Estes 2227 Tube-Marking Guide, Flying-Rocket-Model Building Tool, Rocket Model Kit Accessories for Ages 10+

The old door jam trick did not work for me, but this makes straight lines. The hole for inserting pencils is way to small for normal sized pencils, I found a special drawing pencil worked great and was held tightly in place.

Just started building rockets with my son. This tool is even more versatile then I anticipated. Not wanting to use our door frames as a guide I ordered this. It is great for making straight markings for launch lugs, fins, or anything else that needs a straight line. The pencil insert together with the ruler is great for drawing launch lugs positions on the body tube and making markings on the engine mount. Surprisingly it is also great for attaching fins to the rocket, just hold the tube down with some rubber bands, apply glue and slide the fin into the tool, attach and let it dry. I prefer this over the Estes Fin Alignment guide since I feel it gives a more stable hold on the fin and tube.

Been building rockets without this guide for many years. Decided to try it out and was pleasantly surprised with the simplicity, ease of use and accuracy. Glad I purchased.

Wish I had this tool as a kid. Nice way to align rocket fins. Works very well. Happy with purchase. One still needs patience and a little skill to build a rocket.

This thing is the bomb. I was having a hard time lining up fins on a rocket that has two sets of four fins, one set forward, one set aft. If the fins aren’t lined up precisely, the rocket’s performance would have been significantly compromised. This unit made that alignment a snap! I highly recommend this for any rocket requiring the glueing of fins to a body tube.

Either that or someone's selling NOS at List which, while disappointing, is better than the usual price gouging for a formerly(?) discontinued piece of simple yet outstanding equipment. Greatest improvement is that the inch and metric rules are now factory-set, a HUGE upgrade over the Scotch(tm) Tape, user-applied rules that used to come with the set. Marks tubes from ca. 4mm through the silly, if not downright absurd; 4", the largest bit I have on hand is no challenge. The fin markers haven't been changed so the usual trivially easy marking of tubes ranging from ca. 1cm through 4" for three and four-way fins is fast and precise. If it's time to upgrade your home-build abilities or just getting lazy, start here. Just a note though, the bases for the fin marking tubes are only calibrated for Estes body tubes so you'll need a moderately steady hand and well-calibrated Mk I eyeball to be precise with other sizes.

The hole in the measuring/marking guide is not sized for a regular sized pencil or pen. Not even close. I've managed with one of my son's pencils with disposable lead tips, but that's far from ideal. Also, this is either sized for small tubes or large tubes and hasn't worked with any of the tubes of either of the rockets I've been building (Bull Pup 12D, Baby Bertha). I've had to resort to using a door jam and now I need to clean off the pencil lead marking I've left behind. Also, the portion of the guide, intended for making fin glue-up easier, doesn't. My fins barely fit into the gap, and every way I can think to fasten the tub in place has not worked well. The most obvious is to use a rubber band, but you move the tube, the rubber band stretches, so you need to pull the rubber band away from the tube, and when you place it back down, you most likely stretched one side just a little more than the other, and now it pulls the tube in that direction. Once you manage to actually get it aligned, the fin-holder opening is so small that it will only accept the first 1/4" of fin and you still have to hold the rest of the fin to make sure it's aligned correctly. In the end, none of the fins on my Bull Pup 12D are correctly aligned. Also, if you put your rocket in here to hold it while the glue dries, you can really only do 1 fin at a time. The only really good item is the fin marker. It lets you mark the tube for accurate points for 3 fin or 4 fin setups. Only think I think is missing is a marking for the launch lug. It's not a necessity, but it would be nice and an easy thing for Estes to add. Oh, this also makes a handy place to stand up your rocket body while working on something else, or while waiting for the glue to fully cure. NOTE: don't glue a fin and place the rocket vertically for drying, the glue will run down the body of the rocket. At best you'll end up with a fin with heavy glue on one end and very light glue on the other end. At worst, the glue will not stop running down the tube at the end of the fin, and will keep going down the tube, leaving you to scrape, and sand away the unsightly blemish. The best things about this item is the fin marking disks. They're accurate and can serve a couple purposes. If it cost more I might consider returning the whole thing, but at the price point, there is enough about this which is useful.

This is a relatively inexpensive tool that will make your model making easier and help you avoid the need to be using door frames to draw lines. If you're new to model rockets, or returning after 20 or 30 years as the grown-up, here's the easiest way I can describe why you need this: you're going to be measuring and drawing lines on tubes. They need to be accurate, from end to end. There are plenty of other purposes for this item, but that will probably be the first difficult step you'll face. It's definitely worth having.

I must for anyone who build rockets

Awesome, quick delivery as well

Not a necessary tool for building model rockets, but sure makes custom building easier.