Boyce Pershing 1A Builders Kit 1:15 Scale (BT-80 Tube)

Great nice size kit of the Pershing 1A

I bought and had delivered 3 Boyce Aerospace 3D printed rockets last week, a BT-80 Pershing, Saturn 1 SA5, and a 1/100 very small Mercury/Redstone. Odd for me I started the Pershing and Saturn right away. Today I basically finished the Pershing although I do need to glue in the engine mount permanently. It is a great kit and fairly easy to assemble. All you need to supply is the BT-80 outer tube and BT-50 engine mount tube. The 3D parts are very nicely done and in my fairly significant experience with 3D printed parts they come with a very good outer surface that is quite smooth. I did some minor sanding on the fins and cable covers but really nothing on the 3 part nose cone. If you buy this kit NOTE that the charge retainer is located incorrectly on the alignment guide. The guide has it centered between fins while it is actually just to the right of a fin about 30 degrees off center. I discovered this after having glued it down, in error, at the center and also discovering it needs to go on over the army decal which required removing it, breaking it in the process but oddly there are two in the kit, and refinishing that section of body tube. The vinyl decals were new to me and I was leery as I had built a Maxi-Brute Pershing in the '70s which used water slide and don't recall have a problem, they were much larger too. However in the end these are very thin vinyl and went on nicely and I sprayed the rocket with Krylon acrylic matte clear after which toned them down and I was quite pleased with them. As I mentioned, I built an Estes Maxi-Brute Pershing in the mid-'70s and recall if flew fairly well. I'm not sure, that was a long time ago, but I may have lost it into the marshes at the KSC visitor's center in 1977 and I have proof I flew it there at that contest as well as on the crawlerway the day before. I personally like this smaller scale kit and Boyce does sell a Maxi-Brute size kit as well. Here's some pics of the completed model and my old Estes kit.

An added bonus on the second P1A kit

I am building another P1A to donate to the Fort Wayne, IN Veterans Museums Cold War exhibit. This time a set of decals we part of the kit. Having worked in the Operations section of C Btry 1st 81st I can attest that this goes a long way to creating an authentic looking Pershing Missile. The picture in the product description is shown with the added decals.

Trip dow memory lane

It was fun and not difficult to build.