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Old 11-15-2011, 10:14 AM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Default MPC tube lengths (units?)

Hello All,

MPC's metric body tube diameters (which are still used by Quest today) raise a question about the body tube lengths that were used in their model rocket kits. In some MPC kits, particularly the ones that used plastic fin units and plastic nose cones, the tube lengths as well as their diameters were given in millimeters in the kits' instructions, usually in round numbers of millimeters. In the MPC Miniroc series of kits, the body tube lengths (given in the catalogs) were listed in inches, although the diameters were still given in millimeters. Were the 4" and 8" lengths of the Miniroc kits' 15 mm body tubes actually "hidden metric" lengths (100 mm and 200 mm)?

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help.
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Old 11-15-2011, 05:06 PM
mikeyd mikeyd is offline
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They used Inches, as far as I remember
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Old 11-15-2011, 05:09 PM
stefanj stefanj is offline
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I can picture some mid-60s MPC production guys looking at the initial kit specs and telling Bergenske "C'mon, give it to us in inches!"
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Old 11-16-2011, 07:35 PM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Thank you both for your replies. I'm looking to clone a few of the MPC Miniroc kits, and I wasn't 100% certain which units MPC used for their body tube lengths; the MPC kit plans on "Ye Olde Rocket Plans" do indeed give body tube lengths in inches. Since those were the days when "America's going metric" (G. Harry Stine promoted metric usage in designing & building model rockets in earlier editions of his "Handbook of Model Rocketry," and he was hired as a consultant by MPC), my guess is that they used tube lengths (4", 6", 8", and 12") that could easily be "soft-converted" to metric lengths (100 mm, 150 mm, 200 mm, and 300 mm [or 305 mm]) later if they saw the need to do so, simply by re-labeling the tube lengths.
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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

Last edited by blackshire : 11-16-2011 at 07:38 PM. Reason: This ol' hoss done had to correct a typo.
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