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This page will offer Dave's comments on a variety of topics related to Diels Engineering, Inc., models, and/or other topics he wants to comment on. E-Mail your comment
August 13, 2021
Hi Gang,
The text below is what I first put on the Home page earlier today. However I decided to put it here and put something else on the Home page.
***PLEASE NOTE. PRICES HAVE INCREASED ON SEVERAL ITEMS. THE REASON FOR IT IS THAT THE COST OF MATERIALS, UPDATING EQUIPMENT, AND SOFTWARE HAS INCREASED OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS. I HAVE NOT TO INCREASE PRICES BUT WITH ITEMS SUCH AS BALSA AND A BUNCH OF OTHER THINGS HAVE FORCED ME TO INCREASE PRICES ON KITS AND PLANS. CANOPIES AND DECALS STAY THE SAME FOR NOW.
I MAY NEED TO RAISE PRICES AGAIN FOR THE LASER CUT KITS BEFORE I HAVE TO ORDER MORE STOCK. IF THE PRICE OF BALSA KEEPS GOING UP SO WILL THE PRICES OF THE LASER CUT KITS. ORDER NOW TO AVOID HIGHER PRICES LATER.
THANKS TO ALL MY CUSTOMERS FOR YOUR SUPPORT IN THE PAST. I HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON.***
The 2021 summer activities are briefly covered on the Home page.
I had hoped on getting a brand new kit out but a flurry of activities of various kinds including my problems with the F7F conversion kept me from working on the new kits. More later I hope.
Dave
March 12, 2021
Hi Gang,
I never seem to finish what the last message has started. First, I wanted to let you all know that I am in the process of going through and updating where necessary to increase prices to account for the increase in materials and printing materials and covering when I need to make repairs on equipment so I can keep the business running. My first area of concern was the pricing of the Plans section of the web site and an update of the catalog which has not been updated for a couple of years. Many of the plans in the Plans page and price list pages go back at least 10 years and maybe more. So I started today making some changes in the form of higher prices. Where the cost has been rising is in paper cost and the cost of the actual printing process including ink cartridges or bulk ink and the yearly failing of ink printheads. Not to mention the time to feed the printers or copiers and clean up the mess. Then there is the folding, printing and inserting parts sheets and or building instructions inserting or boxing the plans and printing mailing labels and entering names and addresses in the compter. Then there is the trip to the post office. So when I looked at my last catalog showing the prices for the the latest changes caused by new or revised kits I also looked at the price list for the other items. I looked at the plans list and said to myself I either have to increase prices or eliminiate the a bunch of plans from the list. I decided to keep them on the list but increase the prices. So I started today. If you were planning on getting some plans you may want to throw out your old year 2000 and checkout the new prices. I don't think the increases are hidious. But let me know how you feel about it.
Continuing the blog from 12-10-2020.
I dug out the Corsair kit 13 prototype and compared it to the origninal plan and decided to set it aside and do something else. So I decided to look at the TA-152H kit 19. Well, I got lucky. I made a few changes here and there and managed to make some additions that were not on the original plans from the Model builder book. I took a couple of months and adding the Align-O-Tab construction to the fuselage. Redrawing the wing to clean up some minor points. Did enough CAD drawings to make up prototype laser cut layouts and order the first prototype parts. In the mean time I made some more changes to the drawings and added a new spinner that fit the shape of a real 152 spinner,
December 10, 2020
Hi Gang,
I never seem to have enough time to stop and enter whatever thing comes to mind. So I will try to update you on what I am doing or going to try to do in the future. It has been a hectick last half of this year. The Virus has made an impression on all of us in one way or another. So here goes.
As many of you know II have spent allmost all my design time converting various printwood kits to laser cut kits. My last printwood conversion was the Grace kit. It has gotten good reviews from several customers who have built the new laser cut kit. But that design and producttion ended at the end of March 2020. The Grace kit ended up being a total redesign. I spent most of my time on the the computer designed kits who printwood has run out due to losing my source for printing on wood. With the Grace done that left me with only two others left to convert. One, the TBY kit #32, still had printwood left and the other one Kit #26 was out of printwood and I started working on it a couple years ago but stopped when one of the other more popular kits ran out. So I deceded to look into the older hand drawn kits that had been out of production for a while. A couple years ago I was working on the Zero kit and managed to get that one revised and mostly redesigned and it has done fairly well. So since it was from the Model Builder book I decided to take a look at one of the other out of stock and out of production models that I had previously kitted. So the one that I had been asked about was the Corsair kit 13. Also another one many have asked about was the F7F Tigercat which I started working on a conversion several years ago. So back in April I started working on the Corsair kit and also on the F7F kit. The Corsair kits still had two of the 4 printwoo sheets. So I had this great idea of converting the missing sheets to laser cutting and then ordering enough to make up the half laser half printwood kit which might be assigned the Kit # 13-PW-LC. So I spent many hours redrawing the two sheets on my trusty computer and then ordered a couple sets from my laser cutter. Then when I got the laser cut sheets I started to build a prototype. That's when I started to build the wing. Many of you who have built the Corsair from the Model Builder book know what I mean. I still had my production prototype from the original kit. To be continued.
May 10, 2020
Hi Gang,
After announcing the Grace Laser cut kit last fall time has flown by. The Grace kit is now in production but I only have a few left before I re-order. So far I have put things on hold because of the shortage of good balsa. My laser cutter ran out about a month ago and I am slowly running out of my parts sheets for several kits, including the Grace. Then there is the Virus appearing out of China and making more problems. My shipments especially to the west are slowing to a crawl even the old pony express could beat.
I find myself working on several projects from new subjects to converting some old subjects to laser cut kits. How do I manage? Well it usually isn't brilliant planning. For instance I have been working on a new subject to the point of almost ready for ordering laser cut wood for the first prototype. However due to balsa shortages I have to wait extra time before getting the wood and starting the build. So in the meantime I am converting and basically redesigning and converting one of my older kits. This kit is also approaching a first prototype build. There is always a wait time between ordering the wood and receiving it. So I switch back to upgrading the last computer drawn plans which were printwood kits to convert them to laser cut kits. Those two kits are #26 and #32 which are now out of stock. #26 is the little Curtiss BF2C-1 which will have major design changes and #32 the Consolidated TBY-2 which will also have some minor changes.
November 18, 2019
Hi Gang,
It has been a busy year and so far this year. After finishing the Buffalo launch I spent the most of my time working on the redesigned Grace kit and snother all new kit subject. I will be starting my hopefully final prototype build. If all goes well I will order the parts for production. Right now I am hoping to get the Grace kit into production in early spring next year or sooner. I plan to get the new kit to the first prototype stage by mid January 2020.
All for now. I will be back later this week with more news.
Dave
July 30, 2019
Hi Gang,
Well its been a long long time since m last update but better late than never.
First on the list is that I finally finished converting the Brewster Buffalo printwood kit to laser cut wood. It is now kit # 30-LC. It is basically an almost redesign both in adding laser cut wood and totally redrawing the plans. A few things were kept but rearranged on the plans drawings which now total 5 each 18" x 24" sheets. It took that many sheets to allow the builder to build almost any one of the versions of the Buffalo. Also included are Building instructions with photos and text, and 8 pages of painting and finishing which formerly was on one large sheet. What took so long was the time lag between various prototype builds checking out fit of parts after making design changes. So the kit has 8 different parts sheets. It took a longer that anticipated time to finish the building instructions and adding photos of my prototype builds. The kits are now in stock and the price is $40.95 each.
I will now go to work on getting the Aichi Grace kit conversion/redesign to laser cut wood. It will be a total redesign. Many builders of the original kit did not like the way the wing fit into the fuselage. In the redesign of the wing I discovered some other things that needed revising so I ended up redesigning the whole thing. I am now working on the first laser prototype build which has generated a list of changes. I am working down the list now and once in a while I go back and make major changes. I still hope to get it finished by the end of the year.
I had some bad news from my Esaki tissue supplier. When I went to order some more Esaki tissue I was told he had none to sell. He said he couldn't get anymore indicating it was no longer being produced. I conatcted a customer of mine in Japan and he verified that He could no longer buy Esaki in Japan. He used some colored Esaki and he couldn't get it anymore. So since it seems to be no longer available as of now I have started putting domestic tissue in my kits.
That's all for now,
Dave
January 10, 2019
Hi Gang,
Well the Holidays are now over and a new year has started. I hope you all have had time to spend with your families and friends. I know that we hosted both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners this year which was a lot of work but went well.
2018 was a year of ups and downs for Diels Engineering. For the most part I didn't come close to accomplishing what I had planned. Once again I got stuck working on the the F2A Buffalo conversion into a laser cut kit. While I was waiting on some 2nd prototype wood for changes I thougt were going to be final I started the first prototype build of the Grace laser kit conversion. Then I decided to see if I could convert the old Zero kit to laser cut wood thinking it would be the easiest one of the old printwood hand drawn kits to convert. The result of these choices was that although I did get the Zero kit converter or rather revised into a laser kit but stopped work on the F2A and Grace projects. Sprinkled in 2018 came getting my cataracts removed. When I finally got into the Zero project as described in my last posting I spent a whole lot of energy on it and in the end I actually was only one week late in getting the original advance orders shipped out. I am still waiting on comments from customers who have started building the kit. After the Zero kit project was finished I went back to work on the F2A kit in December and finally I have changed the design incorporating suggestions from my volunteer builders and results of the revised design of the Zero. I am waiting on some revised parts of the F2A so I can test builb three preliminary prototypes before getting to the production status hopefully late this spring or early summer. So as for 2018 was a bust. Only one new conversion kit the Zero. It was kind of fun and I came up with some design changes that may be applied to other projects.
So here we are in 2019. I have decided to shut down operations for the month of February 2019 for a much needed rest. I am waiting onsome more supplies to keep the current laser cut kits in stock but I will not be shipping anything out. I need time to think about what to do next and do some business planning. I will be monitoring emails and if any orders come in I will fill them in March.
All for now,
Dave
August 15, 2018
Hi Gang,
The Zero Revision Saga.
I thought I would let you all know about what I most times go through when coming out with a new kit or revised kit with laser cut wood. This was going to be the announcement of the first laser cut revision of a previously printwood kit but the announcement was a bit too long for sending out to various groups that I decided to put it here in the blog. It will probably make it to my website also in some form or another with probably less details.
Diels Engineering Inc. announces a new laser cut kit of the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero. It is about 50% converting the old Kit #18 and 50% revised design and what I think are several improvements. The old kit has been out of production for a few years and was based on the plan in the Model Builder book Flying Scale Models from WWII. The original plan was by Bob Peck. I purchased rights from Model Builder Magazine to market the kits and plans of this model.
Why did I pick this former printwood kit to convert to laser cut wood? As some of you know most of my kits from Kit 1 to Kit 24 are no longer in production mostly do to losing my source for printwood but also they are not easily converted to laser cut wood because all but one of those kits was hand drawn and converting them to the Computer takes much more time than converting the computer drawn plans. So I have been converting the kits from kit 25 to kit 45 to laser cut. I only have a few left of those to convert. I picked this one to convert because it looked like the easiest one to convert. Also it was one of my best sellers in the printwood version.
I had a scan of the original kit plans which I imported into AutoCad and started working on it. To make a very long story shorter I now have gone through design, layout parts, send parts sheets out to the laser cutter, build the prototype, make changes as needed then make more design changes buy more parts, build another prototype. etc. I am almost finally happy with the design and will be ordering the first set of production parts soon.
Unfortunately I didn't like several things about the original design so I made many changes to it. The overall outlines of the design I kept. I even added more stuff. I will highlight some of the changes below.
1. I re-drew the basic wing which was not the A6M2b wing but wa the A6M5-52 wing. The A6M1, A6M2, and A6M2b, Aand A6M3-22 had 12 meter wingspans, the one on the drawing scaled 11 meters which was the A6M5-52 wing. Since the basic shape of the wing was the same for all the A6M's except the A6M3-32 Hamp. I did the Hamp wing also. So this kit will now have drawings for the three basic wings. You you can build any one of 5 or 6 versions.
2. The original design had most of its formers and wing ribs made from 1/32" thick balsa. It now will give you a choice. It has the formers and ribs on both 1/32" and 1/16" thich balsa.
3. I revised the construction of the fuselage to make it so that the builder doesn't need any building board. You still need the board for the wings, stab, and rudder. I call the design the Align-O-Tab Comet style design. You assemble it in the air using somewhat inter- locking pieces to assure the parts all fit together properly.
4. Modified the Rudder a bit. Revised the Stab design because it was too flimsy. Revised the fuselage/wing attachment to allow more room for a larger rubber motor.
5. A few other minor tweaks.
6. The kit will have four sheets of plans (18 "x 24") along with some extra stuff to be determined. One of the plan sheets is the original printwood kit plan. Sheet 2 is my revised drawing showing the parts and fuselage. Sheet 3 is a step by step version of the fuselage. Sheet four contains the three wing designs and parts.
