I fully agree with everyone prior to my review...I love this little sport rocket! I'm 42 and loved building rockets as a teen, saw and remembered wanting this, so as an adult I did the adult thing; I finally bought it just because! I still like building and tinkering and my kids and friends like watching launches. This is a good looking and great flying rocket to get into if you want to advance out of the pre-assembled or E2A plastic stuff that you slap together in about 30min. Man I forgot how much work is involved just because it has balsa fins, but don't let that statement scare you away since it's still JUST level 2! That "2 minute" assembly time is probably possible, but I was in 2 hours before I just gave up and decided to just finish and fly this sucker. Wood/Filler, sand, Primer/filler, sand, primer, sand...I gave up early and just got the fins smooth enough and moved on. I imagine the next one (yes, I'm getting another!) I'll be willing to slow down on but this one still stands out as clearly the best looking of my recent collection. You can do this without any fin guides or extra purchases if you're patient. Since it's sport sized, perfect fin alignment is not an issue. The paper guide is close enough to perfection as you need on a sport rocket. I used Elmer's wood glue for the motor mount and fins because that's what I have. For fins there's this technique called "double stick" that is advised but I even skipped that on this little build. Wood glue holds fast by nature and you can make fine adjustments as it dries. It cleans really easily with a damp paper towel, so that's how you avoid bumpy glue joints: You stick it, hold it, wipe off the excess. With all four fins on, you can easily eyeball down the tube and make adjustments so that they're all square (can also find paper fin guides if you don't have that good of an eye on alignments). The only place I used Epoxy was with the bond from the motor mount to the rocket tube. Wood glue shrinks up inside the joint and the gap from the motor mount to the tube for mine felt a bit too loose to just use wood glue. Used my old trusty Loctite 2-part, slopped it in with an acid brush, and that thing is bound to the tube. I included a picture of mine here right before I launched it. As that is in the pic is Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch 2x paint+primer in flat white and then the decals placed the night prior. I really wanted to get a good coat of Testers flat clear-coat over the water slide decals, but since I skipped all the filler in prior steps and got a tad sloppy with applying the decals, I decided again to just fly the darn thing! I don't expect this one to stay purdy very long due to decals falling off with all the granite rock and tree landings I tend to do. ------------Don't read any further unless you're AHDA or a Perfectionist and just buy this------------------------ 5-stars, most of my complaints are due to me rushing things but here are my actual cons. 1) The water slide decals skimped on the adhesive. I build models, I know how to do them, but I got frustrated with how you get one shot at these decals. Good water slide decals have enough glue on them to move them around enough (slight) for adjustments. With this I felt it'd be better with fine tweezers or a thin x-acto blade. Made in china, skimp on taxes and quality, more trouble for the builder. This is only the slide decals I complain about. You can use a sharpie (props other reviewer) if you want to just fly this rocket. The decals make this thing though or I'd just keep flying the Estes E2A Heatseakers as they're easier to get up in the air. 2) No motor retention what so ever. Another reviewer mentioned that it hasn't improved...I understand fully. It's not really broke so don't fix it, but another had their motor fall out and eat the dirt. Mine was tight enough that it didn't fall out without adding any sort of tape, but that was this single purchase. We adapt, but if Estes understands that people like us are suggesting that people move up to Level 2 builds, actually spend 6 hours making it great looking and even slap their decal on it...well, the motor shouldn't just fall out and eat dirt the first time they try it. It's a hobby that I understand but, I'm forty stinking two and check this stuff. It's a hobby, give it some retention device, and let's not deter any possible future rocketeers due to some minor oversight. We learn to adapt and fix things as engineers, but probably not so much at stage 2...you become a growing engineers at stage 3. Minor rant because you can do this and figure it out, parents and Rocketeers alike. It's the scientific method but yet frustrating at the same time. 3) Instructions assume a lot, See #2. Copy and print the instruction sheet as you'll be cutting stuff out. The fin guide is early on and the rubber band recovery part will be cut out last. I understand I'm cutting this out and should do something but again, teach the up and coming fans of rockets to copy and print 1:1 and cut out the copy or you're not letting read the 2nd page. (I'm not positive right now, but I believe a piece on this one was labeled "not used" and for a fact was used in the build. Very very minor long rants about stuff I'm sure you'll overcome as you see them yourself. Do not let that turn you off as this really is a 5 star level two rocket. When you step up in ability this is just stuff you learn in hindsight...and that's learning. Last note since this is level 2: Go right to the B6-4 motor! You have another beginner rocket to use up those A8-3's with (silver arrow launch kit, heatseaker E2A if you're just starting off). Test launch those, see how the layered winds are and when you feel good about it...break out the bullpup and a B6 :D Thanks for reading my very minor perks and complaints on this purchase
