Recreating a favorite from the late 1990s - Silver Comet

My oldest daughter gave me an Estes Silver Comet for Father's Day 2000.  It was fun to build and fly and has always been one of my favorites, but hasn't been made since 2000.  It had a unique nose cone with the raised outline of a "cockpit".  The kit is no longer available and my rocket has a cracked balsa fin.

Recently, I stumbled across a cool looking modified Silver Comet design with curved fins on RocketReviews.com and was inspired to try building a new version of this classic.  This makes the Silver Comet look more like a SciFi rocket from the 1950s or early 1960s.  RocketReviews had a RockSim simulation file available, which I was able to open using OpenRocket and export the fins for 3D printing.  Initially I was planning to print each fin separately, with fin tabs like the original balsa wood fins, but couldn't find a good model of the boat tail with slots so decided to use OpenRocket to generate the fins plus the boat tail.  To do this, I temporarily deleted the engine mount and centering rings from the model, selected the fins and boat tail and exported the two together as one unit as an OBJ file.  I imported that into my slicing software, Cura, then printed the tail assembly:

After removing the printer supports I did a test fit of the tail and a plain nose cone using a BT-80 body tube for comparison with my original Silver Comet (I need to shorten the body tube a couple of inches):

Next I'm working on trying to modify the basic nose cone by overlaying an outline of the cockpit a millimeter thick.  I used the freehand tool and traced the rough dimensions from my Silver Comet.  Next I need to learn how to manipulate that in TinkerCad and merge it with the curved surface of the nose cone for printing.  I'd also like to learn how to clean up my free hand (well, drawn with my finger on my Macbook's track pad) drawing by straightening some of the edges.

I still need to print centering rings to hold the 24 mm engines (D's and E's), get a parachute, print the decals (from Ye Old Rocket Forum), etc., but won't do the full assembly until I am satisfied with the nose cone.  One other thing I'm going to add is a baffle (from DigBaddy on Thingiverse), since the parachute and shroud lines got singed in my original Silver Comet; I'll print the baffle using PETG to make it more heat resistant.  This is still a work in progress so please check back soon...

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