7. The kit will contain four sheets of laser cut parts. Included on the parts sheets are also some assembly gauges to assure parts alignment during construction.
I am hoping to get the kit into production in late November 2018. The price is tentatively set at $39.95 plus $12 S&H for USA. I am taking orders now through the end of September 2018. I will then order my laser cut wood and other stuff for the kit. Kit contains the usual stuff, plans, vac formed canopy, Esaki tissue, plastic prop, hardware, six feet of Tan II rubber, and decals. Order before September 30 and I'll knock off $4 off the kit price. If you want more than one kit add an extra $3 S&H. Foreign orders contact me for the shipping cost. SEE THE SPECIAL OFFERS PAGE FOR MORE PRICING INFO.
So that is how I turned what I thought would be a simple task into a major project.
My hopes are at least a few of you will buy one or two and send me your comments on it.
Until next time,
Dave
July 27, 2018
Hi Gang,
Since I last posted several things have occurred. First a chance inquiry about wether the F4U kit would ever be in stock again sent me on a search through my basement boondock in search of my several shelves of what I thought was partial leftover sheets of printwood from out of production kits. In the process I discovered enough printwood to make up six F4U kits. So I did and so far have sold two of them. At this writing only four are left and they are first come-first served. Also in the same pile of printwood leftovers I found enough to make up two F4F kits. Only one F4F kit is left. Click here for details.
Second, I have finally made a lot of progress on finishing the Brewster Buffalo conversion to a laser cut kit mentioned the last time. All that's left to do is to go over the check the drawings and send out for what I hope is the pre-production laser cut wood and in the meantime finish adding some building instructions possibly with some photos of my prototype builds. I will be making an Advanced Order announcement hopefully by the end of August 2018.
Third, I have just sent out and order for what I hope is the pre-production order of laser cut wood for the Mitsubishi A6M Zero kit # 18-LC. I have to make my third or fourth prototype build before putting it into production. I made some additional changes and it works out as I hope it will it will be a fun kit to build and fly. Again if all goes well I will send out an Advanced Order announcement some time in September 2018.
Fourth, I have started working on the Grace kit # 33 Aichi B7A2. Actually I started it a year or two ago and ordered prototype laser cut wood for testing but for some reason put it aside for something else. So yesterday I ran off a set of very incomplete drawings and got the laser cut wood out and started building the first laser cut prototype. This kit will take some more work but it looks like I may have it ready first quarter of 2019 if all goes well. The changes required totally redrawing the plans and many corrections from the original design. So it is basically a new kit. My test build of the fuselage started yesterday and after about two hours (I spent some of that time trying a new method of attaching the opposite side formers to the keel) the basic fuselage went together with only a few minor changes needed. It was ready for the stringers but dinner time chime "hey you the grub is ready" sounded. So I may get to the stringers at my next opportunity.
Sadly my work on new designs has lagged but I still am hopeful that at least two more brand new kits will be forthcoming next year the Good Lord willing.
All for now,
Dave
July 9, 2018
Hi Gang,
Long time since I have had the time to post here. I have been very busy trying to finish converting the Buffalo kit to laser cut. I had a couple of volunteers build a prototype back last fall and they made several comments and suggestions. I had not looked at the Buffalo since it first came out in kit form many years ago. So the first laser cut wood for the prototype didn't have many changes. When the reports came in from the volunteers I started going back to my reference books. That first kit concentrated on the Navy versions of the F2A-2 and the F2A-3 for the most part ignoring the rest of the versions except on the decal sheet. It was pointed out to me that I had made a few mistakes in my design. Nothing that was real serious but none the less they needed to be corrected. At the same time I had never liked the way some of the sub assemblies were designed. So I started to make revisions and more revisions. In the end I decided to redo the whole thing keeping the basic good parts and revising the old parts. So far the result stands as 5 sheets of construction drawings covering how to build any one of 7 or more versions of the Buffalo. Yes has resulted in Buffalo overkill. I will keep you informed when I finally get it finished. I think I wasted too much time on it. Or maybe I will just scrap the thing.
Next in my spare time I have been converting the A6M Zero to laser cut wood. As a result of trying this I found so make mistakes on the old Model Builder Book plans that it has become an also today redesign.
So in short, I wasted a hell of a lot of time on projects that will provide little return on investment. Time to consider packing it in.
Dave
November 24, 2017
Hi Gang,
It has been a while since I have posted anything here. So here goes. First of all when I wrote the last update the Ki-27 Kit #27-LC was just about to go into production. Well that actually did go into production and is now in stock.
The next item I mentioned was converting the Buffalo kit to laser cut wood. Well I actually made a simple conversion of the kit and had some test wood and build a prototype myself and had a couple volunteer builders build finished models and get their opinions of the kit. As a result I received several suggestions for changes. I agreed with most of the changes but if I made the changes I would have to add more drawings showing changes to the original printed drawings. I had already added one large sheet showing changes made in the first prototype laser cut conversion and the proposed added changes would require at least one or two new drawings showing how to use the originally drawings and incorporate the changes. At this point one of my volunteers pointed out a mistake in one of the F2A versions that I had missed when doing the original design. Keep in mind that this whole process took about a month of time. So I decided to see if the changes could be made to allow the builder to have the choice of making up about 6 different versions of the Navy (3) and export versions (3+). So I started working on a plan to use as much of the original design parts that were OK to use and add in the items to be changed. All the while I am doing this the time is flying by. But now I am really on a mission. Now remember I had wanted to be in production by August 2017. HA!!! In August I was still working on the changes. In September I was finally able to get the changes made and drawings up to about 85% complete to order the second round of prototype parts. So I ordered the parts. In the mean time I suddenly started wondering what the cost would be for the New old Brewster Kit would be as I was now up to 5 or 6 large sheets of drawings and 6 sheets of wood. Then I decided to hold off until I could see what the final cost from my laser cutter and all the other stuff for the kit would be. So now here I am at the end of November and I still haven't made up my mind. Stay tuned for the next exciting chapter of "What the heck is Dave doing now?".
The next item was the status of the BF2C-1 conversion. In my spare time I decided it needed major design changes so it is on hold at this time.
Next was conversion of the Grace kit to laser cut wood. I have redesigned the model updating several areas such as the wing/fuselage joints and correcting the shape of the fuselage. I have the first prototype wood but haven't had a chance to build the prototype. Drawings are only complete enough to build a prototype. Hoping to get it finished by next summer.
Nothing done on the Seawolf or Lacey.
Be sure to take advantage of the Sale which has been extended until December 15, 2017.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
Dave
April 17, 2017
Hi Gang,
Well its been a long time since my last posting mainly because I haven't been able to take the time to learn how to use this new web site. Its a long story but I won't bore you with the details. However, I still have not mastered making changes to it yet so some things are in need of upgrading. Hopefully I can finally find time to work a little bit each week to get it to my liking.
These are the latest happenings. The New Laser Cut Avenger kit #38-LC is now in stock. You won't find it on the laser cut kit page yet because I haven't found the way to get it moved over from the old kits page. Also I haven't been able to get a picture of the P-36A Kit #47-LC posted on the laser cut kit page. My latest conversion is the Nakajima Ki-27 Nate kit #27-LC which will be out hopefully by the end of April in a couple weeks. I'm waiting on the first production shipment of wood. More on that one after I get the wood in house. Price is tentatively set for $37.95 plus S&H.
Other work being done at this time is I have finished converting the Brewster Buffalo Kit #30-LC to laser cut wood. I am waiting on what I hope to be the last set of prototype wood for a final check build before going into production. I hope to have it in production by July or August this year.
I am also in process of converting the BF2C-1 Kit #26-LC. It is in the prototype building stage and I need to do some additional design revisions before going into a second prototype. That kit should be out sometime in the fall this year.
Also I have been doing a total redisign of the Aichi B7A-2 Grace kit. That will be Kit #33-LC. I don't expect ot finish it until late this year. I am far enough along that I hope to order the first set of prototype laser cut wood by the first week in May.
That will leave only the TBY-2 Seawolf Kit #32 and the Lacey Kit #17 as the only CAD designed kits left to convert to laser cut. Those will probably be worked on sometime next year. All the other older kits are hand drawn and require too much time to convert to laser cut wood at this time.
Finally, I am working on two new designs and the work is progress slowly do to the stuff listed above.
Thats all for now.
Dave
October 3, 2016
Hi Gang,
Finally I have finish the conversion of the Grumman Avenger kit # 38-LC to a laser kit. See the Special Offers page for details. I started out just doing a simple laser conversion a couple of years ago after the printwood kits ran out. I thought I was finished and ordered my first set of laser cut wood. When I started building the kit using the original printwood drawings I found some things I didn't like about parts of the design. So I set it aside and moved on with other laser conversion and new kit projects. I think I did make some relatively minor changes and ordered another prototype set of parts. I finally about a year ago started working on it again and found some more things I wanted to change. After another set of prototype laser cut wood and another build I decided to use the Align-O-Tab construction method. I set it aside while getting the P-36A kit into production. Back to the TBF and more changes. The next prototype was using the A-O-T construction. This time I decided to finish the model and get it ready for a flight test. Not happening. I found a problem that needed a change. Back to the design this time a major one. Bake to the laser cutter. Back the the latest prototype build. Finally I'm satisfied. I will be sending the final (I hope) laser layouts to the cutter this week. My shop is looking like a Grumman experimental show with so many remains of TBF stuff laying around.
A word about the kit price. The special offer advanced order price goes away after November 15th. That gives you a month to decide whether you want to get one or not. They would sure make a nice Christmas present for a model building friend or even for yourself. The November 15 deadline is when i have to place the production order in able to get the kits out by December 15th.
In the mean time guess what! No don't bother. I converted 3 more printwood kits to laser cut kits. Kits #26, 27, and 30 are waiting in the wings for me to start building the prototypes. I am hoping to get them all finished before next summer.
So that's what I have been doing this summer. I haven't had much time to get to more new designs but I am hoping to get one or two new ones out next year.
Well, that's all for now. Spread the word.
Dave
August 1, 2016
Hi Gang,
It has been a busy few months since my last posting. I had origninally planned to go the the FAC Nats in Geneseo but decided not to go for personal and family reasons.
I am working on the TBF Avenger laser cut conversion. It will be featuring the Align-O-Tab construction. I am building the latest round of prototype parts now and hope to finalize the design by the end of August. It has taken longer than I had hoped but I found some things that needed to be updated. As a result I will have 5 sheets of drawings and overall 9 sheets of wood in the kit. The list price of the kit will be $51.95 but I will have a preprodution introductory price before it goes into production.
I also am in the process of converting the Curtiss BF2C-1/Hawk III old kit #26 and the Nakajima Ki-27 old kit #27 into laser kits. I am awaiting the first set of laser cut wood for them in the next couple weeks. I estimate the list price of each kit to be about $37.95.
All for now,
Dave
April 20, 2016
Hi Gang,
It has been a busy almost 5 months since I posted any things on this blog. Most of my time has been spent getting out the P-36A kit #47-LC and the Combo 11 promotion. That promotion is now over and the P-36 is now added to the laser cut kit list officially.
Putting together the Combo 11 took a lot of effort. The last Combo kit I did was about 9 years ago. In a way it was fun but it was also a lot of work. The first 10 Combo promotion flyers were sent out using a mailing list and that involved about 400 to 500 snail mail flyers. I used the last list and sent out about 200 flyers this time and also used the registered members list of this web site and the various Yahoo groups. The results were that I got back 33 "No forwarding address" or "deceased" and a couple remove my name replies. I also got about 25 or 30 orders for either Combo 11's of single kits of the P-36 or P-66. As a result I shipped a grand total of 25 Combo 11's, 18 P-36 single kits, and 6 P-66 single kits. Some of the orders had more than one kit on the order sheet. It hardly seems worth the effort!
Thanks to John Ernst and Rich Weber for their help in check building the P-36A and P-66 kits to verify the accuracy of the plans, laser cut wood fit, and ease of assembly.
Kit #7 and Kit #8 are now out of stock indefinitely.
Time to make some decisions on what to do next.
Dave
November 30, 2015
Hi Gang,
I have decided to have a Special Chrismas/Year End Sale. My friend Dennis Norman wrote about it in the lastest issue of Model Aviation in his Free Flight Scale Column. Frankly I had forgotten we discussed it back in either late July of August. So when I read it early this morning I figured I better put the info up on the web site. So take advantage of this special sale.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.
Dave Diels
November 19, 2015
Hi Gang,
Well 2 more of my kits are now out of stock and will most probably never be produced again. Kit #2, and Kit #22. And Kit #8 which was recently put back in production to use up the last of the printwood for the kit is down to only 1 left in stock.
Kit #7 (only 2 left) and Kit #20 (only 3 left) will probably not last very long either.
It is sad for me to see these kits go out of stock along with the ones that have gone over the last few years. A lot of work went into designing them and kitting them over the years but sadly orders had gone down and with the loss of my printwood supplier that pretty much sounded the death knell. I was in the process of ordering more stock when I was told the supplier couldn't do the work any more.
