Monday, April 4, 2022

Estes EAC Firecat #0821, Build, Part 1, Parts





WalMart online has been selling the the smaller Estes Honest John for a little over $3.00. Some builders have bought a few and have already suggested using the plastic nose cone for a EAC Firecat clone.

Here's the parts drawing from the instructions. 
To see the instructions, go to Jim Z's: CLICK HERE

I decided to get a full balsa nose cone from Balsa Machining Service. The Vashon style kit had the full length balsa cone, like the old Centuri Honest John.
Parts are standard except I'll use a Odd'l Rockets heavy wall BT-20 engine tube and a heavy walled BT-50H.
On the lower left side is the 2 1/2" long BT-48 tube. In the Cold Power Honest John kit, the BT-48 slid inside the outer BT-50 tube. It acted as a spring loaded piston sleeve to push out the parachute.
Not shown above: The Firecat used the Bandit kit (#K-48 or #1248) decals.

I drew then later re-drew the fin templates and decals. The PDF fin templates and decals are available to Patreon supporters.
If you'd like a copy, email me at oddlrockets@bellsouth.net and request the EAC Firecat PDF.

I had trouble finding the correct font for the "33" decal, the original is shown with the blue background.
There was one font that was close. I played with the vector points and came up with the 33 shown below the original.
The white areas will be a compromise - more on that later.

2 comments:

  1. I think it would be cool if you made a post on how you go about (re)creating decals.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi AAube,
      That would be a very involved series of posts. I have posted about home-drawn decals before, but not in great detail. I do use Corel Draw. It's not a cheap software - Most builder's wouldn't want to pay for it. It helps to have a background in graphic arts to use it successfully.

      Delete