Ye Olde Rocket Forum - View Single Post - Estes Goblin Nose Cone Question

Quote:

Originally Posted by tbzep

I don't think it ever was consciously changed. It was probably just from wear on the grinding surfaces, like has been discussed with the Arcas/Cherokee-D BNC-55AC nose cone. I'm sure they modeled the plastic molds after the more recent worn versions of the balsa cones.

generally the plastic cones took the shape of the ideal shape of the balsa cones; i.e. the ones made with a new set of grinders. The PNC60L was the exception, I guess because they wanted a shorter shape for the Goonies, and if they were gonna make a big run of molded nose cones, might as well use them for the Big Bertha as well.

FOREHEAD SLAP! Giving this thread a slight turn: While I was looking up things in old catalogs. I found something that I had never noticed before! For two years '75 and '76 (though they put a 'cancelled' mark through the one in the '76 catalog) Estes listed a PLASTIC version of the K-27 Honest John nose cone. To my knowledge there was never a plastic version of this though they sold the kit through 1979. The nose cone had a 71xxx part number, which was similar to the part number for the PNC-50K (which, I think we decided was the Alpha III nose cone, correct?) and all the plastic nose cones then available.

Who was at Estes then other than Al Packer that could tell us what the heck was going on at Estes during that time?!