The original Estes Invader was produced from 1976 to 1980, shown above in the 1977 catalog. I did buy, build and fly one in the late 1970s. More recently, I built two of the "Classic Series" ... [Read More]
This will be a fun one! All parts are clean and well made. The bright yellow nose cone and detail pieces are 3D printed. The fit in the square tube is very good. Different assemblies are in separate ... [Read More]
This was very tight balsa - I thought at first it was basswood. The filling should turn out very well. As always - I sand off the laser cutting ash also removing the hold-down tics. The inset ... [Read More]
The kit includes a variety of jigs to help alignment when gluing. These are cleverly laid out on thick cardstock. The first piece is used to align the two piece wing fin. The alignment piece is to ... [Read More]
These are the square "dowels" that are glued on the outside tubes. Here the pieces are sprayed with filler/primer. Two of the smaller fins, there are four in total. These are glued as ribs over the ... [Read More]
The outside pod tubes glue onto the outside edges of the main wing fins. I don't think most builders would fill the (visible) inside seams. It's easy to do. Apply CWF using a hobby knife, let ... [Read More]
The New Way kits don't use the regular Avery style adhesive disks to reinforce the parachute tie points. These are Tyvek, a reinforced paper you can't tear. Stick one circle under the chute ... [Read More]
I went ahead and painted the interior of the pods with Day-Glo orange. It took five brush coats to get full coverage over the sprayed white undercoat. TIP: You must use a white undercoat when using ... [Read More]
I don't use a lot of glue when initially setting on the fins. Apply a glue line down the root edge, shown on the left. Run a fingertip down the side edges of the fin leaving a line of glue in the ... [Read More]
Here's how the Guide "G" fits onto the wing and helps align the smaller ribs. The tabs set over the sides of the G piece and hold it on the face of the wing. This entire post is dry fits - no ... [Read More]
Set the rib over its position on the wing and mark the glue area with pencil. Every time I've built an Alien Invader model I applied glue all the way down the root edge out of habit. Glue is only ... [Read More]
You can use the smaller jigs for alignment to hold the body and wing in place as the glue dries. For a tighter fit at the glued root edge - I wanted to apply a light pressure on the slot and tab. I ... [Read More]
TIP: I have started sanding the fillets before painting the rocket. Hold the glued area up to a light and you can see the rough areas in the shiny dried glue. These will be seen after the spray ... [Read More]
The already painted interiors of the wing pods have to be masked off from the white, then later black paint. I found a good size is 1 1/8" long pieces. It takes two overlapping pieces to cover the ... [Read More]
Every little glue blob, balsa grain and divot shows when paint is applied. Along the sides of the nose cone detail pieces was a slight open line in the 3D print. A water based CWF filler wouldn't ... [Read More]
Look between the two launch lugs and you might notice there isn't a glue fillet on the inside joints. These lugs are too close together to smooth out a glue fillet. I could apply the glue with a ... [Read More]
It's tempting to apply the big tube wrap decal first. TIP: Soak and apply a few smaller decals to get an idea of the soaking times and how they transfer. Here's the positioning of the wing decals. ... [Read More]
The original Estes Invader was produced from 1976 to 1980, shown above in the 1977 catalog. I did buy, build and fly one in the late 1970s. More recently, I built two of the "Classic Series" ... [Read More]
