An annoying and constant BUZZ is present at Warehouse Hobbies

[Tony Castronovo]

A few days ago the the last of the parts shipment we were waiting for arrived to complete the first of our production run of XForce, XF-26 water-cooled engines. There has been a constant 'buzz" ringing through the buildings as two XForce engines have been singing away for the past four full days. Each has been fitted to a load bearing dyno with a constant supply of cool well water and a five gallon gas tank.

My nerves have been a little on end I confess, OK allot, but as each day goes by and I hear the continuous harmony of them I am becoming more and more confident that Warehouse Hobbies will become the first US based company to have produced and produce components and assemble model engines on a high volume level since the 1970's. 

We are on schedule to release them starting on January 1st 2012 in our RTR Enforcer line and to the public as engines only by the end of January. From there we are gearing up to start with a production run of 100 engines per month for the next year. 

I am working out the details for a full 180 day factory warranty for box stock engines and a 90 day warranty for our M5 factory modified engines, each with very few limitations, all of which can easily be avoided by following our directions. I realize that during the winter months in the Northern states and hemisphere model boating comes to a halt, so I am implicating the warranty to begin the first of May for all climates that are subject to winter weather limitations. 

Even though to be competitive most of tooling and components are made abroad, there are a considerable amount of parts that are being made at our factory and others in the US to complete this engine package. The fact that each and every engine will be hand built here at Warehouse Hobbies will enable us to keep quality control at an extremely high level, yet keep the engine costs below the competition.

Today we have to do everything we can to keep our manufacturing strong and keep our country and industry moving forward, and though this is a tiny step in comparison to the grand picture, it is a giant leap for a small company such as ours and myself. I trust that our loyal customer base will be and stay on board with us now and well into the future.

Thank you,

Tony C.

[John Audette]

Thats great news Tony! Keep up the great work and great products!

[Steve Knoell]

AMEN to what John posted !

[Skip]

Good luck Tony  ...  love that dyno equipment and setup.  Keep up the great work and we will continue to try to promote your products.  BTW:  One of your struts has been at the machine shop all week to add length   ...  we'll see how that goes later today (hopefully). A new mounting bracket that I am working on for the XP-2 dual rudder drive is almost ready to be detailed there next week to fit the Moppie hull transom for Trinket. FYI:  The owner and his employees at Black Dog Machine are very impressed with your products' craftsmanship and designs (just as I have always been).

[Tony Castronovo]

Thanks Skip, Tell them I appreciate it especially because I'm such a simpleton when it comes to designing. I put a inline into a Moppie I built for me here to balance it and it seems to balance very well, it should be a hoot to run. I think that I would try to balance (transom forward) at 30% with gas weight included. The boat doesn't have that much keel so bow steer won't be too much of an issue, however to much forward weight may cause the ass-end to come un-glued in the turns. Let me know when you are ready to install the engine.

[Tony Castronovo]

That dyno is know as Betsy, named by one of my long time employees who retired several year ago. He and I built her in 1988 and she has tested more than 20,000 engines. It can be adjusted to load an array of props by loading and unloading a turbine. We have it set for 2-blade 70 mm to 82 mm's. Right now it is running at a 75mm 2-blade load at 11,000 RPM's.

We spent many weeks calibrating it and in the old days we had to use on-board memory tachs to mirror the dry land tachs. When I purchased the water-break computer dyno a few years ago and compared the results with Betsy, we were amazed how close we actually were all those years. 

Anyway Betsy has gone through; 8 sets of quality bearings, over a dozen machine / engine couplers, and two impellers to date, and we cross our fingers each day now because yesterday she started to make some internal noise? 

Her only limitation is we can not run a clutch-less engine on her because of the backlash on the 8" turbine wheel, it snaps couplers in a heartbeat, so we are also putting one Hell of a test on our clutches, shoes and all of their workings at the same time. 

Just a little more WHH history, hope I didn't bore you.

Thanks,

Tony C.

[Steve Knoell]

Tony,

 NOT boring us at all,its great to hear of the stories that have brought us to this date and time ! Love hearing how things have evolved over the years !  Keep up the awesome work for our hobby ! Please !  Steve K.

 

[Tony Castronovo]

You guys are funny and I appreciate that and history as well. Once I was sitting with one of the ERTL kids in IOWA, and I brought up the subject about history in the hobby and how I burned many molds and patterns in the 80's and even early 90's cause I had no room for them, and he said you think that's bad, Hell there's a whole industry based on collectibles and mistake made products that we made over the years. I never would of dreamed that one of our die cast trucks could be worth five thousand dollars for two dollars of metal and plastic. We destroyed potentially millions of dollars never thinking that our history could have any value. 

Now of course I'm not ERTL. but since then I have saved almost everything we have made, and I have a 2500 sq' storage room packed with crap I have no idea how to get rid of! I go upstairs in this room as little as possible but when I do, I walk down with something and before I can get to the dumpster I get flashbacks of sentimental value, or I know I can make this work if I try again, and back upstairs it goes. It's hard to part with things that you created good or bad, or at least I have a hard time doing so. I think one day I will start putting some of the the stuff up on ebay so it can go to those who appreciate the history of the hobby. I should of brought you up there when you visited here, those that do always say, "Oh my God", and that makes me feel worse. I asked my son Mike how in the Hell are we going to clean this place out, and he said with a match!

[John Audette]

I know exactly how you feel Tony! i have the same problem!

[Tony Castronovo]

John.
A few months ago i went to look at a building tjat suddenly came up for sale. Sadly the guy who owned them passed away. He had a factory that made electric gates. I met his wife there and we got to talking. She asked me if i knew how she could sell her husbands stuff. She showed me his toy collection and i was stunned. He had cars boats motorcycles you name it.
She then told me he didn,t have life insurance bit everything was paid for,and she couldn,t run the business without him. To make things worse she,s on her 70,s and retired. Not a good positon to be in in these times and at her stage in life when nothings selling, and if you do at 1980,s prices around here.
She is still trying to sell stuff to survive. Man I got back to the shop, called my insurance agent and raised my lifr insurance so i wouldn,t burden pam if i get the big one. Something to think about if you guys have lots of stuff and banking on thier selling value for security these days.
My only concerns these days is to check the antifreeze container levels.

[John Audette]

yeah, very much agreed Tony! i did the same about 5 years ago, so the kids would have something. But they would NEVER sell our boats! LOL!