The only way I will consider putting any back into production is if I can convert the drawings to CAD as Kits 25 through 46 are done now. I still have several of them to convert.
I just ordered the balance of parts for the Helldiver kit.
Just started my build of the laser cut P-36. So far it looks good. But getting the canopies will be delayed until January.
About a year or so ago I ran out of the Grace Kit #33. So I decided to start converting it to a laser cut kit. In the process of going over the drawings I saw some outines that didn't look quite right. Also I found some errors on the drawings. So I decided not to just convert to laser cut wood but to redesign the whole kit. I really never liked the wing to fuselage design and the fuselage shape needed work. So I am working when I get bored with other things on coming up with a brand new plan. No date yet on when it will be finished just hoping now in will be sometime next year.
In the meantime the Avenger is next on my list for conversion and I hope to do my personal build from the laser cut wood I have had for some time.
All for now hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving.
Dave
November 17, 2015
Hi Gang,
Latest updates on laser cut kit conversions or new kits. I have ordered the laser cut wood for the laser cut kit conversion of the Curtiss SB2C-4 Helldiver now Kit # 44-LC. I expect to have it in production anytime between the end of November to the middle of December this year. So far I have a handful of advance orders so I only ordered a couple dozen sets of parts. So if you want one get your order in ASAP. I won't order anymore until I run out of them.
As for the new P-36 Kit # 47-LC, I am behind a bit. It will be sometime in January 2016.
All for now.
Dave
October 11, 2015
Hi Gang,
Latest updates. Summer sale is over. Unfortunately only a few took advantage of it. Back to the drawing board. Progress is also been slowed down on the new Kit # 47-LC of the Curtiss P-36A Hawk. It will be delayed until sometime in the first quarter of 2016.
The last item is an advance order special on the SB2C-4 laser cut conversion kit #44-LC. See the special offers page for details.
All for now,
Dave
September 3, 2015
Hi Gang,
Latest updates. I have extended the recently ended Summer Sale until September 30, 2015. It was pointed out to me that summer has not yet ender. I have also put the plastic kits on a 40% off sale until the end of September.
I ask all of you to read the Ordering Instructions Page. I realize that this website isn't the easiest to order from. But barring a miracle I will not soon become an expert webpage designer. Bear with me. When using PayPal before clicking the PayNow button please total up your order first, then if a sale discount applies deduct it. Then add shipping and handling. That is the amount to put on the PayPal order form. You can even make a list of items ordered in the comments box. Or you can send me an email telling me what you want and I can do that for you. I'm happy to do it or help you any way I can.
I know this will cost me dearly but effective immediately the minimum order for any items listed on my website will be $8 plus shipping and handling as listed on the Ordering Page. That would only cover the cost of what it takes to put together an order for any single one of my plans. Since some of my peanut plans are only $3 and some customers seem to have a hard time adding any shipping charges I often lost money on such small orders.
I am well into construction of the SB2C-4 kit conversion to laser cut kit using Align-O-Tab construction. Should be done by the end of the year.
Progress is also been good on the new Kit # 47-LC of the Curtiss P-36A Hawk. I'm about half way through the 1st laser Align-O-Tab prototype parts build and so far only minor changes to be made. I am hoping to get it done by the end of the year.
All for now,
Dave Diels
July 22, 2015
Hi Gang,
Latest updates. I finally got around to doing a prototype laser build of my next kit conversion the SB2C-4 Helldiver which will be kit # 44-LC when
I finally get it into production. As usual found several things that needed correction. Hope to get the corrections made by the end of August. Then order another set of parts for a final check before production. The kit will feature the new Align-O-Tab construction.
Also finally I have ordered prototype laser cut parts for my next new kit, the Curtiss P-36A (Hawk 75)(Mohawk) which will be kit #47-LC. This will be the first iteration. It usually takes 3 or 4 before I finally get all the bugs worked out. I'd like to get it done by the end of 2015.
Several of the printwood kits that are still in stock are in short supply. Once they are gone they may be gone forever. Check here to see the list.
All for now,
Dave
July 22, 2015
Hi Gang,
Well we had a good time at the Geneseo FAC Non-Nats Contest. Didn't sell much but got reaquainted with some old friends, made some new ones, and saw some nice flights. Its always good to get back home. Hope some of you will take advantage of the Summer Sale--20% off everything. Registered members of this website get and extra 5% off. See details at this special offers page.
I decided to put Kit # 5 back into production. I had lots of printwood left and replacing the old decals with color copies off set any other increases in cost due to other stuff like tissue, boxes, etc. Also made up some Kit # 8 TBD-1 kits the same way only had enough materials for 5 kits. Also used up the rest of the materials for Kits # 20 (4 each), # 32 (5 each), and # 22 (5 each). All of these are printwood kits and when they are gone they will probably never return.
If any of you know of a source for doing printwood please let me know. There are a couple of kits that I would like to put back into production.
Thanks again for your support.
July 14, 2015
Hi Gang,
On the eve of leaving for the Geneseo FAC Non-Nats contest I have been updating the web site to show some changes including announcing the Summer Sale announcement on the home page. I have spent most of my time the last month preparing for the FAC contest and in that time I have basically used up 95% of my printwood and laser cut wood inventory as well as most of my stripwood and other kits parts inventory to make up kits to sell at the contest.
Hope I sell enough to buy more inventory for some new kits.
Hope to see you at Geneseo.
Dave
April 21, 2015
Hi Gang,
Just to update things a bit. The Mitsubishi Ki-30 Ann conversion is now complete and the laser cut wood should be in hand in a day or two. It will go into production by the end of the week I hope. The introductory sale continues until the end of June.
In the mean time work continues on the New Curtiss P-36A and also on the SB2C-4 Helldiver conversion to a laser cut kit. I'm hoping to get the Helldiver done by the end of june is all goes well.
All for now,
Dave
March 24, 2015
Hi Gang,
Finally winter is over. Well maybe not for a month or so around here.
After introducing the new Kit #46-LC Vultee Vanguard P-66 and converting the Hawker Typhoon Kit (#29-LC) to a laser cut kit I am 90% done with converting the Mitsubishi Ki-30 Ann to a laser cut kit. I hope to have it in production by the end of April. I will be announcing it soon with an introductory price. It will now be Kit #45-LC.
I the mean time I am working on converting the Curtiss SB2C-4 to a laser cut kit which I hope to complete by the end of June.
Also hopefully soon to come will be another Align-O-Tab kit of the Curtiss P-36A (also known as Mohawk and Hawk 75). I'm only doing the A version. It will be Kit #47-LC and be in 1/24 scale of course. I hope to have at it done this summer.
Keep checking here periodically for updates.
Dave
December 24, 2014
Hi Gang,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.
I haven't discussed anything here in quite a while. So for those who are interested read on. As you know by now I have finally introduced my new Kit #46-LC, the P-66 Vultee Vanguard. A relatively unknown WW2 limited production fighter that was mostly used and abused by the Chinese Air Force after being passed on by the United States and the British. See the laser kit page for more details.
I will release the Hawker Typhoon on January 2, 2015 as a new Laser Cut kit and a special introductory price. An announcement will go out to memebers registered to the web site at that time. Since I have no idea how many will be ordered I limited my first run to 20 kits. If I get a lot of orders I will order more materials but that will not be available until mid or late March 2015.
I am taking some time to review myentire line. I do not at this time have a source for printwood for the original printwood line of kits. So I will probably drop all of them from the line as they run out. A close look at my list and you can see only 7 of the first 24 kits in my line are still in stock and two of them are peanut kits that haven't sold more than 6 of each in the last 5 years. I do want to convert 2 or 3 of them to laser cut but the process is very tedious and I just don't have the time to do them. Its too bad since I had a request for 50 kits of one of them.
My current plans which seem to change on a monthly basis is to finish converting the computer designed kits all to laser cut. I have already obtained prototype laser cut wood for kits 38, 44, and 45 and am working on building the laser prototypes to check the parts out. Hopefully those kits will be out in 2015, Somehow I want to finish another brand new kit hopefully by the Geneseo contest in 2015 but not holding my breath. So that's my plan for 2015.
All the best to you all,
Dave Diels
July 29, 2014
Hi Gang,
I have been updating several pages on this site today. First I have updated the Special Offers page with a Free postage offer good til August 18, 2014. Then I updated several other pages to reflect current stock. One major change is that I am eliminating the Printwood and Laser Cut wood page. These items will no longer be listed. I have sold less than a handful since its inception and it takes a lot of time to update as stock dwindles.
Those of you who would normally see me at the Geneseo FAC Nats know I didn't make it this year. The main reason was that since my last entry in this column said I planned to have another 3 kits ready for the contest. Well, that didn't happen for several reasons and as a result I didn't have enough stock to bring to try to sell. So I am now concentrating on finishing an all new laser cut kit of the Vultee P-66 Vanguard in 1/24 scale. This is an all new design based on the latest info since I originally designed my peanut P-66 back in the 1980's. I am working on the final drawings now and writing a separate set of building instructions. I have made the final changes to the laser cut wood and I hope to announce the production date soon. Right now it looks like October or more likely November this year. Stay tuned for updates.
More news next time.
Dave
March 11, 2014
Hi Gang,
Well some interesting things have happened so far this new year. First and foremost as of yesterday I have put two laser cut conversion kits back into production from having been out of stock indefinitely. Kit #31-LC, the Oscar and Kit #43-LC, the Frank, kits are now in stock and for a few weeks are part of an introductory sale price. See the Special offers page for details. Remeber web site members get an extra 5% off the list sale price.
Also as a prod towards more printwood conversions to laser cut wood kits my source of printwood has notified me that they will no longer provide me printwood for my existing printwood kits. (The hand drawn plans are for kits 1 through 24 not counting the Lacey which is the only one of the group CAD drawn.) I found out about it when I went to reorder some printwood for a couple out of stock kits and was told they would no longer be able to supply my needs. This means that at best only a few of the old hand drawn kits in my line will be converted to laser cut kits. So when the printwood runs out on the remaining printwood kits they will most likely be gone forever. If you have been putting off ordering an older kit this might be the time to order while there are some left.
On a positive note a former vendor is back supplying me with some other kit parts that the printwood supplier also said they could no longer supply. I also found out back in February that A2Z is getting out of the model business and is looking for a buyer. I have been getting some parts from them that I use in all of my kits. So I am hoping someone will take over and continue that line. I have found an alternate source for one of the parts but this need to find a source for the others.
So you can see that so far this year has been full of changes. I think this year will be somewhat better than the past few years if I can just keep going on with re-introducing the laser cut conversions and finally complete the two new kits that are getting closer to completion. Now if there might be someone out there that would like to volunteer to convert one or some of my hand drawn kit plans into CAD dxf and better yet dwg compatable with my AutoCad 2000 software please send me an email at dielsengr@buckeye-express.com and I will get back to you with more details.
As of today, I have 3 more conversions of printwood to laser cut wood kits that I hope to have in production over the next few months if all goes well. As they approach production, announcements will be made. As always many thanks to you for your continued support. And also as always your comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
All for now,
Dave
December 18, 2013
Hi Gang,
Latest update. Kit #31-LC Laser cut kit is now in stock and the first production run is already half gone. You may wish to order one if you were putting it off as when these are gone it will be about March 2014 before I can get more in stock.
Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2014.
Dave
December 2, 2013
Hi Gang,
Hopefully by the time you read this the new laser cut kit, Kit #31-LC Nakajima Ki-43 Oscar will finally be in stock. I am expecting parts this week so the kits will be available by December 10, (2013).
As expected my laser cutter's relocation has taken about 2 months longer than first thought. I was able to get my Val and Vindicator kits back in stock last week.
Look for more news on other new kits soon. All for now,
Dave
October 1, 2013
Hi Gang,
Just a note to let you know that things are a bit slow right now do to a lack of laser cut wood. My supplier is in the process of moving to a new location and as a result I have run out of wood temporarily for some of my laser cut kits. If all goes well my supply will be restored by October 31, 2013. Right now the Val and Vindicator kits are out of stock until that time. As I run out I will update the current product news page and post comments on the kits pages.
In the mean time I am working on getting several more kits converted that are now out of stock to laser cut kits. I had hoped to have them ready for production by now but hopefully they will be ready within 2 to 4 months.
All for now,
Dave
May 10, 2013
Hi Gang,
After my last entry back in April its time to update you on the latest laser cut kit. The P-40B/C Kit #42-LC is now in stock and about half of the first run has been shipped out. Many have been combined with the Val kit which is still on sale for 5 more days.
The next laser cut conversion kit will be the P-47D/N Kit #40-LC and it should be available the first week of June. Most parts have been ordered but a couple have to be final checked before ordering. I expect to have that done by the end of next week. The ad has already been placed in the next issue of Flying Models magazine. I will update the special orders page with ordering info on Introductory Price within the next two weeks.
