gushudson

Has anyone gotten anything from Iron Bay recently? I tried to call them and the telephone won't work.

gushudson

I received an e-mail today from Iron Bay. I was glad that they were still there.

Gus

spitmad

I received a replacement cowl and canopy for my Byron P51 last month, took them a while to reply but I got the stuff ordered eventually

Alan

gushudson

I received my parts today from Iron Bay. I got them in nothing flat. I ordered a set of retracts from Robart the same day and I haven't got them yet. Thanks Iron Bay for helping me out.

Gerhard77777

My Feedback: (1)

Can anybody tell me if there phone number has changed recently, I tried the Web, but non of the web pages I have in my favorites works.

gushudson

I could not find a phone number for Iron Bay, however I sent them an e-mail and they responded to it the same day.

gus

rcpilot54

I ordered their fuel pump and still haven't recieved it a call trace to the address says it's a different hobby shop the gentleman told me he's been there for a long time and refuses to no longer do business with the owner which by the way is the only person running it! Iron bay has it's business above his hobby shop and hasnt seen him in ages he's been in trouble before and may have been reported to the better business bureau I sent two emails (no response) and called (no connection) I opened up a ticket with paypal a message was sent to him as product not received and asked for a refund Let's see what happens I believe the company be on a bad downfall and may be already out of business! [:@] The hobby shop owner spoke well of his pump too it out perform Cline's version... there is no listing for any new numbers in wheeling WV

foodstick

Its just a shame an active company couldn't have bought those molds, heck at this point some Chinese arf manufacturer would be an improvement ..especially if they could knock them out faster....

rcpilot54

Ah Ha paypal has ways to resolve issues so a product not recieved ticket was sent witha message about what has happened so far straight to Iron bay and got an immediate reply from them I also asked for a refund but he explained that it was over looked and back tracked my shipping addy It was a relief to see the fast response (Thanks Paypal) so i responded back through paypal go ahead a ship and asked for a how it was shipped and if a tracking number is avalable to email to me ....Now I patiently wait some more for it to arrive

3DPILOT_NUTZ

i live about 20/30 min away from iron bay models heck i pass wheeling every day going to work just on the other side of the OH river.. i have tried to stop by and look around but every time i go by its not open or no one is there!!! one gentleman at the local club up here says he has been there and talked to the guy that bought all kinds of byron stuff it is actually listed in the phone book here as iron bay manufacture,, have not tried in a while to stop by but going to try again soon

rcpilot54

John the apparent owner did come thru with my fuel pump paypal resolution help resolve my issue with item not received so I'm happy for now ...there is supposed to be a hobby shop at the same address on the street level floor .... Good luck if he has something in stock you should get it ok ... paypal was a great help to me

samtech

It would seem I'm having the same problem. I ordered a regulator in Oct... never got it... e-mailed and got no response... Contacted paypal and he sent it out the next day, Nov 19th, to the wrong address. Had another little chat through paypal... and he sent another regulator to the correct address on the 2nd. Now I wait...

Fly2XS

My Feedback: (65)

Has anyone been in touch with IRON BAY MODEL PRODUCTS lately?

I have been trying to call & e-mail for over a month now with no response. [sm=sad_smile.gif]
Their web site is up and functional but has no indication that they are not in business.

http://www.ironbaymodelcompany.com/index.htm

I need a set of Corsair ABS Oil Cooler Vents. If you have a set and are willing to part with them, please e-mail me. Otherwise I'll need to scratch some up myself.

Scott

HellcatAce

My Feedback: (6)

I agree 100% I heard that the guy who bought the Byron stuff also has a much more important full scale aircraft related business that gets the majority of his attention. Heck, if he just wants to sit on it, he should sell it back to Byron! Or better yet, to someone who gives a rats arse and is willing to sell. Man I should bought that real byron.......

foodstick

Well, I know this thread has been cleaned up some, and it was my post above that got everyone wound up.. I never intended that I wanted the stuff in china, it just makes me so disgusted that things have ended up the way they are. I have several friends that were VERY deeply involved with Byron way back when.. I just wish someone could make money off the existing molds and accesories.. of course preferably produced here.

if you want to hear a real sad story i was talking with one of my buddies that was around Byron alot..and I believe they destroyed some of their molds for the giant showpiece planes they flew in the striking back show..what a shame.

Its funny how now the Byron planes don't even look big at many flyins. But its like classic cars.. so many people want the one they couldn't have...

