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Great News for Customers of Williams Brothers Model Products!
07/21/2010-Pratt & Whitney Engine returns!! pictureThe engine that powered some of the most famous aircraft ever built and one of the best examples of how American ingenuity in free enterprise produced the powerplant family that would help the USA a few years later in its greatest hour of need. This kit is the most intricate of the Williams Brothers models, with almost 300 parts, and makes for quite a display item sure to draw interest from the casual observers. And to that end, we have added a model display stand to the kit, which can be built for desktop, or wall mount, display.07/21/2010-The Gee Bee Z is back!!! picturePerhaps the most successful, although short lived, racing aircraft ever made. It won every race it entered! The story behind it is well worth a look and a milestone to aviation. And now, you can build it in 1/32 scale in either early or late (bigger engine) versions. The decals have been updated and corrected, as we have been doing with all the kits; so, it should be more accurate than ever before!04/27/2010-Hall's Bulldog rounds the corner!! pictureConsidered the most beautiful of the 1930's air racers, the 1/32 scale Hall's Bulldog model kit is now in production! I find that when we have visitors in the shop, they do tend to home in on the Bulldog in the display case, so it must have some kind of magical attraction. It's also most interesting to find that the original Hall family is sponsoring a replica build of the full scale Bulldog! That should be quite the aircraft for sure! Another amazing aircraft with an amazing history behind it. Leave it to the Williams Brothers to know how to pick a plane that needs to be a model!03/19/2010-Gee Bee R Racer is Taking Off!! pictureWe have begun production on the Gee Bee model R racer, one of the most famous of the 1930's race planes, and history well worth digging into. As usual, we do more than just a re-issue of the existing product. We dig deep into the Granger files and any other material we can find to review and edit the decals and markings, and this one certainly improved from that effort. The kit initially is shot to produce an R-1, which was used for pylon racing. With some modelling effort (some shaping, filing and scribing) an R-2 can be produced, and the R-2 cowl is included. In research, we found a few differences in the markings between the two, but discovered a few more that were not in the previous issue of the kit. Some color corrections were also made, and we believe modelers will be happy with the result and the ability to make the kit more accurate than ever before! For sure, if you enjoy the stories of air racing during the Great Depression, and how men, and women, pushed planes to the limits in the 'dot-com' days of aviation, this is one of the great stories of how the little guys come up with the winners- a kit that was destined to be made by the Williams Brothers!03/19/10-80hp LeRhone Engine kit reissued!! picture NOTE: in the March issue of Hobby Merchandiser, page 32, we get a mention, which is great; however, we did not have direct input or review. Thus, the article mentions the LeRhone as having a Prop, which it does Not. Again, the prop is Not included. It's an artist embelishment for the sake of box art. This is also disclaimed on the box itself, and, we note it as a desired line of text for distributors and dealers on the official description to put in their ads, but we have no control on those folks. Fortunately, this particular magazine goes to retail merchants, and not the public. But, we still want to make it clear the kit is for the engine only. The new 30260, 1/6 scale, 80hp LeRhone plastic model engine kit boasts a new, and great looking box, along with updated instructions. The kit does come with a display stand, and is designed to be built with the ability to be rotated, as per the original, to demonstrate the unique attributes of a true rotary engine! (yes, the crankcase and cylinders would spin with the propeller, while the crankshaft stood still!!) I find this kit to be a good compliment to any model of a rotary engined aircraft, as it provides a nice, large, 3-dimensional, 'zoom in' view of the rotary powerplant that was so common in the early days of aviation. (kit contains parts for one model engine- all the other great looking stuff in the photo is the artist's rendition, so NO prop stub with hardware, flags, ammo belt, goggles, gage, medal, old photo, etc) Subject to limited production. 01/07/2010-C-46 Commado! is gone! the Standard C-46 Commando! is now out of stock for us. There are a few out there in dealer land, but you'll have to do some digging around. For those who like model history, we produced 1690 standard kits, along with the 300 collector's version, and the first kit was boxed and shipped on July 18, 2007. We won't be back in production on that kit until maybe June or July this year, primarily, because we'd like to do more updates to the box art and decals to improve it some more, and our current goal is the get all the other kits worked back into production first. We're also looking at more mold tweeks as well, based on modeler comments and reviews.01/07/10-The Lost Electra is Available!! <picture> The Model 10 Electra has been getting several requests since the news of the lastet 'Amelia' move came out (we had factory 'hookie' day to go see it- very good film for aviation lovers). In response, we pulled in the reissue project to get it out as soon as we could, but not without the upgrades we wanted to do. We've added two more schemes for airlines, for a total of 5 schemes on the decal sheet now. And, in the spirit of one of the most famous users of the aircraft, we're also including an original, U.S. issue, 1963 commemerative air mail stamp of Amelia Earhart with her Electra, which makes this kit definitly a limit run!!! This makes a great historical combination with the PCA-2 Autogiro. 