Construction

I downloaded plans for the Estes Maxi Brute Pershing from the JimZ website.  My model is not an exact clone or exact scale copy but the plans gave me a good place to start.  To begin, I stripped off the metal ends from the four peanut cans and removed the inner foil linning.  I glued all the cans together, reinforcing the seams with paper on the inside.  I then sanded the outside of the cans to remove the printed paper, and filled the seams with Elmer's wood filler.  Once the tube was ready I cut it down to 21.75" in length.  You could of course avoid all this by just buying a new tube.  For the engine mount I decided to use a 24 mm double cluster.  I used two old tubes from my collection of junk and reduced their diameter and length to fit an Estes "E" engine.  I made engine retainers by clipping and bending a metal coat hanger to length.  I made thrust rings by cutting them from a used 24 mm engine casing, I glued these in the ends of the engine tubes above the end of the retainers in the usual fashion.  I then glued the two engine tubes together, and then glued this assembly to a stuffer tube made from a paper towel tube which was about 9" long.  Openings between the engine tubes and stuffer tube were sealed and reinforced with glue.  Centering rings just under 4" in diameter were glued to each end of this assembly and the engine mount was done.  Once dry this was glued into the body tube.  

The nose cone was made by rolling a piece of typing paper into a cone and sealing it with super glue.  The cone was then glued onto the pointed end of a styrofoam cone from Michael's, which had a base diamter of 4".  On the wide end I glued a shoulder made from the remains of a peanut can, reduced in diameter to fit inside the body tube.  I sealed up the styrofoam under a layer of Elmer's wood filler.  I glued an old shoe lace to the inside of the shoulder to serve as a shock cord to attach the parachute to.  The cone was sanded and primed several times to smooth it out.  I later ended up cutting the cone at about 4" from the tip so that I could add 3 oz. of fishing sinkers glued in with super glue.  This was done to balance the rocket.  The cone ended up about 1" too short and does not have the reduction at the tip, but after final painting it does have the Pershing look.   

To make the fins I outlined the shapes on a cardboard file folder, cut them out and folded them to shape.  I created fin frames from scrap balsa then glued the paper shapes over the frames.  The fins were all sealed with super glue to strengthen them.  I made the fin pads from scraps of 1/8" balsa, 2 layers thick.  The pads are actually way too thick for scale but look like I recall the Estes ones did.  I have since seen a real Pershing and pads 1/8" or less would be more realistic.  I sanded the bottoms of the pads over a BT-80 to induce a curve on the bottom.  The pads were glued to the body tube in the appropriate locations and then the fins were glued to the pads.  I made 1/4" launch lugs from rolled paper sealed with super glue.  The lugs were glued to balsa standoffs.  Two conduits were made from scrap 1/8" balsa and glued to the main tube as in the JimZ plans.  I glued another old shoe lace to the inside of the body tube in the Estes fashion as a shock cord to which the parachute would be attached.

The model ended up just over 40" tall and 1 lb. 1.5 oz.