Thanks for your support,
Dave
April 16, 2013
Hi Gang,
Well the new year is over 1/4 over and I hope it is going well for all you. After taking almost a month off for a much needed vacation in
February we are back and have since released our latest new laser cut kit #39-LC the Aichi D3A1/2 Val. Check out the special introductory offer good until May 15, 2013 on the Special Offers Page. The Val ad is in the March issue of Flying Models mag.
Also on that same page you will see that we will also have released the next laser cut kit #42-LC the Curtiss P-40B/C Warhawk which should be in stock in early May at a special introductory price good until June 15, 2013. The P-40 as will be in the April issue of FM. We have placed and order for the parts and hope to have the kit in stock the first week of full week of May 2013.
If sales on these kits goes well I hope to follow that up with new laser cut kits for the new two or three or more months as I should have pre production prototypes completed by then and my laser cutter doesn't collapse from exhaustion. Checking the Special Offers page those of you who are registered members of this web site get an extra 5% off the kit price on these offers.
In addition if you order both the above kits together and can wait until the P-40 is ready the shipping and handling will only be $10.50 for both kits.
As you can see from the above comments Flying Models magazine is still running a full month behind. Normally the March issue comes in mid to late February but I got my issue about the end of March. So that is why the dates for the introductory prices are so screwed up. Hopefully they will catch up some time. But advertisers need to get the coverage they pay for so it may take some creative thinking to catch up. Maybe they can skip an issue and extend subscribers an issue to compensate. I remember back when Model Builder magazine was sending out their monthly issues right at the start of the real month. They then decided that they weren't giving enough time to the news stands and other outlets as I seem to recall so they just skipped for example the April issue and put May on the cover and sent it out in early April and extended the subscriptions of the subscribers. So somewhere in their 25 year existence there is a missing month to drive collectors nuts.
I mentioned taking some time off in February. I was able to get to Pensacola and visit the Naval Aviation Museum to take some photos for some upcoming subjects and also for reference on some of my current projects. Now all I have to do is find the photos and sort them out as I made several passes. The place is really neat and the guides very helpful.
That's all for now. Remember the new offers and keep watching for more of those out of stock kits to re-appear as laser cut kits.
Think spring,
Dave
January 20,2013
Hi Gang,
Happy New Year! Hope this year is better for all of us. Well as of today Flying Models has been trying to catch up and all subscribers should have their December issues. I see my ad is in for the new P-39 laser cut kit # 36-LC but I see I forgot to put the end of the Introductory price. So I have decided to make it end on February 28, 2013. As I write this today I have sold out my stock of parts for both the P-39 Kit #36-LC and the F3F/Gulfhawk Kit #28-LC. The parts should be back in stock in early February. Thanks to all who have taken advantage of the special sale for these kits.
Also my thanks to all who took advantage of the Year End Sale. As a result the F-86D and F-100 kits are now out of stock indefinitely.
I know that as you look down the list of kits many are out of stock indefinitely. I have been working on converting the ones that I have drawn on my CAD system as they are easier to work with. I am hoping to revive at least four of them in the coming months hopefully by July 2013, I will introduce them with a mailing to registered members of this web site first. I have been building prototypes of the four kits mentioned above and now need to correct the parts drawings and work on any special instruction sheets for the production kits. John Ernst has just posted photos of his build of the prototype Kit #40-LC of the P-47D in captured German colors on the Yahoo Groups Diels Kit Club site referencing his web site.
So the P-47 laser cut kit will be one of the four available before July if all goes well.
The laser cut kits have been well received and my goal is to convert all the computer drawn kits (those from kit # 25 on up) to laser cut parts as fast as I can.
That's all for now.
Dave
November 15, 2012
Hi Gang,
Its been a wild couple of months. Besides working on converting several kits to laser cut kits, taking a somewhat less than restful vacation and some serious family health problems we then were getting back to the business at hand when I heard via the Yahoo Groups free filight grapevine that Flying Models was delaying publication for a month. This was then followed by the so-called storm of the century or last 100 or 200 years which further caused and is still causing untold delays in commerce. Our thoughts and prayers go out for those who have suffered such grace losses of lives and property.
From my perspective the loss of Flying Models delay in publication for a month has meant that my ads have been delayed a month at a critical time. My sales for the month of October and so far this November have been almost non-existant. Which means I will have to delay ordering materials for new laser cut kit conversions and a delay in ordering parts for a totally new P-66 Vultee Vanguard kit that was supposed to be out by January 1. That deadline will be missed. I have just started production of my latest laser conversion of the P-39 Kit #36-LC. Click here for details.
So to see if I can at least get some boost in sales I am having the Special Year End Sale until December 31, 2012. It will allow the buyer the option of ordering October, November, and December sale specials from now until the end of the year at the sale prices. It also allows the buyer to buy one, two, or all three at the sale price but only pay $9 S&H for any or all three if ordered at once.
Thanks for your support,
Dave Diels
September 12, 2012
Hi Gang,
Its been a while since my last entry here and a lot has happened since then. As some of you know we bought a new home here in Oregon, Ohio two years ago. Then we put our old home in Amherst, Ohio 78 miles east of here up for sale. Well, you know how the housing market has been. Well, after being on the market for two years it has finally sold. During those two years we made weekly trips to take care of the place and move stuff over here. Well over 100 trips. As a result the last two years have been a very stressful time for my wife and I. One day for travel and work and another day to recover. The result has been that I haven't had time to get more stuff accomplished on the model airplane front. Finally now we are getting used to only working on one house instead of two and the feeling is good. I have already started to work on a backlog of projects
but it will take a few more months to get back to where I want to be. Thanks for your patience and support.
The new laser cut SB2U Vindicator kit #25-LC has been out for a couple months now and is selling well. I hope you are watching my ads in Flying Models Magazine. I have been running sales about every month. This month the SBC-4 Helldiver Biplane is on sale. October will feature another one.
I am now working on converting the Val, P-47 and P-40 kits to laser cut wood. I am also working on the P-39 and Hawker Typhoon. In addition I am making real progress on a couple totally new kits one I hope to have done by years end and the other next spring.
All for now,
Dave
May 19, 2012
Hi gang,
Well we are 2/3 of the way through spring and around here the weather has been a bit dry. Have been spending a lot of time on yard work at our two houses. Hope the old one sells soon so I can have more time to work on new model airplane projects. Current product updates now have the Kit # 38 TBF Avenger as out of stock until later this year. Have only one P-47 left until it will be out of stock until later this year also. Click here for more updates.
Only a couple of you may have known about my problems with losing my kit box manufacturer. They went out of business a year ago and I have been using up stock of boxes since then. Well, I couldn't find a supplier that would produce small quantities at prices that would not force me to raise kit prices. The last thing I needed was to raise prices this time in this economy. I was ready to go to plastic bags instead of boxes but that idea did not seem to go well with several good customers so I did an extensive search and found a new supplier that could make the quantities I needed at a price that is only slightly more than I paid at the old place and I won't have to raise any prices because of boxes. So now I have my new boxes and packed my first batch of kits. Also the new boxes take up a lot less storage space than the old ones.
We are planning on going the the FAC Nats this year in Geneseo, NY. So if you are going look for us on the field on Thursday and Friday. We won't have a Vendors table at the judging this year.
All for now.
Dave
April 16, 2012
Hi Gang,
I have just finished doing a few updates to the site. The F4F Wildcat, Ki-43 Oscar, and SB2U Vindicatior and now out of stock indefinitely. Avengers, P-40's, and P-47"s are in short supply. See Current Product news page for more info. Also see the Special Offers page for info on monthly sales this spring.
Have a great Spring.
Dave
February 11, 2012
Hi Gang,
Just a quick not to let you all know that I have added a short kit to the list of short kits. It is short kit SK-6, 4 in 1 Peanut short kits.
This kit brings back the old Kit # 6 in short kit form. 4 short kits are combined into one package. Peanut scale kits of the Brewster F2A Buffalo, the Vultee P-66 Vanguard, the Mitsubishi J2M3 Raiden, and the Bloch MB-152 WW2 Fighters. I had an inquiry from a customer back in December about printwood for these old kits. After searching my shelves I found my printing plates for the wood and decided to make up a few kits in case anyone else wanted some. Price is $30 for the 4 in 1 short kit plus shipping and handling. You get plans, printwood, instructions, and canopies. See the new products page for details.
Thanks,
Dave
February 10, 2012
Hi Gang,
It seems these days that every time I fire up my computer there is a wonderful(??) new thing that absolutely turns my screen time into a time wasting experience. On none seems to be more of a constant source of agrivation than the Apple iPod my wife gave me for Christmas a couple years ago. Up until the time I had to change my email address due to my ISP suspending operations it worked pretty good. But in the process of trying to change my email address in the iPod I seem to now have lost the ability to update the apps on it which seem to need updating so often that I wonder why they didn't get them right the first time. So now I have about 36 or more of them that need updating that I can't access because in the process of changing the email address the password got screwed up. Not to mention the fact that the menus seem to purposely hidden so anyone over 70 is barred from ever figuring them out.
The next great time waster is Facebook which I have not been able to figure out because nothing on it makes sense to me. So I very seldom go on it as I find it the biggest bunch of crap ever invented. Why the hell would I want to be friends with the friends of someone I barely know. And what the hell is the "Wall"? Can't they just use email? And why do I need to know the most intimate details of Cindy Mae's obsession with the rock idol Elmo Buttcrack?
And then there is Twitter. I'm not on twitter. I figured out early on its a way the government sucks in everyone into ignoring everything they are doing to screw us up. Who needs to know how many times Baby Huey needs changing and what his crap looks like. So today I just thought I'd vent a little and waste my time writing my vent on this horribly bad imitation of a blog, whatever a blog is, knowing that at best only I will be the reader of it, or maybe not as its not worth the time it will waste.
Cheers,
Dave
January 14, 2012
Hi Gang,
I have just posted several updates on the Current Product News page. The F4U Corsair kit #12 is now out of stock indefinitely. I have no plans to put this one back in stock at this time. Several other kits are in the 2 or 3 left catagory and several short kits are out of stock indefinitely also along with printwood for those kits.
Most of these kits have not been selling enough in recent years to justify buying more materials to keep them in stock. So check out the list and if you have been wanting to get one of the older kits on the list you better grab it now before its gone possibly for good.
Last December I was notified by my ISP that they were closing up their business in Ohio and I would no longer be able to use my their email service. So now I have the new email address listed at the top of this page. Since that time I have been hurriedly trying to go to all the places I do business with or change the address. What a mess. I am amazed at the number of places I have had to make that change with. I am also amazed at how difficult some places are to find how to make those changes. I must have spent on average at least 1 or 2 hours per day trying to get stuff straightened out.
As most of you know who have read this we are having a January sale. 25% off all in-stock items in our line. Since I realize only a handful might read this I will give and additional 5% off to anyone who tells me they have read this paragraph. Sorry no discount on the shipping and handling. The Post Office is raising their rates again.
Last year I put Kit #12 back in stock because I got enough commitment orders to make it worth it to restock it. I will do that for some of the other out of stock kits if enough of you want me to do it. The deal I made then was the price would be discounted to the ones who commited to purchase the kits when they were ready. I have noticed that recently the F7F Tigercat was legal to qualify for WW2 Flying Aces Club Events when it was discovered it actually flew missions in the Pacific just before the war ended. The Tigercat has been a good seller so if enough of you want one I and I get commitments for 25 kits, I will go ahead and get more materials. Just let me know at dielsengr@buckeye-express.com
That's all for now,
Dave
November 9, 2011
Hi Gang,
Just a short update on current stock. Kit # 19 the TA-152 is now out of stock indefinitely. Also Kit 13, the F4U Corsair, only one left in stock and then it will be out of stock indefinintely.
I am currently working on converting the P-39 Airacobra to a laser cut kit. If all goes well it should be back in stock in early 2012.
All for now,
Happy Veterans Day,
Dave
July 28, 2011
Hi Gang,
I just finished update the web site pages to show the addition of two new laser cut kits which replaced the out of stock printwood kits of the Grumman F3F/Gulfhawk and the Ki-44 Tojo. The new kit numbers are #28-LC and # 37-LC repectively. I also updated the shortkit and printwood pages to show the conversion of the kits to laser cut wood. The consolidated price list has also been updated.
We had a good time at the Geneseo FAC Non Nats contest earlier this months. Many thanks to those who purchased kits, short kits and plans and also to those who stopped by to say hello. We were kept busy and missed seeing a few of you so we will have to try to get back next year for the FAC Nats contest. The weather was mostly real good. On the sad side John Ernst lost his build of my Hellcat kit when it flew away and could not be found. However, he now has another one to build. That baby is a good flyer. He built it from my kit #12.
A fellow from Canada showed me his ducted fan version of my F-100 kit that he was just getting into the trimming stage. He did a really nice job on it. John Ernst also had his build of my Grace kit flying and when I last seen him it was up to 80 second flights. He also brought his SBD built from my laser kit. Very nice and very light even with some extra details. Many more chats with old friends were had. It was just a fun time.
