Model Rocket Building Blog
Estes Black Brant III, Part 1 Parts ResearchI've always liked the looks of the Canadian Black Brant series. This one was an Estes kit #1293, now OOP. The Estes Crossfire ISX uses the same nose cone and tail cone nozzle as the Black Brant III kit. I bought two Crossfire kits. The engine mount, nose cone / tail cone section and parachute will ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Part 2, Fin DrawingI found the instructions and fins at Old Rocket Plans HERE Buzz McDermott submitted the plans and placed a ruler reference below the fins. TIP: If you ever submit plans to a website, place a ruler in the picture for size reference. The fin picture was copied and dropped into Corel Draw. I drew a ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Part 3, Decal DrawThe colors and type fonts of the Estes kit decals at www.oldrocketplans.com didn't match up to the Alway drawings in ROTW. The Black Brant III drawing was scanned and dropped into an new page in Corel Draw. I enlarged the Alway drawing until the body diameter was .976" or the diameter of ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Part 4, Engine Mount and NozzleTIP: You'll find it easier to cut the engine hook notch if the nozzle is left attached to the nose cone. There is just more to hold onto. Remove the back end off the nozzle. Now you can score the raised area that opens up into the hook movement relief. Don't cut to the edge but go a little ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Part 5, Fin Shaping PrepSanding accurate scale fin tapers can takes extra time and some preparation. Some of these techniques were shown in an article I wrote for the Apogee Peak Of Flight newsletter HERE In addition to the leading and trailing edge taper, the Black Brant III fins were wider at the root edge and tapered ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Part 6, Fin Taper SandingUse your thumb as a "stop" against the high point lines. (For clarity I left the pencil shading off the surface of this fin.) Sand a few stokes and take a look at the black ink left on the leading edge. Turn over the fin and sand some on the other side. Always check back to the ink on the ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Part 7, Tube Fill, Fin PrimerThis replacement BMS BT-50 had the tightest seams I'd seen in a while. Normally I'll run a mechanical pencil down the seam rut so it's easier to see when applying CWF. The pencil kept slipping out of the seam. Still, if you can feel it with a fingernail it gets CWF and primer. The front ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Part 8, Reinforcement CouplerLately, BT-50s in every build have buckled after recovery. Even with a soft landing the BT-50 crimps down the inside spiral above the engine mount. I made an interior coupler from Crossfire BT-50 tube. 1 1/2" was cut and slit straight down its length. The tube was overlapped and slid into the ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Part 9, Engine Mount and Launch LugThe fit of the mount was loose in the BT-50. With a glue stick, one wrap of copy paper was glued around both green rings. Glue was applied inside the tube using the dowel pencil line from the last step. The coupler was quickly inserted and pushed in place using the engine mount up to the ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Part 10, Nose Cone Lug TipThe Estes Black Brant III instructions don't mention clearing the plastic from the nose cone attachment lug. This tie point is square and the sides aren't that thick. Normally I'd use a #11 X-Acto blade and cut out the square center. I didn't want to take the chance of ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Part 11, Fin GluingGood thing I checked back to the Black Brant III instructions at: www.oldrocketplans.com The "rear edge of the fins are even with the rear edge of the nozzle section." I'll leave off the nozzle until after the model and nozzle are painted. The nozzle is flat black, the only black on the model. ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Part 12, NRC LogoAfter searching through a hundred fonts, I couldn't find anything close to the NRC logo shown in Alway's ROTW book. I'll have to draw something close. Here's how it looks side-by-side in Corel Draw. The NRC letters were traced over the book art with straight lines. Then using the shape tool, ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Part 13, Mask and PaintEDIT: Boy did I screw this one up! I read the Peter Alway ROTW drawings wrong. I painted two white and one red fin. The Black Brant III has a long white stripe between two of the three fin positions. There is a reason Estes only included one white stripe decal. You can't apply the two opposite ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Part 14, White Background Decal ProblemsThins don't always go as planned! Mistakes sometimes lead to solutions and better techniques. That's better! Two red fins and one white fin. I did another mask down the root edge fillet. I thought I would do the white vertical stripes using a clear decal sheet sprayed with white paint. ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Part 15, Decal Fix? Part 1The model sat for a month until I put in another order of decal sheets. This time my ordered included "white" decals. These are meant for decals that need a white undercoat or border. I thought these would be much thinner than the clear sheets I sprayed with white paint. They were - almost too ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Part 16, Decal Fix? Part 2The rivets and panel decal were re-drawn from a scan of Estes kit decal sheet. It doesn't match up to the Alway data but this was supposed to be and Estes clone so compromises were made. The inset picture shows how the overlap was trimmed. The screw spacing matched up very well. After ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Paart 17, Decal Re-do Again, FixedI didn't like how the white decal strips came out. They were translucent and looked like a light pink color, except where another layer of white was set over it. I realized all the white areas would take two layers of the white decal, just like two coats of white paint to be opaque. All the ...[Read More]
Estes Black Brant III, Final FinishedFixed! This is much better. The double layered white decals weren't that hard to do, it just took extra time. The double layer of white isn't thick or too high off the surface. The black NRC meatball logo shows a little transparency, but I can live with that.[Read More]
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