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.