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rwhitman
06-11-2012, 05:58 PM
After about 20 years of storage I've finally gotten around to building my Model Aviation Fuels Aerobee Hi. But in looking at the decal sheet I see that instead of saying Aerojet General it says Aerojet, Inc. Does anyone know if this is a mistake or did the early rounds actually say Aerojet Inc?

stefanj
06-11-2012, 10:41 PM
OK. This is WEIRD.

I bought the SAME MODEL in 1991, and just last month got around to gluing it all together. I assembled the motor mount five years back, and sanded the fins last year, but it occurred to me to assemble it just recently.

Right now it is waiting for the final coats of orange paint.

* * *

As for the decals.

I have the decals for the Semroc Aerobee-Hi, which is a semi-scale of NRL-41. It reads Aerojet General.

According to "Rockets of the World," which depicts NRL-42, the decal should read Aerojet General.

So, either there was an honest mistake, or some kind of legal issue.

rwhitman
06-12-2012, 11:33 AM
Weirder still. I had also completed the motor mount and sanded the fins before packing the model up back around 1990 or so. I had completely forgotten about it until two weeks ago when I found it in a box of un-built kits. I had apparently planned on building the booster also since I found booster fins.

I've been looking for documentation on NRL-41 but haven't found anything other than pictures of models with those markings. As you said ROTW has NRL-42 described but NRL-41 appears to be different at least in the payload section. As far as the decals in the AAA kit I assume the "Aerojet Inc" is just a mistake of some kind. The scale modeler in me says to get a correct logo but on the other hand it is an OOP kit from a company that no longer exists so I'm tempted to build it as packaged. I'll leave that decision til after I've got it painted.

stefanj
06-12-2012, 12:34 PM
I'm nostalgic about AAA, but I don't see them as contenders when it comes to quality scale models. Andrake didn't have the Internet back in the mid/late 80s, so we can forgive him for a few glitches.

My web searches for NRL-41 didn't turn up anything. So, the finishing details are a "best effort." I'm combining Al Andrake's klutzy directions and the ROTW details. Top portion of the body white, the cone silver, body orange, and using the included decals.

FWIW, I made an engine hook for the model from a wiper blade stiffener. I'll mostly likely only use 24mm motors (C11, D12, E12), The Aerobee would likely got out of sight on a full F.

J Blatz
06-12-2012, 01:38 PM
I have one of these as well. Cool kit. Still in bag.

I love AAA and am trying to collect all of them. My most recent kit was a very nice "American Dream" that our host Scott here auctioned off...

tbzep
06-12-2012, 05:13 PM
My AAA kit decal sheet has "Aerojet, Inc." on the right end and "Aerojet General Corp." at the top.

stefanj
06-12-2012, 06:06 PM
I'll have to take a closer look at my kit's decal sheet when I get home.

I'm getting impatient to finish painting the Aerobee, which isn't a good habit. Once on the white coat, and once on the orange coat, the paint scaled up. I'm hoping it is because I recoated too heavily. Alternate explanation is that I left "shmutz" on the previous coat. I've been wet-sanding and compounding, and it is possible that there was moisture or compounding leftovers on the surface.

Yesterday, after compounding, I wiped down the model with moistened old T-shirt, rubbed it dry with a dry corner of the shirt (frequently moving to clean areas of cloth so no shmutz got put back on) then repeated the process with isopropyl alcohol. I set the model to dry w/o touching any painted surface. I HOPE this is enough to ensure a non-wrinkly-spotted final two coats.

rwhitman
06-13-2012, 05:42 PM
Here is the decal sheet I have. It appears to be an earlier version, at least based on the part number.

Ez2cDave
05-14-2023, 08:46 PM
a few items . . .

Dave F.