Keil Kraft, a brief history
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2024
- This is a short overview of the former Keil Kraft Works model company which made mostly balsa kits but did do some plastic scale models as well. It includes rare movie footage taken in what I think was the mid 1960s. Wearing ties around industrial machinery....what could go wrong? .🤔
Link to original video/film. • Keil Kraft Factory Tour
The KK kits started me off building in the 1950's . The Spitfire , my first kit, Cost 3 shillings and 9 d or 3s9d . Thats about 18 p in modern money not taking inflation into account . Great times using one of dads old razors to cut our parts and peeling balsa cement off your fingers . Still building . Thanks for the memories
All I can say what a wonderful program .
thanks
That all he says yet he has film and pictures of the whole operation. Well done Max.
Built a few of those when I was a kid in England, early 1960's. Fantastic film of the factory. The health and safety matches what I was exposed to in my early working life, we thought nothing of it.
still got all of your fingers? 😉
@@maxsmodels Yeah, worked with machinery all my life including a lot of chainsaw work , I'm a certified arborist. Still got all my parts except tonsils and appendix.
The tour video is great! A wonderful look back at old school production, before OSHA and bean-counters took over business.
In the UK that would be Health and Safety Executive within The Department for Work and Pensions.
The only reason people hate osha is that staying safe is difficult and requires work.
@@melody3741 OSHA also reduces jobs.
Sod Mark Felton Productions. Where the hell did you find THAT footage!
Seriously?
IMHO one of the finest company vids you have produced.
Totally blown away by that.
Actually built a Keil Kraft styrene kit. They did a model of an Edinburgh Corporation Tram. Built one for my father who drove busses for the Corporation. He had it on a shelf for years.
Great memories.
Thank you, Max.
Just a note - most of their 'kits' can be purchased, new from 'The Vintage Model Company' - on their website, the prefix 'kk' denotes a Keil Kraft model.
So, if you want to relive your boyhood, or share your childhood with your kids (or Grandkids...) then you can do so - they aren't too expensive either.
Imagine my total surprise when I visited a model shop for the first time in years when I saw Keil Kraft kits on sale, including the Senator, which was the first model I ever made back in the early 70's.
These kits are now being produced again by Ripmax, and sold under the Keil Kraft name. The big change from the 60's is the parts are now laser cut, having been lovingly captured into a modern CAD system.
I am going to build a Senator again some time soon - thanks for posting this unique video!
WELL DONE VIDEO SIR,NOW PLEASE GET SOME REST.AS A KID IN THE 50S. I FOUND OUT THAT BALSA PLANES AND FIREWORKS DON'T MIX. BOY DO I MISS THOSE DAYS.GOD BLESS YOU AND ALL GLUE TROOPERS EVERYWHERE.
thanks, I will
Great vid! Thankyou. A lot of their kits were good flyers too...well designed. The fabulous 'Slicker' is now a vintage classic. Enjoyed this......
I loved making these Balsa flying Aircraft. It took months of intricate work, and only a few seconds of "Flight" before all was lost. Good old English Engineering. It makes one proud to be British. All that Balsa Cement and "Dope"... Lots and Lots of Dope. I thought The WWI Fighter Aircraft were the best in the range. Cheers Max, I had forgotten about Keil Kraft (Probably all that Dope).
Very interesting and insightful 👍. Thanks for sharing this. I built Keil Kraft kits as a boy. Playboy & Gypsy planes, and a Curlew boat. I remember eventually sending the Curlew to a watery grave by attaching a firework rocket to it's deck with my dad. Happy days 😅. 🇬🇧
Thanks Max, love these historical stories you do. I hope you are feeling better.
Toughing it out.
Used to walk past the factory on my way home from school in fact unknown to me at the time one of the art teachers was a designer at keil Kraft before becoming a teacher. I would have loved to talk to him about airplanes
How we take things for granted! I built dozens of KK models as a youngster. Never ,ever, was a part missing or faulty - all thanks to those loyal, hard-working .old-fashioned looking staff whom we never saw-till just now! Fascinating.
I love your model company history videos. You have a great voice for narration Max. I could listen to these for hours. This one reminded me of my days working on a assembly line for a electronics company putting together components for some high power line equipment. Now built in China. I worked my way up the ladder and got to be one of the top honchos until the place got sold. Not much chance of a kid here today getting to do that. Oh the American dream.