09/18/09- PCA-2 Autogiro reissued!!!! <picture> Our latest release just started to get boxed up today, and will begin shipping out next week. A new twist on the kit is that it is actually 2 kits now, and has decals to support about 6 versions of the machine. We wrapped in the Detroit News markings, and added new markings for the colorful autogiros flown for Beech-Nut Gum by Amelia Earhart and Frank Faulkner. It's actually quite amazing how many companies utilized this unusual aircraft for promotional value during the Great Depression!! Do some seaches on it, and you'll see it's quite an extensive history! 12/10/09- Wedell Williams comes in First!! <picture> The Wedell Williams will kick off our line of race planes as they come back to production! I must say, I'm learning quite a bit of these planes as I put them through the reissue process, and I can see why the original Williams brothers felt they needed to be models. This is another interesting and impressive aircraft with a rich history of how a gun runnin' flyboy meets up with a man with capital, and goes on to design one of the most superior race planes of the ealry 30's!! Available now! 11/9/09- World Flight of 1924 set released!! <picture> The next item in line is truely a unique set of models, and we are going the distance to keep Aviation history alive with this one. The World Flight is more than just one airplane's story, it's the story of a Flight and the men who flew them. So, in honor of the event, we made it a set of all 4 aircraft so you can build the whole flight! And, considering so many little changes occurred in scheme, we opted to include decals to support building the planes either from the day they left, to the day they completed, or ended, their flight, including the option for Boston II. After reading all the stories and text on the whole affair, we felt printed text on a page of instructions just wasn't enough to deliver the impact of what these men and aircraft accomplished, so we worked a deal with A&E's History Channel, and the set will now also include a Bonus 70 minute DVD to tell the whole story; thus, making this an educational, as well as challenging set of models!! 01/07/10C-46 Collector's Series, the 1 of 300 Celebrate the Return of WmBros!If you like to collect, we created a special edition just for you!! There are only 300 of these special production kits in existence. The major plastic parts are molded in a custom shade of blue, and the kits contains a serial numbered and signed certificate with Gold seal, as well as a personally signed, and matching numbered, print of the complete box art (with additional background action!) by aviaition artist Robert Karr. The standard box also is stamped with serial number and also has the embossed Gold Seal affixed. Numbers 1 thru 10 are reserved (or gone), but several are still available. We can't assure specific numbers, but we'll try to meet your request if we can.Check out Robert Karr's site to see the kit lay out! (Thanks Robert!) http://www.karrart.com/karrart/2dpub1/boxtops.htmThe aim is two fold for these kits- 1) to please the collector with a truely limited production item of a unique aicraft that is sure to appreciate 2) to help bring Williams Brothers 'over the hump' and generate the funding required to restore the molds and also in invest in a newer mold of another fine aircraft type. We figured this would be a creative way for our small company to celebrate the return of these products to production! Price for these kits is $64.95 each. The Special Part Number is 0055-72546-C01 (not printed on the box) Of course, if you like to build, then the standard kit is the way to go. One thing we learned with this kit, and our other products, is that our ability to do direct sales is a bit weak compared to the normal distribution network. So, we are going to open up on the Collector's kit to the dealer network and see if we can move them out into the world where they belong!Pratt & Whitney Wasp04/27/10- We are now very close on the reissue of the detailed Wasp engine kit. The boxes are going on order, and the decal will be ordered soon too.The molds are all ready to go. The new part number will be 0040-30710, and we really hope to see it ready to ship sometime in May. As an addition to the original kit, we are also including a display stand for the model, which has the options of being a wall mount display, or desktop display. The F9C Sparrowhawk is Released!!<pic>
NOTE: of
interest to aviation lovers- if you see the animated movie "UP",
you get to see Sparrowhawk fighters launched from a dirigible for
attack!!!! I fiind it interesting to see a twist, in that the hero
has a boyhood love for lighter-than-air ships, and that such a concept
would finally be used in a movie. |
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