose cone tip.

The metallic black compliments the reflective specks in the purple vinyl trim.

A 1/4" wrap of chrome is space about 1/8" from the bottom of the black.

The 1/2" wide purple butts up against the chrome.

Another 1/4" wrap of chrome sets against the bottom of the purple.

Estes Monarch Build, #7214, Part 13, Placing The Purple Fin Trim

The wider purple trim is cut much the same way as the chrome strip. 

A light wipe of glue stick and press the template onto the trim material.

Cut out the purple trim, a little long for overhang of the trailing edge. 

The purple is rolled over the leading edge and evenly spaced from the chrome strip.

The picture was taken after the overhang was trimmed off.

The left side shows the rolled over purple and chrome on the rounded leading edge.

The inset picture shows the trimmed squared trailing edge.

Estes Monarch Build, #7214, Part 12, Placing The Chrome Fin Trim

With the right side of my ruler set into the root edge - The right side of the chrome strip is about 2 1/16". (The ruler has a little extra border on the left side.)

This measurement is consistent from the top to the bottom.

 Notice the masking tape set down as a right side vertical guide for the chrome strip.

Set the center of the chrome V strip on the rounded leading edge.

The tails on the sides aren't stuck down yet.

Set the right side edge down using the tape edge.

When all it lined up, burnish the chrome strip down.

Trim off the overhang from the trailing edge with a sharp knife using a short back and forth sawing motion. 

With the tape guide removed, 

the chrome strips are placed, parallel to the root edge line.

Estes Monarch Build, #7214, Part 11, Cutting The Chrome Fin Trim - TIP

TIP: The larger Estes Optima kit supplies you with holographic tape trim. It's a long strip that won't wrap over the rounded leading edge of the fin, leaving a gap. Here's how I made a continuous "roll-over" piece. 

   

A fin tracing and indications of the purple and chrome trim.

The tracing is mirrored so the pieces could smoothly cover and connect on the leading edge.

A little bit of planning could saves a lot of frustration when dealing with peel and stick trim.

Here's the two templates cut from cardstock. The wider purple piece is on the left, the thinner chrome strip is to the right.

Mark the center fold over line.

Note the top and bottom ends are extended beyond the trailing edges of the fins. This allows an overhang to be trimmed off later.

Apply a light wipe of glue stick to the backside of the thinner chrome template.

The glue coat holds the template in place as you cut the chrome underneath.

The top picture shows the template tacked to the chrome. Cut around the template using a straightedge and sharp knife.

The light wipe of the glue stick allows the template to be lifted after cutting and used again.

Estes Monarch Build, #7214, Part 10, Planning Ahead For Paint & Trim

The instructions don't mention where the black paint starts on the upper end of the body. 

I assume the black paint separation mask is at the low end of the payload tube. The payload tube (catalog #031380) length doesn't come up on the Estes website.

To estimate the length - On my computer screen, I enlarged the instruction picture close to the diameter of the downscale BT-55.

The black paint area measured out at 8 1/2" from the tip of the nose cone down.

The instructions show colors and dimensions of the holographic tape trim. I'll simply half the height.

At Hobby Lobby I found some self adhesive metallic purple vinyl.

The self adhesive chrome is left over from the Estes Doorknob build. I didn't use the chrome trim on the blue "sport" version. I sometimes hang onto unused parts and trim for moments like this.

While not an exact match to the full size Pro 2 holographic trim, it's close enough for my downscale.

Estes Monarch Build, #7214, Part 9, Gluing On The Fins

Here's the build with the rear and forward fins in place. 

On this downscale, the smaller fins are 4 5/16" from the rear of the tube.

The rear lug is glued 1/4" from the end of the body tube.

The forward launch lug is glued 7 5/8" from the rear.

TIP: You can fill bubbles that form in dried lug fillets. It takes three applications of wood glue.

Apply and smooth the first fillet, let dry.

Apply second fillet, smooth and let dry.

Apply a third fillet, smooth and let dry.

Those bubbles should be gone -

Estes Monarch Build, #7214, Part 8, Downsizing The Optima To A BT-55

Downsizing is often a compromise.

I don't have a Optima shaped nose cone. For now, I'll be using the nose cone from the Monarch kit.

The Estes online specs say the Pro Series II Optima has a 2.5" (outside diameter) body tube.

