The Viper was a beautiful bird, and even won "Best in show" at the DARS classic that year (the prize was the Sirius Eradicator, which I also built and featured on this blog). Unfortunately, there is more to the story.
If you fly, you sometimes crash, and this was the fate of my Viper. On a hard landing, she received some fin damage, some laser cannon damage, and a whole lot of decal damage.
Now, fixing fins (and even laser canons) is not too tough, but those decals...there was a problem. I was determined to fix her though, so I contacted Dan at Morerockets.com about replacement decals. As it turns out they were very reasonable and he shipped them out right away. When I opened them I was excited to find that he had even included a few extra! If I crash again, I'm covered! Thanks, Dan!
Therefore here are the pics from my Viper rebirth...
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| After sanding, I put her on my painting stand... |
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| She painted up nicely. It took about four coats. |
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| On my (very messy) work table. I used my original Estes Viper as a guide on where to place the decals. |
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| The decals were very high quality and very easy to work with. A lot of waterslide decals tend to be very thin, but these were thicker and went on easily even if you have "fumble fingers!" |
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| They also went on faster than I would have thought... |
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| Before I knew it, I was finished! Here are both of my Vipers side by side. The big one will fly again...I might not fly the little one... |
So, just like that, the Viper was back in my fleet! Hopefully I'll be able to fly her soon!
Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!
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