The original Bandit is (was) nice but didn't inspire me. Lee's version looks way better, both from rocket design standpoint and also the use of the really punchy yellow instead of the gold.

It's a good reminder though that I should spend more time trolling through old Estes catalogs to look for ideas. Haven't done that for a few.... months or so. :)

That's just the catalog's poor color quality. The instructions say to paint it yellow.

My son's scratch built Bandit in yellow.

Thanks Neil!

I mentioned previously that I’d post closeups of the Stickershock decal. One is a little Bandit decal that has individual pieces of vinyl for each letter. Also shown are a few letters of the “U.S. AIR FORCE” letters. Very crisp. Thin too. These are on a BT-60, so slightly upscale from the original waterslide decals.

Wow, nice! I still want to build a standard Bandit, maybe an upscale. But it would probably be BT-80 or 80H, so I can turn a nose cone using the cheap 3” balsa blocks from Hobby Lobby.

I see why folks like the vinyl. There's no trimming of decal material and you will never have yellowing or fading. However, there is a bit of an edge to them and repositioning is more involved.

For super detail and lots of colors on a decal, nothing beats waterslides. But I’m pretty encouraged to start using more vinyl on midsized builds, particularly on designs with fairly simple graphics and text. And if a decal has white, the vinyl is great. No body color showing thru the white.

I used vinyl back in my HPR days. It was pretty expensive in the 90's and 2000's because all we had around here were folks with no experience starting sign shops with really slow computers. I could take them a file that was already cleaned up and ready to go, and it would take them all day to cut it. :rolleyes: I don't think Stickershock came around until I was already out of HPR/EX.

I like this alternate-bandit a lot. I have an STM-012 kit and might go this route.

I recently finished an upscale Hawks Hobbies Bandit. The decals were unfortunately way fragile; I ruined most of the hatch-detail ones. Maybe sticker shock can help with that?

Definitely give Stickershock a try. You could get a complete Bandit set and try the ones where you had trouble. And you have the rest if you just decide to re-decal the entire rocket.

I think my BT-60 sized set sells for $16. I bought them and another decal set on one of their 1/2 off sales, so I got a great deal. Mark’s sales are for non-custom work, so no changes. But, you do pick the size, so I think it applies to most any size. He does ask for your rocket’s tube circumference when you order.