My lovely wife Anita and I had commented on the Wednesday as we drove the almost 400 miles that we had not seen one of our friends for several years. The next day at the field he showed up and it was like my parents would say it was old home week. That night we were talking over dinner and wondered about another fellow we hadn't seen for many years. The next day he drove up and parked near our Pop-Up. Funny how those things happen.
I am back to working on a new design hoping to finally get the drawings done by the end of the year so production can start in early 2012. Also I am working on converting my P-39 kit to laser cut as it is now out of stock. I will probably get another one or two converted by the end of the year.
Got to go start kitting the F3F and Ki-44. All for now.
Stay cool,
Dave
June 7, 2011
Hi Gang,
Check out the laser cut kit page. My old printwood SBD Dauntless kit is now a laser cut kit. Same basic kit except with laser cut parts instead of printwood. Also removed the 1/32 thick formers and ribs and replaced them with 1/16 thick parts. Many found the 1/32 parts too thin and fragile. Also replaced some of the keel and side longeron parts with laminated parts for added strength.
Look for another one or two kits this summer and perhaps a couple more later this year. Yes, the laser cut kits are a bit more but makes a big savings in time to build. Hellcat kits are back in stock. This will probably be the last run for that kit for a while so get them while you can.
Thanks for your continued support,
Dave
May 26, 2011
Hi Gang,
Well we are almost all settled into our new home and I have been busy unpacking and getting organized. Our old home has not sold yet and we are now taking care of two houses 78 miles apart. Lucky me. I get to mow two yards.
I am happy to announce that in the midst of all the moving and unpacking I have been able to put the Hellcat Kit #12 back into production. Enough of you wanted it and made commitments for buying one that I just finished a new production run today and as of now it is back in stock.
I have also been working on converting several out of stock kits to future laser cut kits. I am now announcing that the SBD Dauntless kit is now a laser cut kit and will be in stock in early June, 2011. The price will be $42.95. I will post the info in the kits section when it is ready.
All for now,
Dave
February 15, 2011
WE HAVE MOVED
Hi Gang,
Well, as you may have seen on the Home page we have moved. It has been in the works since July 4, 2010 when we found a new home during a visit to my daughter's for a cookout. We went for a burger and bought a house. After I retired about 5 years ago my wife and I wanted to move back into the Toledo, Ohio area where we have family. Also we wanted to downsize into a ranch style house from two story so we can save our knees and ankles. The new home solves both problems and barring any unforseen circumstances we hope this will indeed be our last move.
After buying the new home we put our old home up for sale. As of now we have had no takers on the old house which has allowed us to gradually move most of out personal things and about 90 % of the business over the last 6 months. I now have 99% of the business moved and now operating in our Oregon, Ohio (Eastern suburb of Toledo) location.
Even though we are now in a different place we still will keep the Amherst post office box for a few more months or until the old house sells. I will be making new address announcements in adds in Flying Models and over the Yahoo Groups very soon.
All the moving activities have taken a toll. I have had to put on hold some new projects just due to making so many trips the 78 miles (one way) back and forth and staying in both places at times. We still split time between the two houses maintaining the old house for the occasional open houses for our realtor.
Here at the new location I am still trying to organize the basement. I have some basic things in semi-permanent placement. But it will take probably 6 more months to get the thing set up for efficient operation. I have discovered things I had forgotten about and some boxes that hadn't been opened since our last move 18 years ago. No major surprises but I will be going through boxes and plastic bins for a long time and probably throwing away some of those things I just had to save for future use. At age 69 the future is now. So I intend to put items I no longer need on the misc for sale page as I find them. It is also amazing how many tools I have found in various places around the old house.
So what can you expect from me in 2011. Well I have taken what spare time I have had to work on converting several out of stock kits into laser cut kits. Because of the continuing downturn in the economy (No the recession is not over yet) I can only afford to do one at a time so don't expect too much too soon.
Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Let me know how you feel.
Dave
January 5, 2011
Hi Gang,
Happy New Year to you and yours. Thanks to all of you who supported us in 2010. As most of your know the economy has not been so great the past two or three years and from what I can get from various sources the hobby industry has taken its lumps. You may have noticed by now that a lot of suppliers are having or had sales to move their merchandise. You may also have noticed that we have had a string of monthly sales. They have been well received so I have decided to continue them a while longer. For us things have picked up a bit and hopefully the trend will continue throughout 2011.
The slow economy has caused us to cut back on some new projects. But I am hopeful that we can go ahead with some new things and perhaps bring back a couple out of stock kits in 2011. Keep on watching our ads in Flying Models magazine and my postings to the various Yahoo free flight groups for the latest info.
On the personal side of things 2010 was a very busy, stress filled, surprising, roller coaster ride of a year. Suffice to say many changes took place this past year that were not planned. I will comment on these hopefully later on in the year. Let's just say we have gone through some things that have changed our lives unexpectedly we think for the better. Only time will tell.
That's all for now. If you have any comments or questions let me
know at dielsengr@kellnet.com.
Dave Diels
August 27, 2010
Hi All,
Just a note to let you know to check the current in stock list. The F7F tigercat is now out of stock in both complete and short kits. It will be out of stock indefinitely. The Ryan Navion kit and short kits are also out of stock indefinitely.
I am also short of stock for the F8F kit, the F3F kit and the BF2C-1 kits. If you want one now better order soon. When they are gone they will not be back in stock until late next year at the earliest.
Also, check out the misc for sale page. I have posted some more magazines that I have found in cleaning out my basement. I am still working on pricing for the Air Progress mags that date back to 1955. But if you are interested email me at dielsengr@kellnet.com. One batch has sold already.
All for now.
Dave
July 21, 2010
Hi All,
We got back from the Flying Aces Nats at Geneseo, NY late Monday afternoon. Had a great time meeting old friends and making new friends. We got there the previous Tuesday (July 13) so we could be there at the opening of the judging to set up our vendors table. We haven't been to Geneseo in about 4 years due to various personal cirvumstances which a couple times jumped up and bit us in the hind quarters just before we were going to leave. So this was a real nice treat for us to get reaquainted with many of you. So we thank you for stopping by and saying hello and also for the occasional purchase of bargain prices Diels' goodies.
We setup at the field on Thursday and Saturday, taking Friday off to rest up from the full day at the field. We aren't you and spry anymore. Mark and Jim our neighboring popup friends helped us set up our Easy Open Popup(Not that easy) and took care of it for us when we were not at the field. It is so nice to have such a friendly group around. Attendance was done from the last time we were there and I guess it was do to the economy. One would hope that the economy will rebound and attendance increase next year. But I'm not holding my breath on that.
For Diels Engineering, Inc., we learned that our new line of shorts kits were very popular. We brought about 2 of each one in our line and sold out of quite a few of them. Our complete kits although discounted almost 1/3 off list price just for the contest were not as popular. So I now have enough stock left to tide me over for the next year or so. The next time I go I will not bring as much stuff. We also l earned that the new laser kits are the way to go in the future. So I will plan to add 3 or 4 more by next summer.
You will note that I did not cover any of the events. That's because this was primarily a selling event for us. I did hope to finish a plane to fly but didn't get it ready in time to bring it. The closest I got to flying my models was the windy gusts that blew the short kits off our table on Saturday. I oould say I flew about 20 planes all at one time that all totaled about 1 second in the air for a distance of about 3 feet for an DOT (Drop off table) launch.
All in all it was a busy and fun time.
Dave Diels
April 19, 2010
Hi Gang,
They say time flies when you are having fun. I don't know about the fun part but time has sure been flying by. First on the agenda tonight is the in stock report. I just the other day ran out of printwood for the Zero Kit #18. So as of now I have 3 or 4 kits left in stock. The SK-18 and PW-18 are now out of stock indefinitely. So if you want one of the kits better order it soon or forever hold your piece. Also, Kit # 26, the BF2C-1 Biplane kit is down to only a couple left in stock. It will be out of stock indefinitely when they are sold out.
On the new product front I will probably have a laser cut version of the Ki-44 Tojo and Hawker Typhoon kits available this summer. Prototypes are being evaluated and although some changes will be made so far the laser cut parts look real good. I am also back to working on two new kits. Actually had laser cut wood cut to build one of the prototypes and although I will be making changes to some of the parts this sure has made building it easy. Hope to announce them this fall.
Now I need some feedback from you modelers. I have been taking some kits out of production due to running out of decals. I just do not have the funds to order 200 sets of decals when sales of the kits is only a dozen or two a year. I experimented with making plain paper color copies of the Hawker Typhoon and letting my volunteer builders use them on the laser cut prototypes. The results look real good, however, since no currently available affordable printer prints white ink the plain paper decals will not have white serial numbers or any small numbers in any color that are so small they can't be cut out. So here is where I need comments from you the buyer. Can you do without water slide decals and live with plain paper color copies of national insignias and possibly non white letters and numbers large enough to be easily cut out? I know some other manufacturers have started using these paper "decals". Let me know what you think.
On the subject of decals I have had questions concerning decals that are hard to apply and break easily. I know the decals are very thin and even with a clear coat applied by the manufacturer they need TLC. So I am suggesting that if you have had problems with them or are getting ready to use them give them a coat of clear Krylon spray or a coating of Future floor wax before using them.
Probably two or three of you are wondering what effect the weak economy has had of my business. Well, it has been a bit slow but the new laser cut kits have been selling well. Also althought I did not want to let some of the kits go out of stock it has helped by not having to purchased 50 sets of parts for kits that only sell 10 or less a year of the older kits. If the buyers will accept plain paper color copies instead of water slide decals I will be able to put the Typhoon and Devastator back into production real soon since I can print them myself, and also reduce the kit price in the process.
Well that's all for now. I hope to make another announcement within the next week or so. So watch the Yahoo groups for news.
Thanks for your support,
Dave Diels
January 19, 2010
Hi Gang,
Well, the year end sale is over and I'd like to thank all who participated. Sales of the new laser cut kits is going well. I am now working
on a couple more conversions. The next one will be the Hawker Typhoon which will hopefully be in production sometime in April.
Dave
January 2, 2010
Hi Gang,
Happy New Year. From our family to yours we wish you a very happy, healthy, and prosperous new year. We also wish to thank you all for your support either through your purchases or comments and suggestions. I read all your letters, notes and e-mails, and have used many of your photos not only on this web page but also some in various magazine ads over the years. You guys and gals are the best.
This short update is to point out that you still have a week or so to take advantage ot the year end sale. See the home page for a link to the special offers page. Also, the Tojo kit #37 is now out of stock. I hope to have it back in stock sometime in the Spring 2010 time frame. I am making some revisions to it at the present time.
Hope to hear from you soon,
Dave
December 14, 2009
Hi Gang,
First let me wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year. Thanks for your support this past year. It has been a year of ups and downs but lets hope next year sees us through the economic recession.
I have finally got my supply of new laser cut wood for the Nakajima Kate kit and the kit is now in stock. Click here for details. I still have to post some pics of the prototype of the laser cut kit which I will do later. It has proven to be a relatively easy conversion from the printwood version but has also elimininated some of the 1/32 ribs and formers and replaced them with 1/16 thick material. This is a change I have been making as conversions are done at the request of several who have had problems working with the thinner wood parts.
I am now back to working on two new kits hoping to get them ready for production by late spring 2010. I have had these in the works for many months but frankly had a mental block on several of the details and had to back away from them for a while. I got back to them recently and something finally clicked and I'm finally making some headway on them. If all goes well I will be able to make an announcement in late Feb or early March.
My current sale continues until January 11, 2010 so take advantage of it if you wish to get some good deals from Diels.
All for now,
Dave
November 10, 2009
Hi Gang,
Well as they say "Stuff happens". I just finished this update of my blog and when I told it to update I lost my connection and lost the whole update. Now I have to rely on my lousy memory to somehow rewrite it. First of all some product stock updates. Kits #8 and #12 the TBD and F6F kits are now out of stock. I expect them to be back in stock sometime next year. The reason it will take a while is that I want to make some changes and it will take some time.
For those who have been meditating over when or if to order I am down to about a half dozen kits on several items. So I suggest yo order ones you want to pick up to make sure you get them. I don't reorder until I am out of stock and some slow sellers will now be reordered right away.
So to encourage you to buy something I had decided to have a Year End/Holiday sale. The sale ad will be out in my Flying Models December 2009 ad. Since I don't know when that issue hits the stands or your mailbox I am starting it now. Details will be found on the Special Offers page. Click here for sale details.
Sales of the new laser kit #41-LC have been encouraging. So, I can announce now that the prototype laser cut Kate Kit # 35-LC has been completed and I have ordered the initial quantity of wood for my first production run which I expect will be in early December. I will let you know when the kit is ready to ship. I have also updated the product listing pages for kits, short kits, decals and printwood to note what items are currently out of stock. Click the titles to go directly to the pages.
Well that's it for this update. Let me know if you have any comments, suggestions, photos, or questions. Remember you can limit your exposure to the flu by staying home and building a Diels kit.
