Scoop's beautiful post about the JR21 Thunderbird 3 reminded me of a post from three years ago about the similarly shaped heat shields on the JR21 TB3 and the C21 Booster Rocket. So, second time round. here it is again for new readers.
Blog readers Amy and Jon have sent in this great bloglet [ November 2009 ]:
Blog readers Amy and Jon have sent in this great bloglet [ November 2009 ]:
Following up your recent article comparing the Sword Booster Rocket engine with the JR21 Thunderbird 3 Heat Shield we thought we'd try to help out, so here's a few statistics with some attached pics.
We'll compare the Sword Booster with the JR TB3 and also the Heat Shield from what we assume was the Lincoln International kit of TB3 (we can only assume it's from the Lincoln kit as the heat shield is all we've got ! It's been in a box of spare parts since the sixties, but we assume it's from the Lincoln kit as it's approx. 1/3 bigger than the JR toy, which seems right for the overall size of the Lincoln - about 30 cms. - to the JR - about 20 cms.).
It seems unlikely that JR and Lincon would share each others moulds but we thought we'd throw it in for completeness ! We've also noted the number of "Ribs" or "Fins" that go around each piece. So-
JR TB3 heat shield - 3.75 cms. long with 16 ribs
Booster engine - 6.5 cms. long with 12 ribs
Lincoln TB3 heat Shield - 6.5 cms. long with 18 ribs
So there doesn't seem to be much correlation - even if the Sword part was "tooled up " in scale, it could be expected to have the same number of ribs. However ...
A famous part of the TB3 design is the the tiny "flair-in" at the base of the heat shield where the ribs bend back on themselves at around 90 degrees to give an "tucked in" effect (Difficult to put into words, but just look at the base of the heat shield - they are coloured yellow on the JR TB3 ).
Now if you look closely at the pic showing the rear of the Booster engine - there it is - the exact same "tapering in" effect which is distinctive of the TB3 heat shield.
So there we are - that's our evidence - for and against - what does anyone else think ?
Fab stuff Amy and Jon! Thanks ever so much for sharing this! Woodsy November 2009
Hate to be picky, but you wouldn't put a heat shield there. It could be some form of heat radiator though, to get rid of excess heat from various systems. The Apollo ships had them.
ReplyDeleteYes - its certainly a heat radiator rather than a shield. A lot of early ion drive craft can be seen with a vaned or finned apparatus to displace the heat. The two parts on both toys do seem to serve a similar purpose. Ill havr to check graham bleathmans cut aways!
ReplyDeleteSee what you mean about radiators. Thank you chaps. Its an old post and seemed once again timely with Scoops look at JR21's TB3, a toy I would love to have in my collection. In fact I have no JR21/ C21 toys from the other TV shows. SWORD kept me busy and left nothing spare in the kitty!
ReplyDelete