Williams Bros B-10 Please Refresh Our Memories

I never heard really bad things about their kits; they weren't Revell or Monogram standard, but they were supposed to be a lot better to no worse than most "garage" injection molded ones. Here's the latest news on the company:

can still remember when they issued the B-10 model. Here's a review of building one: one of their P-35 in 1/32 scale: article goes into some of the kit's shortcomings in detail, but he sure did a beautiful job on it. Did you see all the rivets he put on it?!

Pat

some of it really sucked donkey dick.

They required a little extra work to bring them up to speed? It almost seems as if they aren't quite finished when they release a kit. I built the C-46, which is a curious mixture. Good basic shape, crisp molding (mostly), smooth surfaces, good decals. The prop hubs are too long. In fact the instructions tell you to trim them. Odd. The clear parts and cowlings are fiddly. But at the end I had a great looking C-46, and I'm going to build at least one more. The first is in the Travis AFB museum, BTW. I also built the Boeing 247 for the museum and similar comments apply. Never tackled the B-10; not much interest. I built the Gee Bee R many years ago. Don't remember much except that it went together well. They were supposed to do one of the Lockheed singles. Hope they follow through.

The point is, they tackle subjects that no one else will. They may require a few more finishing skills but no major reworking of parts. Much better than some of the garage industry injection kits.

Curt VPS

Craig:

The Williams B-10 might seem to be an "emotional" subject - but not to those of us who have haunted this newsgroup for the last 10-12 years. It has to do with the on-going saga of "Dan" and his pet Mon-key...... a truly hilarious scenario which went on for years. Call it an "ancient in-joke".

The "Mon-Key" had a thirst for Banana Brew, rode a trike, and generally indulged in behavior that would leave you blushing.

Somewhere along the line Dan attempted to build the B-10 and ended up throwing it against the wall, then stomping on it. It was all in fun, of course. But that incident led to many other threads - and became part of the RMS folklore....and that is where the B-10 became synonymous with an unbuildable project.

Sadly, Dan disappeared and now we only hear about the mon-key once in a blue moon. (Although the Mon-Key has been known to do an occasional "guest appearance" on another site: "Aircraft Resource Center".) Watch for him around April First!!

Now that I have started visiting the group again, I notice that there are very few of the "Old Folks" still posting. Back in the heyday of RMS there were up to 300 postings per day. Lots of good modeling info - many memorable trolls - and some truly great topics such as the thread on the Flying Wing and its subsequent developement and deployment in Taiwan, the Vietnam escapade, duty with the RCAF, etc. etc. There were really some creative, funny, whimmsical people that used to hang around here.

Names like "Mad Matt", "The Old Sarge". Marv Howell and "Oxmoron" all come to mind. I see in today's postings that another one of our "Old Timers" is leaving the fold.......he will be missed and the group will be diminished - but there will always be others - and that's what makes RMS so special. With or without the Mon-Key or the B-10 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rick Fluke

They were close to Monogram and Revell. Not a Tamiya or Hasagawa, but certainly better than some of the stuff we get from Eastern Europe these days. Another legitimate criticism is that they continued odd scales long after other US firms. They did some really unique "golden age" subjects.

Also, they were almost unique in their "aircraft engine" line. These were among their topmost quality. Their air-cooled radials are jewels. I sure hope they keep making those. I have not built the CW Whirlwind yet, but would like to.

I did that with Heller's "HMS Victory". I built a six foot long model spaceship via kitbashing and scratchbuilding; this little thing here drove me bats to the point where it got stomped on:

Pat

From what I've read, the descriptions sound closer to Lindberg, or later Aurora.

I'd forgotten all about those. They always did look like a neat idea. Here's another interesting engine model kit, with a tad more horsepower than a Whirlwind:

Pat

FWIW There are vac-u-form clear parts for the B-10 in one of Falcon's sets, #30 I think. I have seen the kit built, and very nicely too. It isn't a shake the box and out falls a finished model a- la-hasegawa but it is buildable. I saw one built as a Netherland's East Indies aircraft at an IPMS thing some years ago and it was very nice.

Bill Shuey

Ahhh Happy Days...

Wonder what became of ol' Dan and the Mon-key? The little varmint has been noticable by his absence for a while now... Too much banana brew methinks!

Chris

Can't speak for their 1:72 line, the only one I tried (and quit in frustration) was the C-46, but the line of 1:48 civil aircraft kits were gems with much more plus than minus to them. I just wish that they would have made more of them, maybe a bunch of Goodyear and Thompson air racers to go with the Testors and Lindberg kits.

Dan still works in the hobby shop in Louisville.

had a conversation about the Dan's Mon-Key stuff with him once.

RobG

What did he do, cut off the Monkey's Banana beer?? :-)

Bill Shuey

Don't forget the Hawk ones; I had enough of their racers as kids. I still remember the GeeBee... I thought: "This needs machine guns on it, it would have scared the Germans and Japanese to death."

Pat

Ummm, the Testors kits ~were~ the Hawk ones via a buyout. The only one different was the Curtiss R3C-2. Originally when it was first issued (1946 or '47) it was the R3C-1 ~landplane~. I've been in contact with the guy that wants to restart the old Hawk line of kits and he informs me that the Curtiss will be offered as a landplane later this years or next.

I'm of the school of thought that if the kit gets made by one company, it stays that forever, no matter who gets the molds in later years. :-) Long time back, I had some fairly poorly done large scale model racing planes (1/32? 1/24th?) that had electric motors in them to spin the props and let then taxi around on the floor. But I can't remember who made them...Lindberg? It would be fun to see a complete list of all the Lindberg jet aircraft models, because they had a lot of them. I always remember the little Lindberg double aircraft kits

and their damned "you build it!" electric motors.

Pat

On Jul 3, 8:59 am, Don Stauffer in Minnesota wrote: .

I visited the WB web site, and found a contact link. I wrote about my desire to see the engines back in production. I got a nice reply. The PW Wasp and the LeRhone are just about ready for release. They are working on the CW engine. They found some mold damage, and also found the fit of the intake manifold was not that good. They are correcting this. It will be out later than the others, but is indeed on the way. Great!!

I have never seen one of these BTW, but it's a neat looking old kit:

Pat

kits

That, and their damned "you build it!" electric motors.

Pyro. Maybe Life-Like as well (from Pyro molds). I had the Springfield- Hall Bulldog (built) and the Pesco Special kits (never started, later sold). These kits were little better than toys and very poor wing-to- fuselage relative sizes. The shapes were generally close, but not for a scale model. I have no idea who has the molds now. Maybe they're in Tokyo Bay with the Raiden molds. 8-P

That's the babies alright. They showed up at our local Tempo store sometime in the late 1970s. The biggest mistake I ever made was when Aurora dumped around a 150 model kits on our local TSC (Tractor Supply Company) store in the late

1970s for around $1.00 - $2.00 each. I could have been knee deep in T-37s, Buckeyes, Hiller X-18s, 2001 Moon Buses, Gotha Bombers, and all sorts of other goodies. God knows what those would all be worth nowadays.

Pat