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My entry is my 1/4 scale Star Wars Y-wing fighter that flew at Plaster Blaster this year. This is by far the largest project that I've ever attempted. The Y-wing was nearly 12 feet tall and weighed in at just under 100 pounds. It flew on a L1500T Blue Thunder.

The unique finish of this rocket is evident on many layers. The outside of the airframe was covered in computer parts and boards, wire, vinyl tubing, a Borg cube and a hub cap! Additionally, a large hole was cut into the cockpit area to simulate "battle damage". Through the "charred" opening, more burnt circuit boards and wiring can be seen.

The whole airframe was primered with Kilz, sanded down and painted matte white. Next the colored panels were painted and scuffed with sandpaper. Many thin washes of black, silver and rust acrylic paint were applied and blotted unevenly to give the model a dirty, weathered look. Finally, a light mist of matte black was sprayed here and there on the model to complete the paint job. The complete weathering job took over 6 hours of continous work to complete with layer upon layer of wash.

The completed model had a very satisfying look. It bore a strong resemblance to the models from the Star Wars movies and was a real crowd pleaser at Plaster Blaster!

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I would like to enter my 2007 LOC Precision Minni Mag into the Unique Finish Contest. During the rocket prep, the body tube and fins were primed and then glassed to fill in all grooves. It was then painted with a 3 part high metallic base chameleon by Dupont Chroma Base and cleared to perfection. The "Grand Poo-Bah" and Fred Flinstone character were then hand painted to the rocket. It's very difficult to catch it with a camera, but to see the rocket in person is really cool. The color will actually flip flop from green to blue to purple to orange right before your very eyes. I custom mounted a Booster Vision camera and flew it on a Cesaroni G69 for a picture perfect flight.

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My rocket is a Binder Design Excel Plus Kit. It stands 67 inches tall with a 4 inch diameter. It flew on an Aerotech G104 and had an amazing flight and recovery. The idea for the theme of the rocket came from the movie “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.” This movie is very quotable, so it was easy to come up with the name for my rocket…Shake & Bake. In the movie, Ricky Bobby’s sponsor of his race car is Wonder Bread, hence the rocket looks like a loaf of Wonder Bread! To get this rocket to its unique finish, we started simple with a white base coat. After getting its clear coat, I went to the drawing board. Using the wrapper from a loaf of Wonder Bread, I used measuring tape and scaled the dots to the size of my rocket, along with deciding what size lettering I would need, and then sent out for the decals to be made. Once they were ready, it took about an hour for the perfect placement of all of the decals, once again utilizing the Wonder Bread wrapper. Then the finishing touch of Ricky Bobby’s quote: “If you ain’t first, you’re last!”

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This was a MRN design of the month rocket that I fell in love with. Sort of. I was attracted to the fin shape and the bottom rings sealed the need to make one. It was a fairly tough one to build but the finishing was really brutal! I made the mistake of coating the whole thing with FnF and the sanding took three hours. There was no paint scheme with the plans so this is my interpertation of the "Eagle". The paint took three different maskings so as not to add excessive weight from multi layers. The eagle stickers as well as the upper ring fin wrap were from Michael's. The Eagle name decal was made with Word. The biggest problem was the large white stars! I could not find any in white that were the size I wanted. They were made with a photoshop program and printed onto a white label sheet. The whole thing was sealed with Future Floor Polish. It has an 18mm motor mount and has flown with B6-4 and C6-3 engines. The rocket is a very straight and stable flyer, a wonderful design from many years ago.

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The Educator, a modified Big Daddy Kit, is my entry for the unique design contest. The Educator was built for the purpose of educational outreach events and demonstrations and designed to look like a school bus, but with a twist. During the creation process, I had an epiphany. I decided to add a bit unique flair. Simspons characters were added in the windows and I created a special graphic paraphrasing NAR rules. It says:

• "I will only fly within the scope of my certification and required licensing.
• I will not launch my rocket at targets.
• I will not launch my rockets if winds exceed 20 mph.
• I will not attempt to recover my rocket from power lines."

The Simpsons theme really draws the kids to the rocket and helps get them interested in learning about rocketry.

After filleting the fins with bondo for a smooth transition, I primed the entire rocket. Once I applied two more coats of primer, the Educator received four coats of American Tradition yellow. Next, I masked off the lower body tube and painted the fins with three coats of Metallic Black. Throughout the painting process, I made sure to wet sand between each coat to ensure the best finish possible. I used pin striping to start accenting the school bus design. Then I printed my custom decals on waterslide paper and applied them. To finish the Educator I applied a clear top coat. The entire process took around 15 hours to complete.

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Hear is my entry “The Safest Rocket in the World”. It is 43mm in diameter, about 12 or 13 inches tall, has three tube fins and has an 18mm motor mount in it. What makes it The Safest Rocket in the World? The finish, it is covered in Estes “One year full warranty”/ NAR safety codes. Oh yes I forgot to mention the nose, the nosecone is made from 100% algebra homework (after it was done of course). But is it Unique? Well I have never seen one like it, so to me it is unique. Also it uses zero congenital finishing supplies (no paints, sealer or etc.)

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The "A Salt Vehicle" was built for the EMRR Challenge 2007, to be a rocket made entirely from trash and finished in a unique style. This rocket is a tiny saucer, 1.5in tall, 3in diameter, and weighing 0.5oz. It was made from a standard container of salt and was finished by covering all surfaces in salt.

