Estes Astron Cherokee-D (Clone of Original K-47 "Short" version) Building Notes and Finished Model Pics

The Cherokee-D uses a standard "D" engine mount which was easily built from parts found in one of my Designer Special parts assortment. As you can see in the picture, I used some white Duct-Tape in place of masking tape to hold the engine hook down. One area where I've been deviating from the original kit instructions on most of my rockets is to attach a Kevlar shock cord to the engine mount instead of the traditional tri-fold mount that attaches to the inside of the body tube.

I don't have a fin alignment jig (yet...) so I have to attach them the old fashioned way... One at a time!

Since this is a D (and possibly E) engine rocket, I made sure the fillets were on the stout side. One thing I like about the design of the Cherokee-D is that the fins don't extend down past the bottom of the body tube. This lessens the possibility of "popping" or breaking a fin when it comes down on the hard AZ desert ground, especially if I decide to use smaller chute.

So now after a nice heavy coat of filler primer, she's ready the finish coat and decals. And this time it was the decal stage where I started to have some minor challenges.

In the first picture above, you see a crude scan of the original K-47 decal sheet. In the second picture, is the printed decal sheet I got for the kit. If I was going to build an original K-47 Cherokee-D as it appeared in 1970, I needed a decal with the old style Estes logo. Fortunately, my decal supplier was nice enough to work up a set with the old logo instead of the new one for me. The only problem with that was that one of the logos was upside down. Unfortunately, I didn't notice this until after the decal was applied. To fix this, I had to carefully cut the inverted logo out of the decal and replace it with a seperate one of the same size. Again my supplier came to the rescue here...

Here is a picture of the finished wrap around with the proper decal for a 1970 version properly oriented. Once the finish gloss coat is applied any edge lines from splicing the decal in place should all but disappear.

The other issue I had with decals was where to place all of them. Especially the decals on the fins. I could not find an official Estes photograph showing which fins got the "NASA" decal. So I just decided to pick one that not contradict the photos I have. But, I have no idea if it's right or not.

Here are some photos of the completed Cherokee-D Circa 1970.

Estes Astron Cherokee-D (Clone of Original K-47 "Short" version) Introduction

Years ago (back in the mid-80s), I built and flew my first Cherokee-D. For me, at the time, this represented "hi-power" and I was always impressed with how high this rocket would go on a "mighty D" engine, as Estes use to bill them. Unlike some, I recovered it every time (even on the oversized 18" chute it came with). Perhaps I was just lucky. I did finally lose that rocket at some point over the years. However it was, no doubt a casualty of too many moves and being carelessly stored in a box which got stacked or thrashed somehow. So now, through the miracle of "cloneing", I finally have a chance to replace this iconic Estes rocket in my collection.

The Cherokee-D actually came in two (that I know of) variations. When the kit was originally released in 1970, it came with a body tube that was 16.35" long and a BNC-55AC balsa wood nose cone. Later kits (including the one I built in the 1980s) came with an 18.00" long body tube and a PNC-55AC plastic nose cone. It is believed that these changes occurred sometime around 1975, which is also the time that Estes changed their kit numbering system from K-XX to 12XX numbers. As such, many will refer to the original kit as the K-47 version and the lengthened kit as the 1247 version.

The reasoning for lenthening the body was likely due to the fact that 18.00" was the standard length of a BT-55 body tube and that meant that no custom cutting was involved. It also meant that the rocket would be more stable since it increased the distance between CP and CG.

This build was my first "clone from scratch" model. Both the Centuri Micron and Lil Hercules were clones but I had an original kit for reference and also the models themselves were "clone kits" from SEMROC. The fins and nose cone for the Cherokee-D were sourced from SEMROC and the rest were from an old Estes Designer Special parts assortment I've had for awhile.

The instructions were downloaded from JimZ's website which is an invalueable resource for anyone wishing to clone old kits (www.spacemodeling.org/JimZ). Jim has an amazing archive of old publications and kit instructions from many of the major companies from the "golden age" of model rocketry.

I am not going to go into every detail of construction on this model as it was a very basic build from that standpoint. The next post will briefly touch on the construction, talk about some decal choices I made, and show some pics of the finised model.

Estes Wizard w/Classic Paint Scheme (part 2 of 2)

With the fins attached and the epoxy fillets applied and fully cured (I usually wait 24hrs), the finishing phase can begin. It was at this point in the construction I learned another lesson on painting...

After I had fine sanded the airframe I had used a damp paper towel to remove some of the sanding dust that was still clinging to the rocket just before applying the primer coat. Unfortunately, I had not wrung it out well enough and some of the water from the paper towel got into one of the tube spirals and I had also probably not given the whole rocket enough time to be completely devoid of moisture.