Bill Diedrich

I sent a rather angry e-mail to John @ Iron Bay back toward the first of the year, below is my e-mail, followed by John's response:

"This an e-mail that I sent in frustration to Iron Bay Model Co. and the reply that was sent back. It sheds a lot of light
on the situation at this company, I thought it appropriate to post it here:

My e-mail:
Dear Sirs,I recently submitted an order for parts for the Byron RV-4 and asked that a Pay Pal invoice be sent for payment. I realize that it has been the Christmas & New Year Holiday time, so I have been trying to be patient, but I feel that you guys are really "Missing the Boat", so to speak, by not being concerned with the current image that you have in the model market place. It is a shame that someone that has spent a great deal of money to purchase the molds, tooling and other remnants of the Byron aircraft line of models to have them wasting awayin a building somewhere in Wheeling, West Virginia. The image portrayed on RC Universe is one filled with so much negativity that it seems to be impossible to get anything from your company in a timely manner or possibly maybe ever. I thought that getting a response in couple of days was a good sign, but I guess my hopes that Iron Bay Model Co. was on the way back to be an credible source for those great creations that were once available from Byron, was only a flicker as I have had no response. I know being a former hobby shop owner both here in the US and also in the UK, that you will never get rich being a manufacturer, distributor, or shop owner in this business. if you have no intentions of furthering your business as the holder of the former Byron products, please for the sake of all of us that would love to buy and build any one of the great war-bird creations of Mr Byron, either do something with the company or put it up for sale, maybe someone that really cares will buy it and do something constructive with it. Just my 2 cents worth........... Vernon W. Diedrich Ventress, Louisiana

And here is john's response:

Hi Vernon ,

I appreciate your comments, but feel that they are possibly a little bit uninformed. For some reason a few folks out there seem to like to conjecture that there is a groundswell of people interested in acquiring the molds/tooling and going in to production of the Byron products. Yet I have never had a single serious inquiry from a person with either the resources or knowledge to achieve this. Second, the model aircraft division of Byron Originals was up for sale for over 5 years prior to our acquisition, so any other interested parties had full access and opportunity to make an offer to them and take on the challenge of producing the product. Seeing as Byron Originals only had one serious offer during the half a decade of time that it was up for sale, it is pretty evident that interest in manufacturing these kits is not as great as you and others may presume. However, most importantly is the bottom line; the Byron folks realized that it was very difficult to competitively manufacture the product here in the U.S. with the labor rates, government restrictions, and material costs; and to ship production overseas would eliminate much of the uniqueness of the product not to mention increase the level of foreign competitors who would copy the product.

So it would seem to be a good question to ask: “why would one take on such a challenge realizing that it will be a difficult task while not be a money-making endeavor�? The reason was simple at the time…if we did not acquire the company then it was going to be scrapped. Yes, scrapped! Every mold, tool, piece of inventory, etc. As a matter of fact, the handful of small items that we did not feel that we needed to take with us when our tractor trailers pulled out was put in the dumpster the very next day! Even though they told us that they had no intention of continuing with any part of the model business, we didn’t think that they would actually do it. After all, surely the items would have both historical and sentimental value for the family. Nevertheless, for the Byron folks it was a simple business decision to replace the existing square footage of manufacturing space with equipment and products that were profitable, and the tradition/heritage/investment of the model aircraft would be relegated to history. Indian Motorcycles comes to mind as another U.S. Company that is no longer in existence. The Byron family does have a beautiful display of static aircraft and the airport facilities to keep the memory of Byron alive, but the manufacturing items just held little value from a business point of view. I heard a number in excess of 10 million dollars mentioned when we discussed the investment that Byron Godbersen made to build the company from scratch. He was quite a unique person and what he did for the modeling industry was out of his passion for the product, not for the bottom line of profit. Talk about a great sacrifice and a truly remarkable guy!

We looked on the opportunity with the realization that the project would not necessarily make a significant amount of money, but would at least be a way to maintain some form of continuance of the Byron model aircraft products that we enjoyed. So we jumped in with both feet and have brought as much of the product back into production as we could afford from both a monetary and time point of view. As a business, Byron Model Aircraft is a very labor intensive entity in both production and customer service. This is one of the primary reasons that the Byron folks got out of it. For instance, we have one full-time person dedicated to just handling orders for obsolete and older kit replacement parts of which most orders are for $20 or less. Needless to say that this person does not generate enough revenue to pay their own paycheck let alone cover company overhead and G&A expenses. This is not because the person is a poor employee, but simply because many of the items they are producing/packaging/shipping can only be economically produced in high quantities. Yet it is impossible to justify doing a high volume production run if we are only going to sell a dozen pieces a year of a given replacement part.

