Mercury Redstone
 

Now that I've purchased the re-issue of the Saturn V by Estes, I've got the urge to build a scale version of the Mercury Redstone and Saturn 1B. The Saturn choice is a no brainer (Semroc with an Apogee capsule), but the question I have for all of you is which kit to go with for the Mercury...do I spend the money and shop for an Estes kit on eBay, or do I save the cash and buy the Dr. Zooch kit? They appear fairly close in quality, other than the maddening tower construction on the Zooch. Thoughts?

Shop ebay for an ORIGINAL K-41/1241 Estes Mercury Redstone from the 70's/early 80's with the WOOD capsule and tower. Don't get either of the later mamby-pamby plastic capsule versions. Should be able to pick one up for about $100.

It all depends.

The old Estes version is very close in size to the BT-60 based Dr. Zooch Mercury Redstone.
(Dr. Zooch also sells a smaller BT-50 Redstone called the Freedom 7)

The older Estes Mercury Redstone had a tower you made out of small dowels. The drag was, the dowels were pressed into a piece of flat hardwood. You cut them apart (good luck) and rounded them as best you could. The fins were built up using four pieces of shaped balsa and one piece of cardstock. The Estes kit was BT-60 based with decals.

Check out this page from JimZs:
http://www.spacemodeling.org/JimZ/estes/k-41b.tif

The BT-60 Zooch Mercury Redstone is like older Estes model with exceptions. Each fin is only two pieces. No decals, the BT-60 gets a pre-printed wrap. You are supplied with dowels to make the tower. The Zooch kits are sort-of like building a "Golden Age" scale kit once offered by Estes.

The later (most recent) Estes Mercury Redstone used a plastic capsule and tower from molds left over from the Centuri kit.

I prefer the Zooch kits. I remember building the old Estes kit and was dissapointed by the printed capsule shroud. The Zooch capsule shroud wrap is much better.

I'm doing a build thread of the Dr. Zooch Mercury Restone Freedom 7 on my blog at:
www.modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com

Thanks for the input! Chris - The Freedom 7 looks great! I like the size of the original based on the BT-60. Does it strike anyone else as odd that just about everybody out there has a version of the Saturn V, but the Mercury seems to have gone mostly ignored? Semroc has enough parts listed for the K-41 that tempt me into making a 'supplemented' scratch build.

I built a K-41 a long time ago. So long ago that the dowels were cut on both sides instead of only one - think of a set of dowels with webbing between them instead of having to dig them out of a block of wood.

The tower turned out OK, but I was very unhappy with the fins. I wish someone would offer the fin pieces laser-cut. Starting with uniform fairings instead of having to cut eight of them from a sheet would go a long way to a better result.

That said, buy the Zooch T-60 based kit. Stick-build the tower. If you are good at precisely cutting out small pieces of balsa, download the K-41 plans from JimZ and build the fins that way.


Bill

Semroc offers the complete K-41 Redstone fin set in laser cut form. ;)
NO WAY would I cut all those out by hand any more ! :D

Thanks! I did not know that.


Bill

...and I would add that some Series 275 tube from Semroc would make for a very nice Atlas in the same scale...


Bill

Not as ignored as the Gemini Titan! I really want to build the two engine cluster (does 2 really make a cluster???) version of the GT. One is (was recently) on ebay with a $250 reserve.....which was meet after a week or so and a dozen or so bids.

Anybody know someone who might produce a GT kit? ;)

Not at the moment. PDR used to sell a clone of the Estes kit, but they are gone. I understand that Semroc has the Gemini capsule nose cone and the centering rings for the slightly canted motor mount.


Bill