This might be a BT-80 tube with the diameter rounded down to 2.5". The BT-80 diameter is actually 2.6".

This downscale is built around a BT-55 at 1.325" diameter, very close to a half size downscale.

For my build, I used the 2.5" tube measurement, downscaled to the BT-55 size of 1.325".

Multiply all dimensions by .53 to get your downsize dimensions.

The full size Optima is 48.5" tall.

Multiply the 48.5" X .53 = 25.70" downsize height.

The nose cone length is 5" exposed. 

That leaves 20.70" of body tube. The fins are even with the bottom of the lower tube.

Using just the original two tubes from the Monarch kit, the downscaled Optima looked short.

The lower tube (with the engine mount) from the Monarch kit is 9" long.

I cut a scrap BT-55 tube to the remaining 11.70" for the upper tube.

Estes Monarch Build, #7214, Part 7, Nose Cone Seam

This kit had a definite stepped seam on both sides of the nose cone.

Before filling the low side, sand the high sides down a bit using a sanding block.

To fill in the remaining recess, some medium CA glue was run as a long bead down the seam. 

The wet glue can run so only do one side and let dry. The CA glue bead on the surface can take some time to dry.

Sand to surface with 400 grit on a block.

The small, thin shock cord tie ring in the nose cone shoulder are prone to breaking. 

The tie down ring was cut off. A hole was drilled for the shock cord attachment.

Estes Monarch Build, #7214, Part 6, Rounding The Leading Edges

From the new Optima kit instructions:

The leading edges and outside edges are rounded.

The trailing edges remain square.

The short leading edge of the forward, smaller fins was tricky.

I used my sanding block to knock off the edges then a piece of 400 grit around my fingers to get the final round.

Here's the three forward fins,

note the squared trailing edges.

 

Here's the larger rear fins showing the rounded forward and outside edges.

Estes Monarch Build, #7214, Part 5, Cutting Out The Fins

There is enough "free" balsa on one side of the Monarch fin sheet to cut out one of the larger, lower Optima fins. 

The other two larger fins will be cut from two glued together  Monarch fin pieces.

Before gluing together the fin pieces, sand the laser cut burnt edges square with a block. Glue the two pieces flat with weight on top.

 

The third fin only needed a small fin tip extension glued on the trailing edge.

From the remaining balsa the smaller forward fins are cut.

All the fins are cut and gang sanded.

Estes Monarch Build, #7214, Part 4, Fins

 

I decided to kitbash the Monarch into a downscale Optima.

I've always liked the dual fin design and bold graphics.

I couldn't find a fin pattern so I looked up a rocksim drawing on rocketreviews.com.

This was copied and dropped into Corel draw.

To do the quick downscale, a circle was drawn to 1.325", the diameter of the Monarchs BT-55 tube. The drawing was reduced to match the tube diameters. This also reduced the size of the fin templates.

A print was made and the patterns cut out.

Now . . . how to cut new fins using the existing kit laser cut balsa sheet.

Piglet-sus! Build Part 6 Body Wrap

The BT-5 body wrap was printed on 24 lb. premium inkjet paper. 

I had to print out eight different body wraps in different shades of pink to find a spray paint match. The nose cone color is Rustoleum Painter's Touch 2X Candy Pink spray.

Here's a glue stick being applied to the back of the body tube wrap.

The pigs front hooves will go over the body tube edge and onto the lower end of the nose cone.

The wrap is shown in place on the body tube.

This picture is from the first build. On your print, the front legs and hooves are a little larger now and the lines thicker.

The engine mount is glued in place, slightly recessed in the end of the BT-5 tube. This is to allow room for a glue fillet. 

TIP: Where I can, I slide an engine mount in place without glue. After I'm sure the positioning is correct, I'll add glue fillets to lock it into place. This "dry position, then glue" idea doesn't work in all cases. If the main frame diameter isn't much bigger than the engine mount diameter, you can add glue afterwards. 

Centuri Alien Scoutship Flying Saucer #5325, Build Background

"The first flying kit of a flying saucer ever produced!"

A well engineered design. Stable (but labored) boost. At apogee, the model flips over and descends landing on three wire antenna legs. Glow in the dark accents were included, "Perfect for display in your room!"

