Estes Industries

Lore & Background

Estes Industries was founded by Vernon Estes in 1958. In 1961, the company moved to a 77-acre tract of land on the outskirts of Penrose, Colorado. In 1969, Vernon sold the company to the Damon Corporation of Needham, Massachusetts, which also purchased Centuri Engineering of Phoenix, Arizona. Damon merged the two companies under the name Centuri Engineering, though the Penrose entity continued doing business as Estes Industries. Centuri products were manufactured at the Estes facility in Penrose, but sales of Centuri products were never as successful as Estes brand products, and the Centuri line was discontinued in 1983. Following a hostile takeover of Damon Corporation in 1989, Estes Industries became part of Hobby Products, and the business name was shortened to Centuri Corporation. In 1996, Hobby Products acquired Cox Products of Corona, California, moving its assets to the Estes facility. In 2002, the combined company was sold and renamed Estes-Cox Corp. On August 30, 2002, CEO Barry Tunick acquired Estes-Cox from TCW Capital for $15 million. On January 15, 2010, Estes-Cox was acquired by Hobbico, Inc. On January 10, 2018, Hobbico filed for bankruptcy, and Estes-Cox was sold to Estes Industries LLC on April 12, 2018.

Estes produced a wide variety of rocket model kits, typically using paperboard tubing for the fuselage and balsa wood for fins and nose cones. The first kit was the Astron Scout (K-1) for $0.70, followed by the Astron Mark (K-2) and Astron Space Plane (K-3). Notable designs included the Astron X-Ray with a see-through plastic payload compartment, the Camroc camera that replaced the nose cone, and the Cineroc movie camera. In the 1960s, Estes offered scale models of NASA designs such as the Gemini-Titan and Saturn-V. Later kits from the late 1970s and early 1980s included scale and sport-scale designs and exotics, such as a replica of the Space Shuttle in 1981. The downturn in the hobby in the later 1980s led to consolidation, and during the 1990s the model line was reduced to simple preassembled designs. By 2019, Estes offered a much wider range, including complex models like the Saturn V.

Estes engines are single-use with compressed black powder propellant, color-coded for recommended use: green for single-stage, purple for upper stages, red for booster stages, and black (current) or blue (older) for plugged engines. Each engine has a code defined by the National Association of Rocketry (NAR), indicating total impulse (letter), average thrust (first number), and delay to ejection (final number). Engines come in 13mm, 18mm, 24mm, and 29mm diameters. From 2013 to 2018, Estes carried certain AeroTech 29mm APCP motors relabeled as Estes Pro Series II, featuring rear retention with a molded-in thrust ring. After those motors were discontinued, Estes 29mm black powder motors require a tape ring to simulate the aft thrust ring for kits with screw-on retainers.

Reader's Guide

Estes Industries holds a central place in the history of model rocketry, having been founded in 1958 and surviving multiple corporate mergers and acquisitions over six decades. The company's early innovations, such as the Mabel machine that produced a completed engine every 5.5 seconds, enabled safe and inexpensive manufacturing. Estes sponsored a notable indoor launch of a Saturn V model at halftime of the Bluebonnet Bowl in the Houston Astrodome on December 31, 1969. The company's product line evolved from simple kits like the Astron Scout to complex scale models and, by 2019, a wide range including the Saturn V. Estes engines, with their NAR coding and color-coding system, became a standard in the hobby. The consolidation with Centuri Engineering and later Cox Products shaped the industry, though Centuri products were never as successful as Estes brand products. The company's legacy includes its role in popularizing model rocketry through accessible kits and engines, and its survival through bankruptcy and ownership changes underscores its enduring significance in the hobby.

Did You Know?

• Vernon Estes created a machine called 'Mabel' that could produce a model rocket engine every 5.5 seconds.
• The first Estes kit, the Astron Scout (K-1), sold for $0.70.