A bit of trivia about the Lindberg 1/48 PT-17 Kaydet

[ssculptor]

Darius at Home's string on the Lindberg kits reminded me about the history of one of the Lindberg kits. The Boeing PT-17 Kaydet kit was first issued after World War Two in the mid-late 1940's by the Varney company in the USA. Varney was big in HO gauge model trains kits but I believe they made some models for the government during the war. Anyhoo, this biplane kit was issued by them with a solid black bakelite fuselage. All the other parts were injection molded in styrene plastic. During WW2 the US gummint had Identification models of airplanes produced in solid bakelite plastic in 1/72 scale. I am sure that many got over to the UK along with the troops.

Anyhoo, Varney issued their biplane kit with a solid fuselage of the stuff in the 1940's.

At the end of the decade the Olin Company bought Varney's dies and converted the models to all styrene plastic. Olin soon became Lindberg and they have periodically reissued these old kits about every 10-15 years. Lindberg has been resurected recently (again) so these kits will probably appear once again.

Varney produced 4 kits in the 1940's that Olin/Lindberg bought. There was this airplane, the Fleet Submarine (1/260 scale) which also had a solid bakelite hull with styrene parts, and two wood and styrene kits, the LST and the PT boat. All four of these kits were converted to all styrene plastic by Lindberg and keep showing up again every now and then.

Just a bit of modeling trivia.

How do I know all this? Easy, I live in the USA and I had bought and built all of Varney's kits back in the 1940's when they came out.

I am older than dirt. (Oh, I do so like this smiley).

[zeke]

Thank you ssculptor.

It's amazing just how many seriously old kits and mouldings do get re-released, but if there's still life left in the old dogs then why not?

Edited July 30, 2007 by zeke