Stay well and thanks for your support,
Dave
August 31, 2009
8:18 PM EDT
Hi Gang,
Well, the Summer Sale has come to an end and I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who took advantage of it. Your support is greatly appreciated. Perhaps some of you missed out on it because you didn't know about it Well I mentioned it here on this web site, as well as sending several messages to the various Yahoo free flight groups over the course of the past three months, and had to monthly ads in Flying Models magazine. That should have covered most modelers. But then as I was taught in Officer Basic School back in 1964 there is always at least 10% who don't get the word. I have a sizeable mailing list that I mostly use for notifying regular customers about new product announcements but with postage rates as high as they are I decided not to do a snail mailing about the sale. But I usually offer special pricing to those who order the new kits when they come out and give them discounts on the other stuff when they buy the new kits. I know many of those on the mailing list are not into computers so they will get their chance later.
Some of you are probably wondering how my sale went. Well, it was pretty good. I had a lot of first time customers and also heard from a lot of you who have been with me from the start. Considering how the economy in the U.S. has been I think it went pretty good. But being human, I am never satisfied. So I will be thinking of ways to stir up interest in my stuff.
Which brings me to the next new line of kits I am introducing. Well, maybe not to new subjects but new laser cut wood parts. I have been experimenting with laser cut parts over the last couple years. Finally, the first kit is out. It is kit # 41-LC, the Mitsubishi J2M3 Raiden. Yes, that is the old Kit #41 upgraded to laser cut parts and a few other changes. I have teamed up with a new laser cutter and after working out at least most of the bugs (I would have said all the bugs are out of it, but I know that would have come back and bit me in the butt) I have gotten a supply of parts and produced the first kits. The Ad appeared in the September issue of Flying Models and will also be in the October issue. As most of you know laser cutting is more expensive that printwood to make so the price is higher per kit than the original printwood kit. Also for the time being I am only selling the laser kits directly and not through dealers until I get a feel for final costing.
About now you are probably wondering why I picked the J2M3 for my first kit. Fair enough question. Because I ran out of printwood and still wanted to keep the kit in my line but didn't want to have to order a 10 year supply of parts. With laser cutting I can order 10 or 50 sets of parts for the same price per set of parts.
So my plans if sales of the J2M3 are successful to add other kits to the laser cut series. Not banking on just that one kit I plan at least 2 or 3 others in the upcoming months and probably will make a couple totally new kits laser cut also. So stay tuned for future releases.
That's it for now. If you have any suggestions let me know.
Dave
June 25, 2009
Hi Gang,
Well, the Sale started the end of April is still going on. Except now I have decided to call it my Summer Sale and end it on August 31, 2009. I decided to advertise it in the July and August issues of Flying Models magazine and had to extend it to the end of August so I could get more exposure in the magazine.
The sale has been going fairly well and has resulted in some new customers and also has resulted in one more kit on the out of stock list, Kit #35, Nakajima B5N2 Kate kit. Also, short kits have been selling well. I have finally returned to work on my next two kit subjects. I am building a prototype for the first one now and working on finishing the prototype drawings. I hope to get these new kits out by the end of the year if all goes well.
Well that's all for now. Hope you are all doing well in this erratic economy.
Good Flying,
Dave
April 28, 2009
Hello Fellow Aero Modelers,
In light of the recent recession I am announcing a 30% Off sale on everything except only 25% off on short kits and printwood sets. You can check the Special Offers Page for details and the Current Product News page for items in short supply or out of stock. You can call it anything you want such as Recession Sale, or Spring Clearance Sale, or Economic Stimulus Sale, but I call it a special sale. Truth is a sale is a sale for one main reason, to raise cash and reduce inventory.
Right now in order for me to come out with new products I need to generate income to pay for the new product development. I am about 60% along on two new kits but will not commit to them until I have adequate funds for initial production. The economy under normal conditions provides these funds but Customer orders have been drastically reduced. So I am having a sale to generate some much needed cash. Dealer and Distributor orders have also ground to a halt so right now I'm in neutral on the uphill slope of a mountain.
The sale is for a limited time only and I think you will find the sale prices attractive. I am in short supply of a couple kits and a couple' are already out of stock. Since I will not be ordering materials as I run out of stock on various kits I suggest you get your orders in soon before the stock runs out. I do not intend to reorder parts for out of stock items until this recession is over and as I have said elsewhere that may not happen until a certain hot spot freezes over. The sale will last for at least the next few weeks.
Thanks in advance for your support, and as always your comments are welcome.
Dave Diels
President
January 19, 2009
Hi Gang,
Good news. The Shinden Kit #10 and Short Kit SK-10 are now back in stock. Got the new supply of parts in last Friday. Not much other news right now. Trying to stay warm and dodge snow drifts.
Dave
January 5, 2009
Happy New Year to you all,
We are back in operation after taking some time off for Christmas and getting at least a start on inventory and taxes. As for current product news I have ordered parts for the Shinden Kit # 10. They should be in sometime this month or early Feb. Check the current products page for status of kits which are in short supply or out of stock.
As for new products I am currently working on two new kits for my next combination kit offering. I hope to make the announcement sometime in March. I will post the announcement on this website and on the various Yahoo free flight groups.
That's it for now,
Dave
December 13, 2008
Hi All,
Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to you and yours. We are shutting down on the 15th for the rest of the year as
explained in my November 22 message. We will be back open for business on January 5, 2009. Any orders placed between December 15th and January 5 will be processed after January 5th. As I mentioned we will be doing inventory (work), getting ready to do our taxes(more work), and spending time with our family for the Holidays(priceless).
Thanks to all of you for your support during this past year and in fact for all the past years.
Dave Diels
November 22, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving to all,
To celebrate the season I am having a 25% off sale. This applies to all theregular items in my line including kits, short kits, plans, canopies, printwood and decals. The catch is its only for two weeks. Take 25% off the list price of any of these items not including shipping and handling. The sale ends December 7, 2008. Why so short? Well this year we are shutting down on December 15th for the rest of the year to do several things including inventory, entertaining our family for Christmas, and getting ready for the tax man. This is normally not a busy time for us and frankly I want to spend time with my family without the interruption of the business. Since all of our business is mail order it any orders come in during this time they will be filled after the first week of January. The inventory will take a good deal of the time as I plan to go through my entire basement and get rid of stuff I no longer need. So look for some stuff to appear on the Misc For Sale page later in January.
As you know unless you are either dead or in a coma the economy stinks right now and I am now planning on accelerating my phaseout of many of my lesser selling kits. So if you been thinking of getting some but putting it off you may soon be out of luck. My cash flow is such that I will not reorder many of the kits when current stock runs out. And that applies to some later kits that are slow sellers. Well that's all for now. If you have any questions e-mail me at the above link and I'll try to answer them.
Thanks again for your support.
Dave Diels
September 22, 2008
Hello again,
Just thought I'd let you all know that I just added a new Misc. For Sale page in the Product news section. I have listed some model magazines that I no longer want or need but am too cheap to just give them away. I have gone through them and there is some really good stuff in some of them and they are all kind of fun to look through. Most are from the 70's and 80's but the Air Trails go back to my high school days in the 1950's. Frankly I am running out of storage space and need to get rid of them.
I plan to add a list of Plastic Kit models that I have purchased over the last 25 or 30 years as potential or actual subjects for my plans and/or kits. That will come as I get time or when my wife decides I need to really clean house. Seriously, I have probably a couple hundred kits that I no longer need. It will take time to go through all of them and I will probably post a few at a time. Pricing them will take the most time as they were bought mostly before the rising price of plastic took off.
Let me know if you are looking for something special. I might have it.
Dave Diels
September 10, 2008
Hi All,
Well I finally got the PayPal Payments buttons to work after working with suggestions from the PayPal folks I finally was able to go into the code behind these pages and correct the problems which may have happened when the old web host had their server hacked into. I made what I think was the final correction about 11:30 last night.
Current Stock News:
I wanted to cover some of the current stock issues with you to explain why some items are out of stock or will shortly be out of stock or why some are being retired when they run out of stock. First, if you go to the current product news page you can see that several items are either out of stock or in short supply. Here is why. First of all last May I retired the Globe Swift kit # LEK-101. It was origninally a 1 in 500 limited edition kit and it finally ran through all the original order of decals. So it has been retired. I do still have printwood available so I still have short kits SK-LEK-101 in stock until such time as the printwood runs out. The printwood set is also available separately as PW-LEK-101 until the printwood runs out.
Next on the list is the Hawker Typhoon Kit # 29. It is now out of stock. I am out of decals and printwood for this kit and it will not be back in stock soon. You may or may not want to know why but I will tell you anyway. The Typhoon has not been a good seller. It was first produced back in 1997. It has taken that long to run out of my original supply of decals. I don't recall how many sets of decals I ordered but it was probably 500 sets and for those of you who have the kit you will note it has about 5 or 6 colors and is a big sheet. I cannot order less than 150 to 200 sets of decals to get a good price on them. I haven't sold more than 10 to 15 kits a year for the past 5 or 6 years. So it just isn't practical to order more parts that I can sell in the next 10 years. My options are to revise the decal sheet to make it less expensive. That takes time and frankly this kit isn't worth the effort at this time.
Next is the Bf-109E kit # 21. This one is down to 1 kit left after current commitments are filled. I will probably buy more printwood for this one as I still have decals left to cover at least one more run of printwood. However, the source for this kits printwood has recently supplied me with crap wood on a couple other kits which I did not discover until running some kits recently so I will have to go to my preferred supplier with new artwork and that takes time. I the mean time this kit has never sold well. If I sell 10 a year its a lot. So when the last one is gone it will be sometime next year when I restock for it if then. The short kit is out of stock also.
Next are the P-39 Kit # 36 and the Ki-84 Frank Kit # 43. The parts are being made and they will be back in stock hopefully by the end of September. Not that they are big sellers, nothing is a big seller this year, but they are newer kits and have sufficients sales to justify reordering parts. Next is the J2M3 Jack jit # 41. I have one kit left on the shelf and am out of printwood. This one has not been a big seller but it is one the I like. I will not reorder parts until next year. The short kit is out of stock.
The Near Future:
Because of the recent slow downs in the hobby industry in general and because my sales are down about 50% from last year I am planning on retiring several of my older kits when I use up printwood and/or decals. Those that sell well I will keep in stock. I can no longer afford to keep poor sellers in the line just because I like them. If they don't sell they will be retired when materials run out. Here are the kits with the poorest sales other than those mentioned above. Kit # 1, Kit # 2, Kit #3, Kit # 5, Kit # 10, Kit #14, Kit # 17, Kit #18, Kit #24, Kit #26, Kit #32, Kit #37. The only reason some of these are not yet retired is I still have parts for them. So if you are missing some from your collection you might want to consider getting them before they are gone.
I have given a lot of thought in the last year about laser cut kits. And, I have had some sample sheets cut for a few of my current kits and some have been or are being built to test the fit of the parts. The results so far have been good. However, the cost of laser cut parts is at least twice the price of printwood parts. So I have put the project on hold for now. However, I have started adding some laser cut parts to some kits to replace turned wheels which I no longer use due to tripling of the cost of turnings in recent years. As turned parts run out I will replace some of them with laser cut parts.
New Products:
Many of you have asked when I will be coming out with something new? Well, I planned on coming out with two new kits this year but I just haven't been able to concentrate on them due to a whole host of problems such as getting the web site up and running. Also family activities have increased as our grand children continue to grow up and recent slow downs in the economy have also had an effect. I finally have been able to get back to the designs of the next two kits and should be ready to start on one of the prototypes by the end of the month but it will be next year before I will be ready to get them into production. As for what they will be you will have to wait for the announcement. Both subjects are American. That should narrow it down a bit.
All for now.
Dave
September 5, 2008
Hi Gang,
Well it have been one heck of a month since I last wrote. Hopefully you have had a good summer. Mine has been spent mostly in trying to get this web site built. I know it will continue to be under construction for a while, or maybe even forever. But I think it is ready to use now.
You will notice many changes in the way it is organized. It isn't like I had before but it will due for now. I also solicit your comments and suggestions. However, take it easy as I am using the software from the host and there are some limits to what I can do with arrangement. Any way this new site can incorporate eventually a complete E-shopping option which I plan to get eventually.
That's all for now.
Dave
August 2, 2008
Hi Gang,
Well it has been a very hectic 6 weeks since I last added to this blog. Here is a run down on what has been happening in the wild wonderful wacky world of Diels Engineering, Inc. As of today I am well along in switching my web site over to a new host. As of about 1 day after my last posting on this blog the old host shut down support of the software that the old web site was built on. As a result I have now been able to make any changes to my old site. Thus this new site is now about 50% workable and hopefully will be at least up to the standards of the old site within another week or two.
You will notice some major changes in the way the pages are laid out and I am learning how to put links between pages and other code stuff that frankly I don't understand but just follow the book. It will take a while for everything to gell so please be patient.
I will have more to write when I get this site organized better.
