Jeff's Kit Gallery Page 3

  Estes Explorer Aquarius (modified)

This is a flying model rocket that I modified into a static display.  Estes used to make the coolest looking rockets many years ago that were great just to build and set on your shelf.  Many of these showed a lot of imagination considering that they were designed to fly, and were made primarily out of cardboard and a few plastic bits.  In some kits, they used blow-molded plastic parts to obtain shapes that were complex but very light.  This kit used a blow-molded nose piece that was supposed to represent a cockpit section, but I turned it upside down and added my own parts to it.  In the process, the scale changed dramatically and what Estes intended to be a two or three man spacecraft became a deep-space exploration craft with a crew of over a hundred. I also ditched the clumsy-looking solar panel fins (necessary for stability as a flying rocket kit).

I used a communications antenna from a kid's construction set (something like K'Nex but with a space theme) and scratchbuilt the mounting and supports from pieces in my scrap box. I think there are some Ju 88 landing gear struts and a dipping sonar from the Airfix Sea King in there somewhere.  The bridge was made from spare parts as well and the small antenna on the extreme nose was from a 1/96 scale Lunar Module.  I used most of an entire can of RustOleum Gloss White to try to cover up the brown of the cardboard tubes; I suppose I should have primed it first.  The decals were from the Estes kit but were cut up a bit and repositioned.

The detail at the rear of the ship was taken from an old empy sewing spool; I guess this is a little too obvious, but it happened to fit perfectly!   I tried to camouflage it a little with a nozzle in the center hole, but it is still pretty much a sewing spool.

Overall, I had a blast modifying this ship and I think it looks much better than Estes' version!

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