Most other companies simply call these parts obsolete and stop servicing the product. My Dell laptop comes to mind here; it is less than 5 years old, yet there are already parts that I cannot obtain because they are obsolete. Nevertheless, we continue to take heat from customers that complain about our production time, not realizing that we are doing them quite a service by simply continuing to offer a product that other companies would typically have discontinued two decades ago. We’re not perfect, but the alternative is far worse.

We consider ourselves extremely blessed because we have invented several new products that have garnered significant contracts with the Department of Defense. Our company has grown tremendously over the past two years, and will more than quadruple in sales volume in the next 18 months from these contracts, so we must be doing something right. It is this Defense side of the business that makes it possible to even operate the recreational model aircraft side of the business. We had a few high paid guys from the modeling industry running the recreational side of the business for a while, but things didn’t work out and they are no longer with the company. For a while, customer service was timelier for the model aircraft customers, but their occasional involvement with the defense side of the business resulted in some intentional sabotage and neglect (performed by them) which almost cost us the Defense side of the business. Nevertheless, diligent effort and creative ideas prevailed and we are well over double the annual revenue as when they worked here. We have not replaced them yet because our goal is to make the Defense side of the company as solvent and durable as possible first so that we may ride out any tough financial times. The way that we chose to accomplish this was to temporarily reduce the level of customer service in the recreational division and concentrate labor on the defense side of the business.

We have every indication that in the long run our choice was the correct one and is yielding a very solid Defense company that will allow us to apply some of the profit gained therein to subsidize the higher costs of the recreational division. From a strict business point of view the company (as a whole) makes less profit this way, but not every business is entirely about the bottom line. Byron set a great example in this, and it is one that we choose to emulate as much as we can. So I would propose to you that I am indeed somebody who “really cares�, and remind you that if not for us then there would be no Byron Originals products in existence to even be discussing.

What this means to the modeler on the street is that for a while longer we will be running the recreational side at reduced levels however in the following couple of years they will see a renewed customer service level and additional products released.

We don’t like to take money up front from our customers until their order is ready to ship, so this is the reason that you have not yet received a request for payment. We would like to still have you as a customer, but for a while our turn-around time for orders big and small will tend to be slow. This is a reality of trying to maintain the goal of keeping production alive here in the U.S. If you can live with that to keep your older Byron kits alive then we’ll probably continue to do business in the future. If not, then we still thank you for your consideration.

Regards,

John"

Bill Diedrich

I did however get the vacu-formed parts I required and a new canopy, but never received the cowl for my RV-4.
It was very severly cracked at the join seams but I managed to repair it and I'm now going forward with the project.

Bill D.

HellcatAce

My Feedback: (6)

So...that means they will sit on that stuff until they have the time and/or personnel to fill orders because they want to wait for the defense business to be strong enough.

Great, that sounds like a prefect reason to never see any product from them in our lifetimes!

peterkitching

[]its a sad day,Iron bay is no more,its been wound up

51-D GUY

My Feedback: (4)

Hi Peter ,

I'm just curious , You say I.B. is shut down , Did you talk to the Owner,

Or get the word somewhere else, I'M just curious , some say there open, some say there not ,


Thank's 51-D GUY.

Tom in Cincy

My Feedback: (16)

FWIW I just ordered a vacu-formed nose ring for the Mig 15 (phone order). So as of 11/2010 they are still around.
Bill, that letter he wrote you back was very interesting. Thanks
tp

JeffH

My Feedback: (43)

I ordered a cowl and canopy for their P-51 and the whole transaction took about a week.

Eagle Flyer

My Feedback: (84)

Want to know what happened to those HUGE bomber planes? You know the ones that had fuselages 15 feet long (plus or minus just a guess) with wing spans that no one would have ever expected. Ya those big ones used in the show.
The molds etc all went in the garbage. Along with some other items that no one would have ever guessed were still around.
Don't bother contacting them, every thing is all gone!
As mentioned before. It was on the market a long time. Every one had their chance.

JeffH

My Feedback: (43)

Honestly, what are you going to do with the molds for a 400 pound B-29?? The B-25s and C-47 MIGHT have been able to be flown as AMA experimental today, b ut not likely. the SR-71 would have been the only viable plane that they demoed that could be used today.

Eagle Flyer

My Feedback: (84)

The plug to make the mold for the SR 71 was in the same pile.