Trading Cards

 The Thrifty Rocketeer blog continues...

An opportunity has come my way to possibly write instructions for a future model rocket kit.

This has started me thinking about which instructions I have enjoyed the most, and just how many (40+) rocket kits I have assembled over the last seven years.  I broke out my 3-ring binder where I had filed virtually all the printed instructions from over the years. (Thank goodness I saw the handwriting on the wall, when I realized that I wasn't going to be able to remember which motors were required for which rocket.  I started a binder to collect the instructions for easy reference.)

About this time, I also discovered the Estes Rockets were going through a phase where they were designing a small trading-card size summary for the rocket motors that were required for each model. You would find the dotted line printed on the card stock and cut out the card, so that it would fit in your pocket, in the launch box, or be saved.


It was a brilliant move, and I don't know why they have moved away from doing that.

In my case, I recognized that the cards needed to be assembled in one easy to locate binder, and so I borrowed an old Pokemon card album from my son.  His need for boxes and boxes of Pokemon and Magic cards far out-stripped the cheap album that I had found for pennies at a reuse thrift store.  So I liberated it, with his permission.


Now, as I started counting up just how many rockets I have built ~40!~ , I came across it, still tucked inside the larger 3-ring binder, and it still has the cards I've saved.  In fact, I loved the idea of this card album so much, that whenever I buy a rocket kit that DOESN'T have a card printed, I make my own.

I take out a credit card from my wallet, and lay it on the card stock or box, turning it this way or that, trying to get it to cover the short list of recommended motors and a significant portion of the artwork. Then I trace around the credit card with a pencil, making an indent on the card stock to cut along.   The idea is that if I have painted my rocket in the recommended color scheme, I might recognize which rocket this trading card was taken from. 

Very quickly I realized that I should take a sharpie marker and just write the name of the rocket on the card. Since the glossy surface of the card doesn't accept the ink well, this is usually on the back side.  Storing just one card per pocket in the album, I can read the card from either side and get what I need to know.

This simple method of saving and storing rocketry information has helped to keep me sane.

This is the Thrifty Rocketeer saying, "Save your card stock: You never know when you'll need to reference it!"

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