As a result, as you can see in the photos, I got surface deformaties as the primer reacted with the moisture underneath. The only saving grace here is that it was the primer coat and was therefore going to be sanded smooth anyway. Had this been the finish coat, I would have probably been looking at a strip and redo.

At this point I learned yet another painting lesson. When the filler-primer coat had dried and after I sanded out all of the surface deformities I tried to apply a coat of Krylon gloss white. Over 99% of the finish looked great, but in 3 or 4 spots, the paint was being repelled leaving small divits in the finish. So at this point I had to strip the rocket and start over. The second time around, I did not have any moisture issues with the filler primer and I added a step of applying another primer coat but this time using Krylon brand white primer. This is not high build filler primer, nor is it that sandable, but it IS chemically compatible with Kryon spray paint.

So now with the white coat finally applied, I let it dry for several days before applying the decals. It is important to let the paint fully cure before attempting to apply decals. The reason for this is that paint shrinks while it dries and if you were to try to apply the decals as soon as the paint was dry to the touch, then the decals will actually crinkle. Some gloss enamels can take up to a week to fully cure a thickly applied finish coat.

The last step of applying the decals went fairly smoothly. The one thing with printed decals is that the decals can be very thin. Some people recommend applying a decal film to the decals before application to make them easier to work with. For this kit I did not do that. I placed a small amount of water on the rocket airframe where the decal would be applied and used a large damp brush, to squeegie out the water and smooth out the decal after it was manuvered into its final position.

And finally we have our completed Estes Wizard, ready for active duty.
Note that I omitted discussing some of the same old steps like installing the shock cord and parachute. I did not take any pictures of those steps but they were done exactly the same as other minimum diameter kits on this blog, like the Centuri Micron for example.

Estes Wizard w/Classic Paint Scheme (part 1 of 2)

This was a pretty quick build of an Estes Wizard. I've wanted to build one of these for some time and give it the classic purple & white paint scheme. I had the kit but not the classic decals so I picked up a set from Excelsior.

Here is the classic Estes kit panel showing the paint and decal scheme I want to use. The newer kit also has the thicker self-adhesive decals which I am not a fan of...even if I had liked the color scheme. So anyway, enough intro, lets get to the building!

Since this is your basic 3FNC (3 fins and a nose cone) kit, I did the standard filling of fins and body tube spirals using Elmers wood filler diluted with water. You know, I'm really starting to like this stuff. I actually found an unused can of "Hobby Poxy Stuff" which is what I used to use, but I've gotten used to the Elmers and I like the fact that it's water clean-up. My only knock on it is that it's kind of soft and I sometimes leave a fingernail mark during the sanding process. But after a couple of coats of primer and the finished enamel paint coat, it toughens up pretty good.

When filling the fins, I had to use a much thinner wire as a handle due to the fact that these fins were pretty of pretty thin stock. This made brushing on the thick filler a challenge as the wire would bend alot. I'm thinking of getting some 1/8" thin brass strip material that I could shape to a knife point to use as a fin holder during filling...More on that later.

When the filler is completely dry (I wait at least 24hrs), the tube and fins can be sanded to a smooth finish. I usually start out with a medium grit (200 or so) oaper and dry sand all of the "bumpiness" out of the filler. When I finish with the medium grit I have a very thin, almost transparent layer of filler left on the fin. I then finish it up with a much higer grit (say 600 - still dry sanding though) to really smooth it out. At this point there may still be a few small grain marks (or fingernail marks) left but that's not a concern since the filler primer is "high build" and will take care of those and also any small amount of spiral lines left on the body tube.

After sanding fins and tube, it was time to bring out my new Estes tube marking guide. This is an extremely handy accessory and worth every cent I paid for it. I've always hated trying to line up a long body tube on those paper marking guides and get it marked all around without moving the damn tube. These guides make tube marking a snap. If they would have included BT-70 that would have made them even nicer, but for some odd reason they didn't.

After marking the tube, I use a piece of aluminum angle to make the fin alignment lines. I used to use a door jam for this but the angle is much handier and I think it makes a straighter line. The tube marking guides I mentioned above also come with a plastic angled "jig tool" that can be used for this purpose as well...another reason to pick one of those up.

As I've described in previous posts, my technique for attaching fins (sorry no pics) is to apply a thin layer of 5min epoxy on the root edge, and then place the fin on the tube and align it as the epoxy cures. I find I can get smaller fins like this almost perfectly aligned using this method without having to use an alignment guide. For larger fins, however, some type of guide might be preferable.

After attaching the fins and laying down the epoxy fillets, my Wizard is ready for the finishing stage.