Estes Body Tubes: All Foreign Sourced Now?
 

Just got to thinking about Estes body tubes.

Finally opened one of the recent Black Friday sales kits. Nike-Apache. I don’t build many ‘new’ kits these days; way by far I build just vintage kits. The Nike-Apache parts all looked good and ‘fresh’, compared to what one deals with sometimes with vintage kits.

Anyway, I am wondering what with Estes kits being imports from China now (for how long I don’t really know...a good handful of years now it seems), are all Estes body tubes made in China as well?

As I recall, there were/have been a couple of domestic tube suppliers that supplied Estes and Centuri their tubes in decades past, but are those domestic suppliers cut out of that business now? Can’t imagine domestic tube suppliers shipping tubes for cutting and inclusion in kit packing in China and then shipped back to the US in packaged kits. But, maybe so.

I don’t see or haven’t seen any quality issues with the tubes in Estes kits, but, as I mentioned above, I don’t build that many new kits.

I’m just curious I guess whether domestic tube suppliers still have any of the ‘model rocket’ business any longer.

Anyone know? John Boren?

Earl

Believe it or not, Estes still gets their body tubes made from the same supplier here in the United States and ships them to China for use in kits.

GOOD !
It would be better if they brought kit productiion back here to the USA WHERE IT BELONGS !
I would say something far WORSE about china but it would be far too 'adult' for this site.

I tried for over 10 years to find an alternative vendor of similar quality. Nope. None in the entire CONUS. They have a special sauce that has not been duplicated so a company just bought it.

Jerry

Famous for their tubes and their geometry.

Euclid is the old company, which merged with Parmount Tube fairly recently.

A linky for the holidays: https://paramounttube.com/euclid-sp...tion-joins-ppg/

Festivus for the restofus ! :)

If I'm not mistaken, Estes kit packaging went offshore during Barry Tunick's watch. Early aughts ?

The link comes up as #blocked

The actual link under that text is blank. Trying again: https://paramounttube.com/euclid-sp...tion-joins-ppg/

Thank you Bernard. I fixed the link in my post too. :o

Anyway that page says Euclid joined the corporate parent of Paramount Tube, PPG, Inc. in 2015. I wonder if the model rocket tubes are still made in Ohio ?