Catzilla!
It looks like Catzilla was overpowered by the troops. “OH, NOOOOOES!”
For a while my friends and I used to build models, mostly airplanes from AirFix kits and the like.
And then blow them up with our stash of firecrackers left over from New Year’s eve.
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Balsa gliders with what were most assuredly noisemakers that we called M-80s, good times.
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George’s trains is still in business, although in a new location, operated by the sons of the original George.
https://www.georgestrains.com/
I’ve been meaning to go there to see if they have a set of gaskets for my Fleischmann stationary steam engine (like this one):
Thanks to Google, I no longer need to scratch my head about acronyms like that. Also, Urban Dictionary is becoming a good resource for such things, not just for the filthy stuff. 
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Being local, it bugs me they portray him as walking the tracks from Hoboken at least 40 miles to central North Jersey. That would also involve walking through a mile long tunnel under the Palisades and then over several railroad bridges. Not happening!
As for the topic, yes I did my time and then some. Plastic aircraft galore led to several balsa models. My beloved P-40 shattered when a friend wound the rubber band tight and sent it into the wall of my bedroom! I remember how hard it was doing the escape tower on top the Mercury Redstone Estes rocket. Then in 7th grade I built a sailing ship model from scratch out of a hunk of balsa, researching details at the library, making pulleys and deadeyes out of putty.
After design school I was a professional modelmaker for a while. Back in the day before digital models there was a significant industry in NYC making models for advertising. I made stuff from a 6" long Golden Gate Bridge to giant foam fake rocks. As you can imagine I knew every model shop and art supply store like the back of my hand, not to mention the industrial surplus stores in the Canal Street area. All gone now, from America’s Hobby to Industrial Plastics to Pearl Paint. All my materials now are mail orders. I’m in a McMaster-Carr messenger zone, orders in by 11 are delivered that afternoon!
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(Sorry about the quality, I’ll try to find a better version.)
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Oh wow! Forgot all avout that! It was a nightmare.
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looks a bit fiddly, yes.
http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?61457-Estes-Mercury-Redstone-kit-build
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Now this is rocket surgery.
Maybe making the tower structure using wire, soldering / brazing the elements together?
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[quote=“Urbanacus, post:65, topic:122947”]
I remember how hard it was doing the escape tower on top the Mercury Redstone Estes rocket.[/quote]
I have on my build-queue escape towers for a Saturn 1b and a Little Joe II.
This involves sanding down 1/8" dowels into narrow widths, then cutting out wee little struts with angled ends and gluing them together against a wax paper covered plan. Then gluing in nozzles and other shapes. Yow!
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Reminds me of this video i recently saw on Tested
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Wow. It looks like a successful build of the real rocket’s escape tower was more possible than the model’s.
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Just throwing this monkey wrench out there: How about squeezing some sort of putty through a squared frosting tip onto the wax-papered schematic diagram? The putty lines would join to the other wet putty lines as you laid them out.
…that’s how they make the filigree pieces on wedding cakes.
Ooo…this on’es even better:
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Back in the 1970’s every neighborhood in Boston had a model shop. Downtown Boston had at least 2 high end dedicated stores for models and every Woolworth’s had a Toy section with model kits. I have to agree with this guy, It’s a damn shame it’s all fading away.
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For what it is worth: Many large discount chains still have model sections. Really small, with minimal supplies. Fred Meyer has about 1/4 of one side of an aisle in the toy section devoted to plane and car models, with model rockets and supplies in same stores.
Some Michael’s craft stores, the same.
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it was in Village Center, kinda Anderson & Burnet - -
by Korea House Sushi - (I hope Raymond and his wife are still there making delicious sushi)
they had tons - old, new, airplanes, figurines, gaming, RC - I think the rent got too high, the owner got tired. I moved to CA and stopped a steady income stream for them?? 
.
POOF! closed…
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I remember wanting that kit very badly, around 1981-1982. It’s probably just as well that I never got one; I can very safely say that I would not have finished that model.
I think I built 4 or 5 Estes kits (Nomad, Red Max, Yankee, Pegasus…) but only ever flew one of them (Alpha III). I was so impatient (hence my assertion that I’d never finish the Mercury Redstone) that if I didn’t have the right color paint, then screw it, I built it anyway and left it as-is.
Presumably y’all are aware that the old (and new) Estes catalogs are online? (I probably found out from BB in the first place)
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My late father worked on Mercury/Redstone. I suspect it was on that program that he transitioned from being primarily a working engineer to being wholly devoted to project management.
In the late 1960s he built a super-detailed model of the ship and the launch site, and then when I was doing model rocketry in the 70s I think I built the Estes one.
I was always more interested in flying them than in detailing them, so I only painted the parts that seemed likely to need it structurally, like thin balsa parts and large diameter cardboard tubes.
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Yeah, it’s hard for most kids. I had what was rarely diagnosed back in the early 70’s, AD_D without the 'H’yperactivity, and could hyperfocus as long as it was on only one thing. It’s a classic example of a trait great for work but terrible for school, where multitasking is king.
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My grandfather worked at Ames Research-- working mostly on aerodynamics and heat shields… Still have some of his papers and whatnot.
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