RoguePink also said he redrew the decals for the Red Max, and was quite proud of the fact a few months ago. He's a member here, but I haven't seen him since he moved over to the Cox side of the biz.

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Roy
nar12605

I have discussed this over at the rocketryforum under New Der Red Max. The new decals are tough to work with. I used micro scale products and still had a tough time with them. The other main issue besides the missing decals is the lack of quality control. If you look at the "Der Red Max" you will notice that there is a white shadow around the decal and that there is white in the "R". If you look at front card the decal is correct. I finished mine and ended up printing the "Der Red Max" on my Alps printer. There is also a white shadow around the little skulls. I talked with Christine at Estes about this and she forwarded my complaint to quality control. She also said that the decals made in USA for the demo rocket is not the same decal that is sent over to China. I don't know how they make the decal here maybe RP can tell us. Christine said the decal is designed here but China makes it....Contact Estes and voice your concerns. I am almost done with my new Interceptor and will let you know how the decals are with that kit.

So now to get my new Estes DER Red Max to look like the original Estes DER Red Max kit I need to go to one of the excellent third party decal makers to get the correct decals for the Estes DER Red Max kit. What's wrong with this picture???

Ummmmmmmm Yep. The wrap around decal is fine and looks just like the orig. I have 3 orig. old Der Red Max and it looks the same. I have ordered the after market decals for the Der Red Max and they problem they have is the white skulls. The Alps printer that they use does not print white very well the white decal has a pinkish tone to it. But you could use the black lettering and the white X882 with not problems. Then use the Estes wrap around decal and white skull. On the wrap around, I used one drop of liquid soap in water and brushed the rocket where the decal goes. I also put 3 coats of Microscale decal film on it before putting it in the water. The soap water solution lets me move the decal around without problems. Here is a picture of my orig. Der Red Max next to the new Der Red Max.

First off - those are a couple of fine looking DER Red Max's!

I guess all we can do besides purchasing the correct decal sets from third party vendors is to contact Estes to voice our disappointment.

I'd really like to hear roguepink's perspective on this.

I filled out the form that tbzep posted. Christine emailed me to tell me she was forwarding it on to Marketing and then an hour later I got this reply from Mike Fritz at Estes. He cc:d a bunch of other folks at Estes. I emailed back to ask if I could post his email here on YORF and he said absolutely so here it is.

Quote

Dear Mr. Casey.

Thank you for your email regarding the Max decal set. Unfortunately, I have just recently taken over the marketing position and I cannot say why the current decals were not reproduced as the original decals were. However, you comments are welcome and I will have one of our R&D guys research the archived model and see what we can do to update the current decal set to the original as you suggested. We have also noted that the resolution is not as good as could have been and we will work with the vendor to correct both. However, please be advised that this will take some time as we will have to exhaust our current inventory of kits before new decals could be incorporated. At this time, the reintroduce kit has little in the way of sales history, so do not expect a change before sometime in 2008.

Thanks and best regards,

Mike Fritz
Director – Estes Cox Marketing
End Quote

Well, I will just continue to collect the OOP Estes kits. It appears no matter what Estes re-releases, it will be junk since it is coming from China and there is no quality control.

Not a very encouraging response.

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Joe Michel
NAR 82797 L2
http://www.geocities.com/jm44316

Isn't the correct set of decals available from Tango Papa Decals? Just wondering, even
though I don't have the Der Red Max model myself (either the OOP nor new ones).

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Dave, NAR # 21853 SR.