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I prepped my Blackbird's fins with 4 coats of sanding sealer then used gray primer. I finished the rocket with 3 lightly dusted coats of Gloss Black enamel paint, wetsanding between coats.If you need more info or a better writeup please let me know. The decals were water slide and I checked with many pics of real SR-71s for proper placement. (There's not too many on the real bird!)

All the babying paid off as I ended up with a really nice finish and a great flying rocket.

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My entry for the unique finish contest is a LOC/Precision ONYX (PK-12.) It is a 3" body tube and stands 25 inches tall. Short, squat, and all business!

I derived my unique finish directly from the name Onyx. An Onyx stone is a black and white banded variety of quartz. The bands run parallel, and the stone's nickname is "Zebra Agate."

I first laid down a base coat of Silver pearl. After this I applied a stencil of the Onyx logo and the tape stripes. I then put on 3 coats of Black pearl. After I removed the tape and stencil, I clear coated the entire rocket. Using all automotive enamels, the rocket has a depth to the stripes and paint that can't be seen in photos.

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Nighty Night Bertha

My unique rocket comes from the use of the rocket and not the artistic finish. It used three different technologies to enable the rocket to be flown at night. The rocket is an Estes baby bertha painted black with a small mod on the nose cone where the base has been cut off. The body has space glow in the dark stickers; these don't really produce much light. The base of the rocket have 2 flashing led units that are used in model aircraft as wing lights, they are powered by small lithium button cells Inside the rocket is an (EL) electroluminescent cables that gives out a lot of light and can easily be seen many hundreds of feet up, it is ejected on parachute deployment. It is powered by two AA batteries, in a power unit that is housed in the nose cone. This extra mass means the rocket has to be flown on a C or above. I have flown on B's and the ejection was late. The result is a truly night enabled rocket. The tail lights give a good visibility on the way up and the EL light provides easy recovery. She isn't the most artistic of rockets but how many rockets fly reliably at night?

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This is my L1 Jr. Cert rocket. To achieve the finish, I started out by painting the whole rocket a dark green. Next, I took some leaves from the groud and laid them on the rocket. I then applied a light coat of black over it. This helped me achieve a *true* camo finish :)

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This is my Estes Silver Comet. It sat around for a long time without a paint job and this contest was the perfect opportunity to add some color. The entire rocket was painted with left over Testors modeling paint used to paint model cars. The blue is Ford blue which has metal specs in it. It really shines in the sunlight. The orange and yellow was used for the side marker lights on cars. And the silver was used for painting the engines. The paint was thinned out and sprayed using a small gravity feed spray gun. The rocket flies on D12-3 motors but I did not install the motor hook so it could be flown on E motors as well as some SU and RMS 24mm Aerotech motors. Modifications include bass wood fins along with a Kevlar shock cord.

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I am entering my G-Jupiter into the Unique Finish Contest and The 07 challege. The rocket I made was about 2 feet long and was made on a BT 50. It was flown on a 24mm engine. I primed and painted my rocket a Metalic Black. After that I took a sharpie and make sliver little,"stars" all over the ship. Next I decopodged the rocket with pictures I had printed off the internet of the planets and other interstellar images. Decopodging is a craft form where you take a picture or piece of paper, speard a watered down glue or some Mod Podge on the area and place the picture on. Next you put 3 to 4 layers on top of the picture to achieve a nice seal. The results were stuning and my only regret is the the wind claimed this rocket and took it from me.

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This is a stock Estes Crossfire ISX that I painted to help get the boys in our Cub Scout pack excited about our upcoming rocket build and launch. I wanted to do a blue and gold paint scheme (the uniform colors for Cub Scouts) but also wanted to alternate them in some way to increase visibility. After a gray primer, I painted everything gold. After the gold was dry I masked off those areas that would stay gold and then painted the rest blue. There are no decals or stickers, all lettering (BSA-Boy Scouts of America, Pack 20) was cut out of green automobile masking tape and masked over the gold paint before the blue was added. I try to fly this rocket whenever the Cub Scouts are flying as a group. The launch picture was taken when the older boys traveled with me to the Akron rocket club launch (Mantua Township Missile Agency - NAR Section #606). This launch was on a B4-2 that was lost for a while in the tall weeds.

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My Designed Finish Contest is the Sunward Maverick. This design was inspired by NASCAR's #9 Kasey Kahne. Kahne is sponsored by Dodge and my son's favorite driver.

I modified the design slightly by filling the wing-tube interface to make the rocket look more realistic. The wings were filled and sanded until completely smooth. The card stock used to form the jet engine intakes was also filled and sanded smooth. This was done to make the rocket look more authentic. When the filling and sanding cycles were complete a coat of primer was added. The primer was then sanded smooth. The base coat of gloss white was then applied. After masking all the detail areas red was added. Next, after masking all the details gloss black was applied. Finally, to protect the finish and graphics a thick clear coat was applied.

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This is my 3" Public Enemy Performer I named "Stargazer". It is painted with Krylon Navy Blue. The graphics are made from chrome Monokote self adhesive trimsheets and vinyl. I used a template to cut two different size star for the fins and lower body. I applied them in random order around the body. Each fin has a set of three on both sides. The "Stargazer" letters and stars on the upper body are vinyl that was cut and applied for me by a local sign shop.

The lift-off photo of Stargazer is of my level 1 certification launch in November 2005. During the rockets flight the chrome stars could be seen as flashes or twinkles in the air. What a great tracking device!