Dave
June 18, 2008
Well gang, June has been a disaster for free flight modelers. We lost two real good guys that I know of so far this month. First was Nate Sturman who was both a good friend and prolific designer of free flight models, many of which inspired or were the basis for several of my kits. Then earlier this week I learned about the loss of Lin Reichel, a real gentleman and leader of the Flying Aces Club which has been the organization that has basically kept free flight modeling going in my opinion. Lin was a friend of both the moderers and the cottage industries like mine and was always available to answer questions about just about anything concerning FAC issues and modeling in general. I hesitate to say more now on both these men because I would not do justice to either one of them. All I know is that there is suddenly a giant void in my life at the loss of two good friends. Our condolences go out to both their families at this time of great loss. Fortunately there are others in FAC who will keep that great organization going on. So if you have the chance to get to Geneseo this July maybe just maybe Nate and Lin may be there in the form of gentle breezes and helping thermals. Via con Dios my friends.
Dave
May 7, 2008
Happy May to All,
Weather is finally looking like flying season is upon us here in Northern Ohio. Sorry for the temporary loss of this web page for the past week. Don't know what happened but its working again and that's what counts.
Thought I'd mention the FAC Nats in Geneseo, NY the third weekend of July. The show starts with the judging of models on Wednesday July 16, 2008. The flying takes place on the 17, 18, and 19th. We are planning on being there for the judging, and the first two days of flying at the field. So if you are going please stop by and say hello. We will be bringing a selection of kits and this year some short kits. As usual the complete kits will have special FAC Nats pricing at the contest only. So come prepared to go home with a couple kits.
Thanks,
Dave Diels
April 14, 2008
Hi again,
Well, I decided to add printwoods as well as short kits to our product list. The short kits are described below in my April 11th rant. Printwood sets are for those who have the plans and now need the parts or for those who perhaps have built from the kits and need another set of wood to build another model. Check out the list on the Printwood Sets page.
Thanks again,
Dave Diels
April 11, 2008
Hi Gang,
Hope everything is going well with you all. I have been busy working on several different projects, one of which I am announcing today. After having several discussions with some good friends and volunteer helpers I have decided to offer a line of shorts kits which mostly follows the complete kit line with a few esceptions. You can check out the listing which includes pricing and a complete explanation of what is included in a Short Kit. Also at the same time since decals are not a part of the short kits, they are available at a special price if ordered at the same time as the Short Kit. Not all decals are available which is why I have made them a separate item.
Several other manufacturers offer short kits as a way to let the builder save some money by providing materials from his own stock to build the model from the short kit. At a minimum short kits provide plans, printwood, and canopies(if needed). These Short Kits will only be sold directly from Diels Engineering and not through dealers or distributors.
Complete Kits will also be available as usual but may be in and out of stock as over the course of time. Always check Current Product News for
availability. As always I would like to get your feedback on this new line. I hope to have some more news withing a couple months on some future new projects so check back here often to see what's happening.
Thanks again for your support.
Dave Diels
January 5, 2008
Happy New Year,
Hopefully all those that wanted to took part in the year end sale which just ended yesterday. Thanks to all those who took advantage of the sale. Your support is greatly appreciated. As we go into the new year the January is always a pain as now I have to dig up all those receipts and get ready to file my taxes for 2007. So this month will be consumed with those activities. Just another necessary evil I guess.
I hope to initiate some changes this year which will probably result in trimming my kit line somewhat. Several kits have run their course and do not sell enough to justify ordering replacement parts when current stock runs out. You can check the Current products News page for details periodically. I am working on a couple new designs but do not know when I will get them finished, probably late spring to mid summer if all goes well.
That's all for now.
Thanks for your support.
Dave Diels
November 6, 2007
Hi Gang,
Holiday Season Greetings.
With the Holiday season fast approaching I decided to have a 25% off sale. See the Special Offers page for complete details. I call it a Christmas/Year End sale. I just recently restocked a number of my kits and in order to stimulate sales I thought I'd have a sale. So check it out and get some kits or plans to give to your model building friends or for yourself. If all goes well I intend to keep the sale going until the end of the year. I will probably not be re-ordering any more parts this year so check current product news page for latest info of items out of stock or in short supply. I am expecting parts in for Kits 1, 15, and 44 within the next week or so, so those should be back in stock soon. Check the current product news within the next two weeks.
Also check the Free flight Cook-up Yahoo group for another offer for Kit #11 only for a special contest. That kit has a 30% off list price. I am considering several important changes for 2008, including retiring a few older kits. So take advantage of the sale and pick up some while they are still available.
Dave
August 28, 2007
Greetings,
This update was to let everyone know the current status on several kits that are either out of stock or in short supply, or are back in stock. One of my main vendors has had some temporary production problems and this has resulted in me being out of stock for a couple kits. Hopefully this will be rectified within a month, but I'm not holding my breath.
Which brings me to another topic. I am considering either retiring a couple kits which frankly aren't selling well, or possibly just going to short kits consisting of plans, printwood, and canopies, and possibly decals if there are any left in stock. These short kits would only be available by direct order and would cost much less the full kits. Let me know your comments.
All for now,
Dave
August 10, 2007
Hi gang,
Made some updates on current items back in stock or out of stock or in short supply. Check out current product news page. I am currently investigating the possibility of getting laser cut parts sheets for at least some of my kits. I would be interested in knowing your feelings both pro and con on laser cutting? I have had many ask if I was going to get into it. Well, I'm not because I don't have a laser cutting setup. But I am working with a couple sources to get a feel for cost and qualitiy of the parts. Specifically I'm interested in how much more you as a customer would be willing to pay per kit to get laser cut parts? So if you are so inclined e-mail me at dielsengr@kellnet.com and let me know what you think.
Dave
July 29, 2007
Hi guys and gals,
Well, the FAC Non-Nats is over and we have finally got back home and recovered from the trip. Had several orders waiting when I got back and spent the rest of the week getting them out. The contest was a bit smaller than last years Nats. Friday was very windy until the afternoon. Saturday was almost perfect.
Again, I met a lot of old friends and new friends who stopped by our table. Will Hayes was their with the Ki-30 Ann which he had flown. I don't know if he had it entered in the contest or not. John Houck had my rubber powered F-86D flying in a rubber powered jet contest and I belive he took second place with it although I couldn't find him after the banquet to check it out. Rich Weber won the Fantasy flyer contest with a Booth Ranger from my plan. We had fun and are looking forward to next years Nats. Check the current news page to updates on some kits.
All for now.
Dave
July 11, 2007
Hi Gang,
I am posting a couple update in the current product news page about availability of some kits. Check it out before ordering. My mention of the royalty/copyright problem was about a bill in congress. I was wrong it never got to the bill stage. Sorry about that. Some bad news today from one of my major suppliers. The cost of balsaaccording to them has gone up about 40% from their suppliers. You know that means to those of us who make kits. I just ordered some more printwood from them so when it comes in and is billed I will find out how much damage it will mean.
My sources in the industry say that the hobby industry in general is not doing well at all. DUH!!!!! Just take a look at other hobbies and you can see why. I buy a fair amount of plastic kits to use as reference material for potential new designs. Prices on these things have sky rocketed in the past 2 or 3 years. I also keep tabs on the model railroad sector and some of there prices have also jumped up. So when a modeler has to make a choice of buying a kit or filling his gas tank guess which choice do you thing wins? So how am I doing in this hobby recession? Well overall not too bad. My sales are about what they were a year ago and although this summer so far is a bit off I am taking more time to get some things organized in my shop and around the house (read honey do jobs). I have heard though that some companies are not doing so well and are behind in paying their bills. This of course hurts not only them but the suppliers who in good faith gave them credit in the first place. Hopefully their business will pick up and things will get corrected in a postive way.
I'm just about finished getting my kits and plans ready for the FAC Non-Nats at Geneseo next week. Got a couple more kits to get made up and then look into getting some of my stock of plastic kits that I'm either not going to use or am through with ready to sell off. The bad part about it is they are stored behind stuff. I could have used a different word buy this column is G rated. Some of these kits I have had for over 25 years. I hope to have time to check out current prices although some are not longer made. Those will probably go on E-Bay when I figure out how to do that.
In my spare time I have started working on two new kits, neither of which is now currently available from other sources to my knowledge. I have had to stop work on one of them as I wait for info that I ordered from the Smithsonian archives. I intend to do another combination kit and this time it will be two American aircraft. But don't expect them until either late this year or early next year as I expect to be interrupted by all kinds of non modeling related activities caused by my family planning my social life for me.
Just thought I'd mention again that if you have a habit of ordering books from Amazon.com if you access it through the links on some of my pages I can make and extra buck or two and it doesn't cost you one penny more for using the link on my site. Thanks in advance for using it. By the way, I have found some interesting books through Amazon and their various associated book sellers.
Well, that's all for now. Hope to see you at Geneseo next week
Dave
June 29, 2007
Hello again,
I want to update you on the latest happenings before I go out and start operation "Paint the Deck". First of all, I just received my restock of parts for Kit #34, the Douglas Dauntless SBD3/5. So that kit is now fully back in stock. Some of you may be interested in my latest Distributor to begin handling my kits. The new owner of Peck-Polymers should shortly be posting my kits to his web page. He hasn't taken on the complete line yet but check out his page if you are so inclined. Of course I like it if you order from me direct but some of you want the convenience of using various credit cards other than PayPal.
For those of you in the UK the Atomic Workshop has started handling a limited number of my kits. I have been busy filling several dealer/distributor orders these past few weeks as well as a week of vacation the first of this month. I am now getting ready for this year's Geneseo Non-Nats. My supply of many kits were used up with all the dealer orders. Now the empty spots are filling up.
I want to bring to your attention the increasing problem of the real aircraft companies starting to require licensing fees for kit makers who make model kits of their aircraft. Dave Gee's column in the last Model Aviation magazine show that Cessna has come down hard on Dumas and Dumas has pulled a couple Cessna kits from its line.
There was a bill pending in congress to get relief from companies who supplied military aircraft to the government. But it has stalled. I have not been affected yet but at the rate this mess is going it will not be long until the only model kits you will have a choice of will be Japanese, German, Italian, and basically anything not American.
Write your congressman. I do not remember the bill. See Dave Gee's article.
All for now.
Dave
May 16, 2007
Hi All,
Well, I have updated the price lists and the other lists of kits, plans, canopies, decals, and accessories.
Dave
May 15, 2007
Hello again,
Well the shipment of all advance orders has been completed. Only a few of the last minute orders are left to ship. The Combo 10 special is now history. Thanks again to all who took advantage of this special. Now for the bad news. Because of several increases in my materials costs I am increasing prices of most kits and some plans, decals and canopies. These prices will be effective immmediately when I get the changes posted probably anytime between now and the end of the week. The recent postal increase is the second one since I last increased shipping costs. Other costs have gone up several times since my last general price increase.
The good news is the increase will mostly be only a couple dollars for kits and most plans will only increase by 50 cents to $1. Decal prices will reflect the last order cost of items that have been reordered. These I change whenever replacement decals are ordered. Canopy prices are also updated whenever replacements are ordered. I don't like raising prices but the reality is that in this economy today anything dependent on oil based products or transportation will cost more to the end user.
More good news. I hope to be instituting regular specials offers on my existing product line in the near future. So please check the Special offers page at least once a month. The reason I will be doing this is, of course to raise cash. I have to reorder a large (for me) number of sets of parts when I run out of parts for a kit. I plan to start having special offers in hopes of getting some of these replacement parts out of my stock. I think the special offer prices will end up giving a discount of up to 25% or more depending on the item. So keep watching and checking on a regular basis. The offers will probably run for at least a month to 6 weeks.
Well, all for now.
Dave
May 11, 2007
Hi Gang,
Well, we did it. We got all the orders for the Combo 10, Kit #44, and Kit #45 shipped out as of 4:15 today. Now we will take some time to get the house in order for the rest of spring and summer. Then I will try to get two new kits started. Thanks to all who took advantage of the advance order discounts. I hope you enjoy your new kits.
That's all for now. I'm tired from going up and down the basement steps about 20 times a day lugging everything from boxes and parts down to
to bundles of finished packed for shipping kits up those steps.
Dave
May 7, 2007
Hi All,
Well finally I got the last shipment of parts today and already single kits of the Ki-30 and SB2C kits. I will start on the combo 10's tomorrow and should start shipping by Wednesday afternoon through Friday. I have set the price for kit # 44 at $39.95 and the price for kit # 45 & kit $37.95 after the advance orders are shipped. If any of you want to get them for the advance order price I will accept any orders postmarked not later than May 14, 2007. This hasn't been the smoothest Combo but despite the bumps in the road the kit looks real good. Can't wait to hear your feedback.
Thanks to all for your patience and support.
Dave Diels
April 25, 200
Hi Gang,
Well, dear old Dave screwed up again. I didn't get some of my supplies for the new Combo kit ordered in time so there will be about a two week delay in getting them shipped out. I set my original dead line for April 30 but in now looks like they won't go out until about May 14. Sorry for the delays but I waited too long before placing the orders. In the mean time consider the 20% discount on kits and plans for those who have ordered the Combo or single new kits.
