Attached below are the 1969 instruction sheets for the Astro 1. Also, three different decals from the Astro 1 from various different kits through the years. The one with the 'Astro 1' text is from the latter 70s as stated in my post above.

You can see that the Astro 1 rocket 'image' on page 1 of the instructions is different than the 'catalog' model, but would be indicative of the decal included in the actual kits. As mentioned above, the Astro 1 never came with a multi-colored decal that looked like the (essentially) 'artist concept' image in the catalog.

Earl

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Attached Files

	Astro-1 Instr-First Version 1969-1.pdf (780.1 KB, 11 views)
	Astro-1 Instr-First Version 1969-4.pdf (667.4 KB, 13 views)
	Astro-1 Instr-First Version 1969-3.pdf (900.6 KB, 12 views)
	Astro-1 Instr-First Version 1969-2.pdf (911.8 KB, 14 views)

__________________
Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970

And...here is the Centuri 'master' #10 roll pattern decal sheet, as sold in their catalog for years. Just about EVERY Centuri kit that featured a roll pattern for an ST-10 body tube would have been supplied a roll pattern from one of these designs, if even a decal was included (not every single kit would necessarily have a decal, but most did).

So, for actual Astro 1 kits that were sold up until the late 1970s, the roll pattern decal -- in either black or red -- would have come from one of these designs. Again, by the very late 70s the decal for the Astro 1 was 'customized' somewhat with the 'Astro 1' text as shown in the attached decal above.

Earl

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__________________
Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970

Thanks, that's awesome info!

It looks like the catalog artist's concept was just the "Centuri Astro 1-Decal" with the orange stripes added to give it some more visual excitement. That would indicate five cycles at the top. I suppose it's even possible that there was never actually a rocket built and painted that had that pattern at the time. If the decal was provided and used, such a build would require painting over the installed decal. (Unlikely that the best builder could paint the orange first and then have the decal placement and dimensions work perfectly.) Much easier to have the artist illustrate it in the catalog and face card than to actually mask and paint. If true, that would mean there is no basis for more than one big orange stripe.

Many catalog models back in the day were either highly airbrushed photos or out and out artist renderings. They looked real nice, but in some number of cases were not really indicative of an actual built model.

The 1972 Centuri catalog however DID feature a number of true photographed models that do not appear to be highly airbrushed or touched up after the fact…not every model in the catalog, but many.

Link: http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/no...a/72cen014.html

Earl

__________________
Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970

Interesting. If you page ahead to 18/19, there is the Javelin, again appearing to be an artist's rendering and with the orange inset stripes visually spicing up the black and white roll pattern. Further supporting the hypothesis that the orange was in reality only the artist's contribution to the early Astro-1.

Looks like the 1972 Astro-1 got the decal between 3.5 and 6 inches on your generic sheet above.

I did a little reverse engineering on the early Astro 1 decal in AutoCAD this morning. (Thanks, @Earl!) Interestingly, the black and white stripes are not the same width. It would be easy and natural to assume that they are, so this is a useful additional discovery.

I also did the work on the highest-resolution image I could find of an original face card, in order to figure out the proportions of the orange stripes. The orange is misregistered vs. the black in the printing of the card. Even accounting for that, when overlaying accurate geometry on the image, it becomes obvious that there are notable geometry errors in the illustration. The roll pattern does not follow ellipses very well, and is also quite inconsistent in how well it follows them. Centuri employed at least one full-time professional artist in house for such purposes at the time, so it's pretty clear that these errors result from the face card being a hand-drawn illustration. Yet more to suggest that the orange bars existed only in marketing materials. I pulled dimensions for scaling purposes off the "that looks about right" best match I could do of accurate geometry to the hand-drawn rendering. If someone else repeated the process, they would certainly get very slightly different results. I won't quibble with anyone over third or fourth digits.

The orange bars are not simply 1/3 the width of the white bars. However, conveniently, it turns out that the white space at the ends of the bars is close enough to the same width as the white space on the sides of the bars. So if you're masking and painting, at least that is kinda reasonable.

I set up an Excel spreadsheet to organize and provide cleaner outputs for those looking to clone (i.e., me), as well as a section to facilitate up- or downscaling. Just enter your target body tube OD and it spits out dimensions. Nice thing is, you can measure your actual OD or circumference after paint (which adds several thousandths of an inch per side) and generate a decal based on that. I suppose one could easily enough make the decal to the calculated values in design software and scale it, but I'm currently planning to try painting it on my upscale, as is evident from the notes. I had to zip the file to get the site to accept it, but it's a .xlsx from Office 2021 inside. Hoping to pay forward some of the help this site has given me.

I've also posted screen shots showing the dimensions in AutoCAD. For the decal, I scaled it so the 4-inch ruler measurement was 4 inches. For the face card, I scaled it so the diameter of the body tube at the most critical point (bottom of the orange bars) was 1.04 inches. The width of the bars is just based on arc lengths constructed as segments of the ellipses, and I pulled the numbers out of the properties panel rather than actually setting up dimensions on the drawing.

OCD is a PITA, but I do like having the best information I can get.

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Attached Files

Centuri Astro 1 decal measurements & scaling.zip (11.6 KB, 8 views)

I have the actual Astro-1 rocket that was built by Keith Niskern and displayed in the catalogs. It is the same one that is shown in the link you provided.

__________________
Bill Eichelberger
NAR 79563

http://wallyum.blogspot.com/

I miss being SAM 0058

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

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

Ready to fly: Estes - Solar Sailer II Semroc - Earmark

Hey, that's pretty cool! Current photos?? I'd like to see how it has held up over 50+ years now AND how the black stripes were done around the fin root edges. I assume either prostrip self adhesive tape (very thin) or thin black decal stripes.

In any event, current photos would be greatly appreciated if you can swing it!

Earl

__________________
Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970

I am slowly unpacking my rockets after moving to TN from California. As soon as I get them unpacked, I will take pictures. I will look on my computer since I thought I had taken pictures. Yes the black around the fins are self adhesive.