Above is the first catalog page showing off the Centuri Alien Scoutship Flying Saucer. This catalog was the second printed in a large newspaper style. I remember being disappointed by the new catalog format. This page is from Ninfinger's: CLICK HERE

The model I'll be building was posted on YORF.

'The Mole" took the time to do a 75% size downscale. Here's his first post from November, 2015:

"This is a cardstock / downscale combined model.
The Centuri Alien Scoutship Flying Saucer has always been one of my favorite kits. I had a couple when they came out years ago. The design to me was so well thought-out. Centuri gave us the basic flying saucer that most flying saucers have been designed on since.
So I set out to clone the Centuri UFO. I know, others have done this. I decided to take a different approach to my clone.

"First, I decided to draw the elements that had originally been embossed.
Second, I down-sized the scale to fit on a 8.50 X 11.00 sheet of card stock for printing.
Third, I wanted to share this design with anyone who would like to build their own.
At the end of this build thread I will send the PDFs to Scott so he can post them for sharing. It's all right with me if anyone wants to recolor or add their own touch to the drawing. All I ask is share it here.
The size of the craft is around 75% the size of the original Centuri UFO. (7 inch in diameter)
I used the BT-20 engine tube. If you want to fly on a smaller engine use an adapter.
Some parts are printed on 110 cardstock, and some parts are printed on adhesive-backed shipping label paper as noted in the thread.

Here are a couple shots of my UFO sighting."

To get the PDFs, CLICK HERE and go to post #21. 

This smaller version can be printed on standard 8 1/2" X 11" 110 lb.card stock. Two of the four sheets are printed on self adhesive paper. 

I've downsized the antenna landing legs and drawn 75% reduced  "wire form retainers" if you'd like to add them to your build. This printout PDF is available to Patreon members.

Email me at oddlrockets@bellsouth.net and ask for the Centuri Flying Saucer PDF.

NOTE: If you want to add the antenna/legs you will have to trim the outside edges of the "C" and "L" internal fins to clear the extra width of the wire and card stock retainers. The re-fit of the internal brace fins took some extra time. 

The original kit diameter was a little over 9". This version is about 7" round.

On Frank's build, the 2 3/4" long engine mount tube was even with the fin tops and extended out the back. Mine will be even with the rear of the fins with the mount over the top by 3/8".

Carded Red Max Build, Part 7, Ends & Edges

A small notch was cut into an engine block and some 65 lb. Kevlar tied on with a square knot.









A 13mm engine casing was marked at 1/8". Normally an engine could extend 1/4" out the back, but on some models that could set the engine lower than the tips of the fins.




A great thing about a pre-printed carded rocket, the only thing to paint is the nose cone!
The shoulder was masked off and spray painted gloss black.

Thrustline Arapahoe C, Part 2, Background and Sizing

Go to the right under EDIT, go down to SCALE.








At the SCALE FROM line,
change the 1.637" (BT-60 dia.) to 1.325" (BT-55 dia.)
Hit the SCALE button.

Here's the model in BT-55 size, Open Rocket does the work for you.
The model looks bigger in the window, I just adjusted the percentage in the View Type lower window.

Thrustline Arapahoe C, Part 1, Background and Sizing

I've always liked the OOP Thrustline Arapahoe E design.
This picture is from Rocket Reviews: CLICK HERE
John McClure did the build and review.

The original kit was made for D and E engines. The main body tube was a BT-60.

I picked up a few Estes Monarch kits in the recent clearance sales.
I'm not too hot on the Monarch design, it reminds me of a three fin Big Bertha or the Quest Big Betty in a BT-55 body.
This was one of those kits where the face card advertises: "Water Slide Decals!" The only decal included is the MONARCH name in a smaller size than shown on the face card. Masking and placement of all those silver pinstripes wouldn't be easy.

I bought the kits for parts or a possible kitbash. A down scaled Arapahoe C might put the Monarch parts to better use. This will end up with a BT-55 body tube and 18mm power.

I downloaded the original (BT-60)RockSim file:
http://www.rocketreviews.com/unknown-arapahoe-e.html
and loaded it into Open Rocket:

Some changes were made and component materials fixed. When you use online RockSim files you do have to double check the parts. This file was missing a launch lug, among other slight things.

Continued in Part 2 . . .