Thanks,
Dave
April 17, 2007
Hi Gang,
Well, all the stuff for the Combo 10 kit is ordered and should be in by the the middle of next week with kit packing to follow. Shipments of the Combo will follow. May be a couple days late but I might just get lucky and the stuff will get here by the end of this week. Thanks to all of you who ordered the new kits.
All for now.
Dave
March 26, 2007
Hello again,
Well it looks like spring might actually have arrived. After a relatively warm beginning of winter February was a mess. We took an abbreviated vacation in early February cut short we we received a call telling us our furnace had quit. Fortunately it was discovered the same day it failed other wise we might be replacing frozen pipes. So we cut short the vaction and came home.
I thought I'd give you an update on the Combo 10 kit. Orders have slowed as is expected and unless there is an upturn in the next week I will order parts based on current orders the following week to assure I get the kit out in time. As I'm not sure anyone reads this imitation of a blog, asking those of you who have held back your orders until the end of April to get the orders in now to assure that there will be enough parts left to make up the kits. I will be shipping the kits on the kits in the order the orders were received.
All for now. Remember to take advantage of the 20% off special when ordering the new kits or Combo 10.
Dave
February 2, 2007
Hi Gang,
Well so far orders for the new Combination Kit # 10 have been steadily coming in. For those who like statistics it pretty much follows the same pattern as past Combo offers. For those who may be new to the Combination Kit offers, I use the advance order system to know how many sets of kit parts to order. So since my proposed shipping date is April 30, 2007 I need to place my parts orders by mid-March. I take what I have for advanced orders and add to the order enough more sets to usually keep me going for at least a year before reordering. It doen't always work out that way. For some kits that are more popular than others (such as last years P-40B) I had to reorder within a couple months. Others that were less popular might go for several years. So it helps me if you place your orders sooner so I can plan my really long term parts orders like decals which I must order in larger quantities than other parts due to production costs.
In other news, I have finally got back in stock Kit #31, the Ki-43 Oscar after being out of stock for several months. I also during an inventory check found several others that were either low or I ran out of after making up kits recently and now have most of them restocked. I still have a couple to reorder but need to make a couple minor changes before reordering.
I am probably going to have to raise prices sometime this spring. I have been notified by a couple of my suppliers of coming price increases. I have not raised prices on my older kits for several years and have not passed on increased cost except on one or two occasions. I don't like raising prices but the hand writing is on the wall. I will let you know when and how much later in the spring.
Well, that's all for now. Thanks again for your support.
Dave
January 9, 2007
Hi All,
Today I posted the new Combination Kit #10 Advanced Order Announcement to the Special Offers page. Also for those who want one I can send via e-mail a pdf copy of the announcement that has been snail mailed to my current mailing list. I decided that mailing forms to those who are no longer interested in my products is a waste of money. By the way, I am purging my mailing list of anyone who has not placed an order or contacted me within the last 7 years. So if you want on the list e-mail me with your request. Check out the offer. I hope you take advantage of this new offering.
Thanks,
Dave
December 29, 2006
Hi All,
Hope you all had a nice Christmas and I wish a Happy New Year to you all. I will be mailing out a new kit announcement next week so if you don't get one check this web page or e-mail me and one will be sent out. I will get a pdf of the form for those who want one e-mailed to them. If you haven't ordered anything in the past 5 years you probably will not get one automatically. I am also extending the Christmas sale for one more week until January 8, 2007.
That's all for now.
Dave
November 3, 2006
Hi Guys and Gals,
Well its been a very busy couple of months since I last updated this page. I'm behind my own schedule for some new kits. It looks like I make the announcement the last week of December or the First week of January 2006. I am 90% finished with two new kit designs and am still working on the prototype models and they look pretty good. I am working out some minor details and writing building insturctions.
I did have a setback in early October when my laptop broke and needed to be replaced. That has taken time to replace all the programs and I'm still finding software changes that need to be made. But its basically up and running. I have been using it for a lot of my designing and the loss set me back a couple weeks. We took a much needed vacation the last two weeks of October. I know that taking a vacation when you are retired seems wierd but there is still a lot of stress generated here expecially with family matters.
Thanks to all of you who have been posting pictures of my kits to the Yahoo groups pages. The Diels kit club and ffcookup goups have generated a fair amount of interest. As we head into the Christmas season I think I'll have a Christmas sale as my present to all of you. So go to the special offers page for details.
Thanks for your support.
Your friend,
Dave
August 10, 2006
Hello all,
The good news is I have just come out with a new kit. It is called the Davey in honor of my grandson and is a 28.1" wingspan fun flyer. Details are on the new products and kit pages. It has been in the works for almost 2 years now and I just got around to kitting it. It flies nice and will make a good intermediate model for those beyond the beginner stage. Work also progresses on two new kits which I hope to introduce this fall.
On the down side I will be eliminating my turned wheels and nose blocks from my accessories list soon. Changes in vendors has made these items too costly to continue. This change will occur as soon as I can remove them from the web page.
That's all for now.
Dave
July 25, 2006
Hi all,
Well, the Geneseo contest was a great success. For us personally it was very nice to meet so many of you who I've corresponded with via the various mailing lists and e-mail. It was also good for our business, beyond all expectations. We are now looking toward the Muncie contest and hope to see more of you at that one. It will be new for us as we have never been there.
I am planning to have at least one new kit ready soon. It is a fun flyer I designed a couple years ago called the Davey, after my grandson. I had the plans at Geneseo along with the printwood but have now decided to make a full kit of it. Announcements will follow on this web site and on the various mailing lists when it is ready.
Also check out the status of current kits. A couple are either out of stock or down to less than a handfull due to one of my suppliers moving to a new location. Hopefully he will be up and running soon so I can get a new supply of parts. As I reorder parts for some of my kits I may be pulling some of them from dealer distribution due to higher than expected prices for the new parts. I want to hold my prices at current levels except in perhaps a couple cases and that means selling some kits only direct. I refuse to sell at a loss just to have them distributed. Besides, most hobby shops don't handle my kits. One reason why my costs have started to go up is that I had one supplier sell out some time ago and the new owner's costs have been higher than the previous owner and I have been forced to re-order higher quantities to keep within reasonable costs. However, even ordering at higher quantities has not worked in a couple cases and I'll be pulling the kits from the dealer market soon.
All for now. Thanks to all for your support.
Dave
July 2, 2006
Hi gang,
Well, I've been busy stocking up for the Geneseo FAC Nats. It starts July 13th with judging and the contests are from July 14-16 at Geneseo, NY. Hope to see a bunch of you there. Please look for my lovely wife Anita and I. We will have a table at the judging on the 13th, and be on the field probably Friday and Saturday. We always take a day off for seeing some of the local sites. We also will be at the banquet on Sunday night. I will be bringing kits and plans and will offer special discount prices while at the contest. I will also be bringing a new fun flyer plan and printwood to the contest which will on sale for the first time. I will post it to the web page after the contest.
After going over my business records I found that I was somewhat mistaken about my years in business. This year is my 25th year. The first five years I was unincorporated. So I am planning on a few new offerings for the balance of the year. Stay tuned for more info. A potential problem with getting parts for my kits has reared its ugly hear. Peck-Polymers has ceased production and may or may not be sold to a new owner. If anyone has any info please let me know. I depended on them for my prop bearings and prop hooks.
All for now. See you at Geneseo.
Dave Diels
April 27, 2006
Hi gang,
Well I have just finished updating the kit and current news page. Items that were out of stock are now back in stock. This month marked our 20th year in business. So I am working a couple promotions to mark the occasion. I am still taking suggestions so if you have any let me know.
I hope to have some announcements by the end of May and continue with them throughout the year.
Dave
April 8, 2006
Hi guys and gals,
Well, the Combination Kit #9 special offer is now officially over. Thanks to all who took advantage of the advance order savings. After all the orders were tallied it turned out to be the best combination kit offer yet, and better yet was I actually got it out on time. First results from you customers are very very encouraging. I am extremely pleased. Thank you all so much for your continued support. I am now in the design and planning stages for the next Combination kit offer and hope to annouce it in late spring or early summer.
Keep checking back for periodic updates.
Dave
March 21, 2006
Hello again,
Well, Combination Kit #9 is now in production and I will begin shipping probably on March 27th. If you are reading this before March 31, 2006 you still have time to get in on the special offer. If not, well too bad. Maybe the next combo kit will be more to your liking. Thanks to all of you who have ordered either the combo or the individual kits. This has been a very successful combo and I am now planning the next one to be announced later this spring.
Dave
December 26, 2005
Happy New Year to all,
Today I posted the new Combination Kit # 9 offer on the Special Offers page. As stated if you would like a pdf copy of the flyer send your request to me at dielsengr@kellnet.com and I will e-mail the pdf file. Or if you prefer send your snail mail address and I'll mail out a copy of the flyer. Of course now the previous special offer has expired. Thanks to all those who took advantage of the special sale. I am still planning a couple surprises for 2006 so stayed tuned and check back periodically for details.
Thanks again,
Dave
December 14, 2005
Hi Gang,
Well only one more week before the current special offer expires. So hurry to get those orders before Christmas. I will be posting info on the latest New Combination Kit offering soon. I think you will like the new offerings. Don Ross's Column in FM this month has some details.
I will be sending out Advance order flyers to those who have ordered kits from me direct within the last 3 or 4 years, or any who have ordered Combination kits in the past. Those flyers will go out the last week of December and I will post the flyer on line as well as send out a pdf file of the flyer to those who request it via e-mail. I am finishing up minor details on the drawings of both new kits and they will go to the printer soon. The balance of the parts will be ordered after I get some feel on how many to order from the advance orders.
Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a ver Happy New Year.
Dave.
November 30, 2005
Hello Troops,
Just a note to remind you that the current special offer expires in 3 weeks. Its a great time to get a fellow modeler a Christmas present. Just got a resupply of parts and now the La-5 kit and F-100 kit are back in stock. I am putting the finishing touches on two new kits and will be sending out flyers by mail and in the FAC newsletter the last week of December. I will also post the info in the New Products or Special offers section. It will be Combination Kit # 9, and have two new kits #42 and #43. This will be an advance order offer for delivery in late March 2006.
I am also working the the next set of kits to follow I hope in June or July in time for the FAC Geneseo contest next summer.
All for now.
Dave
October 4, 2005.
Hi gang,
Well this unemployment thing is continuing. So far no one seems interested in hiring a 63 year old mechanical engineer. On the plus side I am beginning to make some progress on my next two kits to be announced in late December after the Christmas holiday. Also, I have been making progress on 5 other new kit subjects which, God willing, I will also introduce next year.
More importantly, my wife is happy that I have been catching up with all those household "honey do" projects I didn't complete or even start while I was working a real job. Where I haven't made any progress at all is in organizing my workspaces here at home. That will get underway in earnest with the onset of cold weather.
Be watching your mail if you have purchased any kits from me directly in the last 4 or 5 years for the new kit announcements in late December. And check this web page regularly for new announcements and current availablity of existing items. It changes as I run out of stuff and have to wait for replacement parts.
Be sure to take advantage of the current special offers.
Thanks for your support.
Dave Diels
September 7, 2005
Well gang, I have decided to add this editorial page to my web site as a way for me to comment on stuff mainly related to this business although I reserve the right to comment on anything I feel like. This being my first set of comments I though I'd address a few questions that have been asked recently. First one is why haven't you come out with any new kits lately? The answer to that one is somewhat complicated but since you asked I will address it.
This year hasn't been a steller year for me both personally or for the business. I got sick with a bad cough and congestion/cold and was not
really well enough to do much except my at that time full time job. That lasted for almost 7 weeks. I would fill orders but no energy to complete some designs I had wanted to release in the spring. Next my former employer was taken over by a new employer and the related changover caused a lot of stress on top of trying to recover from the cold or flu that I had. Finally we got away for a week's vacation in June only to come back to rumors of cutbacks and layoffs and at the same time having pressure put on us to meet schedule and budget that couldn't be met. Then in late July my boss told me I was being laid off in August. With all the crap going on I didn't have time to finish any more designs.
Finally on August 12 I was laid off and have been on unemployment since then. I am searching for a job as prescribed by the unemployment office but frankly at age 63, almost 64, job prospects are few and far between and I am not going to move out of the area. I also have no intention of taken a lesser job just to work. I'v rather do the model airplane stuff.
So now I am planning to finish the current designs, and organize for the possibility of going into the model business full time as well as take early retirement early next year. I am also now working around the house getting caught up with stuff that needs to be done and also now working on some new designs in my spare time. I now plan to announce some new kits after the first of the year for tax purposes and then follow with at least 4 more kits during the year provided I do not find a full time engineering job in the meantime.
So that is why I have not released any new kits this year. I believe that this is the first year since I went into the kit business that I haven't had a new kit offering. I'll try to make up for it next year. So watch this page and the various Yahoo clubs and Free Flight Mailing List, as well as the FAC newsletter for a flyer. Those of you who have ordered kits within the last 3 or 4 years will be getting a direct mail advance order announcement.
Thanks to all of you for your support. See the Special Offers Page for the latest offer.
Dave Diels
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