Craig, Sandman is highly skilled when it comes to turning or shaping balsa, but custom turned parts ain't cheap. At least, not the last time I checked. Add decal expense. Factor in shipping costs for everything. And resin parts are heavy, but I suppose they do ok for smaller things. Cardstock and balsa are good for most things. In fact, I really enjoy working with the stuff. Heck, the Zooch version of the shuttle is one of my favorites, and the reproduction of the 1/70th Saturn 1b from Semroc is nothing short of impressive. And, as I said earlier, anything can be scratch built, especially if time, money, and skill are not an issue. The level of detail on the Estes scale kits of the past were actually pretty good. Not always 100 percent accurate or competition worthy, but still nice to look at.

In regards to #1284 specifically, I emailed Paul Graf several months ago to see if he could vacuum form the Shuttle glider. In his reply, he stated he wasn't very active in rocketry anymore, but wouldn't mind taking on the project if someone was willing to sacrifice a master. Unfortunately, I don't have one, or else I'd "take one for the team".

Many of us have the skill or resources to semi-reproduce these kits, but at what cost? I'm not holding my breath for them to bring back anything, but I would be pleased to see some of these scale models in kit form again. In the meantime, I have plenty of unbuilt kits and enough parts to keep me busy for many, many months to come. Believe me, I'm not sweatin' over anything Estes does or doesn't do.

Lots of valid points, Foose, and I'm not trying to yank anyone's chain (I'm on a short enough leash myself, spending-wise ); just trying to "think out loud" about what we have in the way of alternatives to Estes' "Bring-Back" program. Granted, most of what I described would not equate to a true kit. They would only be "good enough until it happens" replacements.

The thought of replicating the Shuttle actually sounds like a good challenge. Building a large enough vacuum former is (relatively) simple, and if you can create a suitable master for the orbiter, the rest of the stack ought to be even easier. (Thinking out loud again... Dangerous!)

__________________
Craig McGraw

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SAM 0044
AMA 352635

No offense taken Craig. Your " thinkin' out loud" is ok by me. You always have some good suggestions, and they are often ideas that I've overlooked or simply didn't know about. In this case, it might have actually inspired a few people to look past available kits and become resourceful. I'm all for that!

Now that you mention it, I've got a couple of Sandman's Pershing cones in BT-70 and BT-60 size, (I had to be different,) that I need to get back to work on. I've got the BT-70 version about 75% finished. The small triangular fins kinda threw me for a loop when I tried to recreate them. When I get home in the morning I'll head down to the shop to see how far I actually got. (I recently found some paper that I think will work nicely, especially when CA'd.)

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Bill Eichelberger
NAR 79563

http://wallyum.blogspot.com/

I miss being SAM 0058

Build floor: Centuri Mini Dactyl Estes - Low Boom SST Semroc - Marauder, Shrike, SST Shuttle

In paint: Canaroc Starfighter Scorpion Estes F-22 Air Superiority Fighter, Multi-Roc, Solar Sailer II Semroc Cyber III

Ready to fly: Estes - Solar Sailer II Semroc - Earmark, Groonie Der V 1/2

Speakin' of the Shuttle, here's an image I'd not seen before, but it is breath-taking!

Reminds me of tbzep's fancy photo work...

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Craig McGraw

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SAM 0044
AMA 352635

LOL! Except I don't Photoshop my stuff.

I'm sure a lot of the longing for classic kit re-releases is BAR driven. BARS come back to the hobby and want favorite kits and/or kits they didn't get for whatever reason from their youth.

I think a lot of it also comes from the fact that new kit designs going back to sometime in the 90's are not timeless classics. No disrespect to the designers, but when you look at the designs from the 70's and 80's and compare them to the last decade of designs? For me there is no comparison.

The acquisition of Shrox's line is very good sign as long as they can follow it up. My $0.02... keep the change.

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Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

I like the looks of that new Daedalus from Estes and it shows some real innovation compared to most of their stuff, but doubt I will purchase one.

The reason why I won't purchase one is due to where it is produced using cheap non-living U.S. wage standard labor.

I will continue to buy motors from them as I have no real choice in the SU BP arena....I fly more composite RMS24 than BP now anyways.

I will continue to confine my parts and kit purchases to manufacurers that support the US economy by choosing to support the "Made In USA" philosophy.

Some that follow this include Semroc, Flis Kits, Hawks Hobby, Q Modeling, Dr.Zooch, and Aero Tech to name a few.

I not only would like to see Estes bring out more decent kits, but equally important to me is producing them WHERE THEY BELONG, in the Good Old USA !

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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

Ya know, it does look a bit too detailed to have been frame-grabbed from a NASA feed, now that you mention it...

The smoke trailings from the sep motors do have the appearance of airbrushed after-effects...

Still, a good hack job for whoever did it...

__________________
Craig McGraw

BARCLONE Rocketry -- http://barclone.rocketshoppe.com
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SAM 0044
AMA 352635

Chopping the SRB's in was good. The separation motor exhaust was poorly executed.

Here's why I think it's chopped.

There's no way to get anywhere near that close up of a shot at separation, even with the big tracking cameras. (Something like 40 miles or over 200,000 ft.) When they do onboard separation images, the sky is black from the high altitude.

Notice the nose of the orbiter has sunshine from the left, but neither booster does. Also, if you've seen real footage of the separation, the separation motors leave huge wispy cometlike tails much longer than the boosters, not just little dabs of photoshop smoke. The boosters should still show lots of flame and sparks at separation even though the level of thrust has dropped to almost nothing by that time...not just blobs of smoke.

IMHO, this is photoshopped from a couple of images taken right at liftoff. The orbiter is shot from its top (payload bay) side, and the boosters are from an image shot from the belly/ET side.