Thanks for that tremendous blast from the past Max!
I too built as a kid (when I could save up enough! ) most of the smaller Keil Kraft range of flying models. After progressing through to larger models as later income allowed, I eventually became a professional model model maker off the back of my hobby model making, a career lasting 25 years. Today I have my own joinery business, using the skills acquired as a model maker. I still make and fly model aircraft. Modelling has been good to me!
Thank you so much for uploading this Max. I had a few of the balsa wood models back in the 60s and 70s. Very nostalgic to watch the factory tour.
It’s a brand that was so familiar to me when I was young in the 60s even my village shop in Cambridgeshire stocked them alongside Matchbox vehicles, don’t remember the polystyrene kits though. I can’t remember ever attempting one but my brother certainly did as he was the real balsa flying fan. Thanks for the happy memories Max of innocent times.
I remember the Keilkraft plastic truck kits ; they were available in the UK even in the early nineties.. 1/72nd scale; that was a brilliant idea..
Thank you.
I have fond memories of the factory in Russell Gardens wickford also the mercury model company was opposite in the same road and strangely enough knew the guy that recovered eddy keils car after the fatal crash.
Great video of the factory operations Max. The amazing thing to me is how well all of the employees are dressed, all of the women are prim and proper and the men are all wearing a white shirt and tie. Unlike any thing you might see today !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks Max, another fantastic history video from the Master. The factory tour was an incredible bonus! -I assume “no fingers we’re lost in the making of this film.” Now please take care of your self and get much rest so your recovery from the plague is complete and lasting, we all will understand if there is a pause in content.
I winder how many digits were lost to provide us with our models?
Thank you, glad to be of help. I just had a quick look on Scalemates. As far as I can see, only two plastic aircraft kits are listed.
F1 Hawker Hurricane Mk.IIc - which is dated rather vaguely as 196x. The Heller Hurricane Mk.IIc was a 1970s kit.
F2 Sopwith Camel. Again a rather vague date, 195x.
Both kit listings include the original Keil Kraft instruction sheets.
I too remember the Humbrol Authentic Colours. Regular Humbrol enamel paint tinlets sold for 23 cents in New Zealand when I began modelling in 1974. The Authentics were a bit more, either 27 or 29 cents each. They were grouped in to sets of six, mostly aircraft colours, such as RAF, RAF Overseas, Fleet Air Arm, USAAF, Luftwaffe, Italian, French, Japanese, Military Vehicles, Naval Vessels, etc. There were also some Railway Colours. As I understand it, production of the range ended after a fire at the Humbrol factory, although some shades did reappear in the standard Enamel range. I still have some Authentic tinlets from the 1970s and 1980s.
Another wonderful history video, from the master of the genre. The factory tour film was great, and very informative. Keil Kraft looks to have been a sizable operation.
According to Plastic Kits Made in Britain, Keil Kraft made balsa kits during the war, but not sure if that is correct. Apart from their flying models, several of the boxes shown are of non-flying Solid Models.
Plastic Kits also says the balsa models were distributed by wholesaler A A Hales Limited. They eventually took over Keil Kraft, which then passed to the successor wholesale firm Amerang Ltd.
Apart from their early plastic aircraft models (1950s or 1960s), they also did a range of vintage and modern road vehicles. Oddly, these were 1/72nd scale, although presumably intended as model railway accessories, in which case they should have been 1/76th scale (British OO). Apparently the later kits were 1/76th scale. Plastic Kits says these date from the 1970s, although I remember seeing them in the shops around the 1980s or 1990s. The road vehicles later went to another maker of model railway accessories, Knightwing, and at least part of the range was re-issued.
I do have the KK London Double Decker Bus, and one or two other kits, although I never got around to actually building any of them. The Routemaster was available in red plastic as a normal London Transport bus, or in green plastic as a Country bus.
I am going to start sending you my scripts for knowledge enhancements. You always have some great info that I missed.
So many memories. Thanks Max. I used Jetex on their jets
Magnificent video Max. Thank you! What a treasure to see the kit manufacturing process. It make one appreciate the hard work, the array of machinery and the loving hands that come together to make this great hobby of ours. Even though these folks were making balsa kits, the sentiment is the same. These history videos that you have been blessing us with have been the highlight of your channel. God be praised! All the bad things aside, I agree when you say we grew up in the best of times for kids. I think maybe we should do a balsa kit build, for old times sake. Model on!
