Here's an odd-ball from the past.
In the 1970s I assembled a few of these. The Spaceman used featherweight recovery. Mine seemed to come in ballistic, probably the reason for the blunt head nose cone.
Hard landings could mean broken arms and legs. From the instructions you can see the simple end-to-end joints.
For the original instructions: CLICK HERE
On Facebook, Dave Combs posted a picture of his Spaceman, using a Jack In The Box head to top it off. The "Jack" head looks great!
Look close at the elbow, shoulder and square base joints. Laser cutting can be great to strengthen designs like this. Now it's a little like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.
I don't know which vendor laser cut these Spaceman parts. Searches on the old Semroc website and erockets.biz don't show them.
Hey Chris,
ReplyDeleteThe laser cut parts for the Astron Spaceman are from erockets:
http://www.erockets.biz/semroc-laser-cut-fins-space-man-1-16-balsa-sem-fes-k9/
I just finished building a Spaceman the other day, as well as a Fliskits Intergalactic Man of Space. They look good standing next to each other.
Some other scratch builds I've done using their laser cut fins are the Starship Nova, FSI Athena, and Evel Knievel Sky Cycle. Also have some Goonybird fins in the build pile. Cheers!
P.S. Looking more closely at the picture the erocket fins are not "dovetailed" like in the picture. Must be a different vendor. Either that, or Dave is a very good woodworker.
DeleteP.P.S. erockets also has the Spaceman nose cone here:
Deletehttp://www.erockets.biz/semroc-balsa-nose-cone-bt-20-1-3-round/
Laters!
Hi BAR,
DeleteI did find the Spaceman nose cone earlier on the erockets website but couldn't find the fins. Like you mentioned, the erockets fins don't have the dovetailed jigsaw puzzle joints. I don't know who did the laser cutting.
Semroc has sold at least two versions of the Spaceman. I have built both. The older version has straight edges. It was Semroc catalog number KES-K9. The current version, which has been around at least 3 years, DOES have the dovetail joints. It is catalog number KV-10. It is still available today for about $10 at eRockets.biz.
DeleteCheers
Hi Anonymous,
DeleteThanks for the information on the Erockets/Semroc kit. I doubt I'll build a Spaceman kit - Had bad luck years ago with damage after a hard landing.