Model Rocket Building Blog

Estes Orange Bullet #7295, Part 1, Parts

The back side of the face card tells the story. I would assume more "Designer Signature Series" kits are in the works. Parts are good quality. Parts re few, typical of a small featherweight recovery model. This was a pre-production kit, the nose cone was not yet supplied. I understand the balsa ...
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Estes Orange Bullet #7295, Part 2, Fin Fairings

The original fairings were called "Body Ribs". I don't know why they were part of the design, maybe to keep the nose cone on at ejection. The nose cone shoulder was short! The fairings have a taper at the front. The pictures show the before and after. Draw a pencil line at the start (high side) of ...
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Estes Orange Bullet #7295, Part 3, Fin Fairings

The fairings are glued on the body tube. I used my aluminum angle to be sure they are on straight. The side view shows a gap along the sides from the curvature of the tube. Normally I would sand a curvature under a fairing like this, but the balsa is thin at 1/16". This will need some glue fillets ...
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Estes Orange Bullet #7295, Part 5, Ends & Edges

Here's the model glued together with the launch lug. I didn't like the nose cone joint seam. I went back, filled then primer/filled it. Probably not needed as the black bar decal would cover most of it. The fin weights were laser-cut from thick card stock. TIP: I like to seal and "round" the edges ...
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Estes Orange Bullet #7295, Part 7, Decals

Here's the little sheet of black water slide decals. I don't know why the three black bands weren't wide enough to fill the areas between the fin fairings. I guess it was a good idea to fill the joint after all. The Estes logo goes on the left side of all three fins. I used a cutout template to be ...
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