I have one in the queue
Wow. From building Mosqutos to building scale kits of Mosquitos post War. Amazing.
Even more amazing that I never heard of them, but I avoided balsa, except for the 10 cent Testors gliders.
🛩
Very nice video and the manufacturer of the kits, by hand was equal to the end users construction. Cool. Thank you, peace out.
Wow great video Max, that archival footage is amazing! Nicely done and as always informative and enjoyable, thanks for all you do Max, Model on!
Here is an idea of a subject to do one day. The one thing every modeller need and not even think about. But the history of Model glues, cements and so on even model paints (Who remembers Humbrol Authentic colours (not the current ones from Humbrol) and Aeromaster paints and decals). As well some of the model tool suppliers like Squadron hobbys.
Keep up the good work and hope to see many more things like this clip as well.
My paint of choice in my formative years (mostly 1970's) and first paint I used in an airbrush was the Pactra line. They were pretty decent and presented an accurate range of military shades.
hmmmm
I remember the Humbrol authentic colours. After having to deal only with the square Testors paints, Humbrol was beyond anything I had seen. Testors was a nickel, then a dime. Humbrol was 25 cents a tinlet.
I used some Pactra paints too, back in the 1970s as a teen modeler. The old TG&Y store carried them.
@@maxsmodels So now I have you thinking I take it?
Keil Kraft was a UK model shop fixture in the 1960s, as were Mamod working steam engines and Wavemaster model boats. I don't remember KKs styrene kits at all, they probably got lost in the competition. Most kids tried the basic balsa kits, few persevered to the bigger stuff. Better described as a scratch-builders aid than a kit, though a suitably committed adult could make a decent job of one. Health and safety are standard for the era, machine guards slowed things down and were quickly dispensed with. Look at the guy at 4:50, his right hand is locked in that position for a reason!
Machine workers wearing dress shirts and ties and dresses and skirts. No company uniforms at all. And a lot of manual labour still required. As you said different times. Thanks for the story and film Max.
Wearing ties around industrial machinery....what could go wrong? 😉
Made a brief visit to Dundas Valley Hobbies. Quite impressed, just like a hobby shop should be.
@@BigLisaFan Yes it is. And the staff are very knowledgeable. Good selection and many brands I can not get in my neck of the woods.
@@garfieldsmith332 I couldn't stay long, another crisis at work. I will be back though, I just scratched the surface there.
It's got everything but RC, but then that doesn't matter and the owner has no more break ins either.
@@BigLisaFan Most hobby shops that have RC are just RC shops.
Thanks Max for another great video. Love the history. Never got into building balsa wood models, even though I did try my hand at a couple. Hope you are feeling better. God bless you and yours and thanks again for everything you do! Model On Captain!
Interesting that they made a few semi kits and steam tractor kits as well ..
A friend of my Father gave me a partially assembled balsa and paper Keil Kraft kit. I had no clue how to finish the model and so it ended up being donated to a Catholic children's home in Island Bay.
Brilliant . thank you ....
Looks like they made quite a variety of kits ..
I remember the KeilKraft Hurricane being reviewed in the Airfix magazine. It was considered to be a good kit, accurate in outline apart from being a little too thick at the rear fuselage. Where it originated isn't clear. Could it have been a reboxed Heller product,?
possibly
Models brought to you by British Blokes in a Shed Production's (It's a wonder they weren't using Bodge Tape to hold everything together. Bodge Tape - The thing that holds the British army together (Literally in some cases))
Britain's suburban A-roads were lined with firms like these. A rubber door wedge to a sportscar, chemical corporations to flypaper manufacturers, each serving their niche. Kids left school at 15 and retired at 65, typists, machinists, janitors, managers, a kind of extended family if you got a good one. All history.
Thanks Max! I have built one KeilKraft plastic kit, watch your email for a full review.
will do
I can safely say I contributed to some of the wage's.
I see no danger here
Luv'd Kiel Kraft , did the Piper Cub and all time fav the AJAX , I used to help my Dad build them it was great fun as He was an Engineer it was precise ..you never forget the smell of Balsa or building a Model from it.
cool