Rich's Rockets

Building the Excelsior Nike-G (part 1)
The Nike-G was the last of the pre-2016 build pile rockets, dating in fact to 2013 when I bought the decals and plans from Excelsior. I’ve finally started on it. Ready for all the gory build details? Tough. It’s a Baby Bertha with different fins and decals, big whoop. Well, okay, ...
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Building the Excelsior Nike-G (part 2)
I used the Estes fin tool to position the rear fins, then cobbled together this setup to align the rest of the fins to them. Fins and launch lug are on. Now for the fillets. 26 of them.😮
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Building the Excelsior Nike-G (part 3)
I’m hurrying to finish this rocket. Partly because finishing it this year is one of my goals, and we’re almost at the end of good painting weather for the year. Partly because Apogee Components wants me to finish it by the 30th. I’m even putting the Norad aside in its favor for ...
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Building the Excelsior Nike-G (part 4)
Yuck. The decals were pretty fragile. I should’ve put a clear coat on them before applying. The wraps fell apart on me and I pushed them back together as best I could, but the upper one especially got pretty badly messed up.You can see some of my sloppy gluing there too. I used some ...
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Building the Excelsior Nike-G (part 5)
Here’s the Nike-G, done. Not my best work. But not my worst either. And here’s the goony missile fleet: Honest Goon, Patrioony, and Nike-G.
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