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Depending on what rocket you want to clone,
collecting
the parts needed can either be a walk in the park or a nightmare.
Fortunately, there are many companies that market
simple parts for custom-built rockets, such as nose cones, body tubes,
etc. They shouldn't be very hard to find; Estes Industries
probably
has a monopoly on the custom parts trade in your local hobby shop.
But, there are several parts sizes and shapes that
Estes no longer produces: balsa nose cones, certain sizes of body
tubes,
and detail parts. Fortunately, several companies have sprung up
to
fill this niche market.
Body Tubes
There once was a company that made
special sizes of body tubes for special projects like cloning. This was
Totally
Tubular, owned by Jim Fackert. It sold body tubes up
to the BT-101 size, which is what the Estes Saturn rockets used. It
also sold more obscure body tubes, such as Centuri ST-10 tubes that
were used on their USS America, and BT-70, which Estes used for several
of its scale jobs. This company has since dropped off of the radar.
BT-70s, at least, are available through Aerospace Specialty Products.
I used their BT-70 for my pseudo-clone of the Estes Little
Joe II.
Nose Cones
Estes no longer produces balsa nose cones.
Fortunately,
one company has arrived on the scene that does. This is Balsa
Machining Service, under the aegis of Bill Saindon. BMS
has filled the void created when Estes got rid of its balsa nose cone
line,
and recreates scores of old cones. BMS nose cones are high
quality
and you cannot go wrong buying them. I used them on my Orbital
Transport clone. Other companies that sell balsa cones are
Aerospace Specialty Products and Apogee Components.
Other Parts
Blast From
the Past Rocketry is a garage-based company that serves rocketeers in
their cloning projects. It has "bag of parts" for two Centuri models,
the Centuri Space Shuttle and the Mach 10. It also has an upscale
of the Mach 10 for D engines, called the Mach 10D. These kits
have
everything you need to build these two models, minus the plans, which
can
be obtained from JimZ Rocket Plans. Unfortunately, I don't have any
contact information for this company at present. Apogee Components
sells a 1/70 Apollo-LES kit, which I used in my Little Joe II and
reviewed in the September/October, 2003 issue of Sport Rocketry magazine. If you
can't find a part no matter how hard you look, don't be afraid to try
making it by hand out of balsa or plastic.
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