Renewal Model Company

The two that surfaceline mentioned are hard to find, but nice models.

Bill

Renwal had a pretty extensive series of 1/500 ship kits, if I recall.

Don't forget their educational kits, to, the Visible kits, for anatomy or mechanics.

1/500 Shangri La. Still have it in the stash. The usual attitude was that it was a better kit than the Revell Essexes. It wasn't.

The big SPG was a good one.

Mostly though the Visible V8, Visible Allison Turbo Prop and Visible man/ woman were the bomb.

Bill

I think you should save at least one of each, you know that someday you will want to do them.

<sigh> Besides that honking big self propelled howitzer, the Renwal kits I loved most were the Attack Transport and Attack Cargo ship, Sarasota and Seminole.  The Sarasota was the same ship as the Revell Randall/Montrose, but a smaller scale and much sharper detail.  The Seminole was completely unique, as was the Compass Island survey ship.  Later I gathered up several of each for wonderful, wonderful projects for the future.

Now I have settled with the realization that I am building on 1/700 ships and these just don't belong.  So I have been selling them off at shows and ebay, and the dreams are floating out the window.

<sigh>

Rick

JohnnyK

 

 

Jay Jay

Thanks for that JohnnyK

 

 

 

 

I thought that that short film was rather insane. Can you imagine a battlefield with nuke cannons 

 

 

Yes. We trained for it in the 80’s. IIRC, we had battlefield nuclear shells for our 8 inch guns, if not the 155’s as well. Had it gone to Tac nukes, it would have gotten real messy real quick.

Nuke cannons...I remember seeing the tractors for the atomic cannon going down the highway not far from my house every so often.  I'm sure we had a few of them stored on the other side of town at Picatinny Arsenal.  A lot of things were done there.

I started with the old Strombecker woood kits way back when I was five.  The only one I rfeally remember was a B-24 with decal windows and a weight that had to be sealed into the fuselage so it would sit on its nose gear. 

My first plastic kit was the Revell Seamaster followed by Boat models from Pyro and various aircraft kits from Aurora.  Most of the fighters had solid wings and thedecal placement was marked by raised areas on the wings and fuselage.  Lindberg  had the XF-90 and XF-91 that I would like to find.  

From Renwal I remember the Skysweeper and the M-42 Duster along with the Ontos, one of my favorite tanks.

I think there was another company called adams that did some obscure models including a collection of small missiles like the dart.

Jay Jay

Thanks for that JohnnyK

 

I remember building only a few Renwal kits, and all of them with my dads help. They were a little more advanced than I was ready for at that age. Of course I’m pretty sure that he selected them too... The M47, Hawk Missile, and one of the Nike missiles, can’t recall if it was the Nike Ajax or Nike Hercules. I’d like to find the Nike kit to build again one day.

Renwal kits were also designed to be played with. Movable hatches, thick, sturdy pieces, green army men, rolling tracks, etc.

As a kid, all I could afford were the much cheaper Aurora tank kits. Although I do remember building the Aurora MBT70 and wondered why it came with both the "good guy" white stars and "bad guys" German crosses. I think I put those on a WW2 German or Japanese tank.

bondoman

 

In the same era as Hawk, Pyro, Strombecker and ummmhhh, me.

 

Hi;

 I have to add to this old Thread. Renwal offered a neat idea. Hidden gluing surfaces! This way you could use that old thready Testors or the much better Revell tube glue and build to your hearts delight and have a reasonable looking model when done. Many of their kits were built to be playable I do believe.

Go hgere to watch the Atomic Cannon in action:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upshot-Knothole_Grable

Hi,

They didn't have too many Renwal kits out where I grew up when I was young, but I did eventually buy one of their USS Farragut models.  As I recall the model was engineered with a hole in the bottom of the hull so that you could fit all the parts together and apply glue to the inside of the model.  And then at the end you would close off the bottom of the hull with a final piece of plastic.  That way, at least supposedly, any glue marks would be hidden.  

I think that the molds were from an era when there was not a lot of info on the shape of underwater hulls publicly available, so the the model was kind of square and blocky below the waterline, like some Monogram and Revell kits (I believe).

Anyway, with my limited model making skills at the time, I thought it was kind of a clever way to cast the parts.  Plus I also seem to recall alot (maybe most) of there ship kits were a constant 1/500 scale, which was also nice.

Pat

PS.  Here's an image I found on the internet showing the flat bottom of the hull with the large hole (that you eventually seal up).

I got started with Monogram near the introduction to plastic.  At first they had a line of balsa flying (so-so) models with plastic details (Speedee-Bilt).  Then they went to all-plastic.  Never did get one to fly decently (too high a wing- and power-loading).  Started treating them as static scale.

GMorrison

This got me to thinking about the hobby then and now.

Renwal and a couple of others made models that were of very broad interest. Some were military, but a whole lot were not.

Monsters, rockets, anatomical, buildings, animals. 

That doesn't seem to be the case any longer. Military subjects are the overwhelming maority of subjects. 

 

Nowadays, many companies focus on a single genre like cars, planes, tanks, etc. Of course some companies make many, but many of the top companies have a narrower focus.

I remember the Strombecker kits, I was about 8 I think, (79 now.) Two that I can still identify were a single engine float plane and a twin engine airliner, I think either a Convair or a Martin.

A small packet of powdered glue came with them, but I switched to plain old white wood glue, after seeing the mess I made mixing the powdered glue with water.

Also made several of the Comet kits, Only one simply refused to fly well, the Ercoupe, the rest were good once trimmed. Lots of fun hours spent at the bench putting them together.

A dollar bill could buy a lot back then.

Patrick

This got me to thinking about the hobby then and now.

Renwal and a couple of others made models that were of very broad interest. Some were military, but a whole lot were not.

Monsters, rockets, anatomical, buildings, animals. 

That doesn't seem to be the case any longer. Military subjects are the overwhelming maority of subjects. 

OverKnight

I know this is an old post, but I just found this site and offer the following:

My grandmother worked for Renwal.  If I recall, they were located in Carle Place, Long Island, New York.  My father built the Visible V8, and I don't recall him having any issues with building it.  Regarding the complaints I see in reviews of this model, I suspect the Revell is using the very same molds Renwal used; if so, they're undoubtedly worn out.

I remember the name Carle Place. I went to Hofstra University just a few miles away. I know the town of Hempstead was home to Aurora models. There was a hole in the wall model store along the south shore run by a man who looked like a real world leprechaun. I think I was last there in 1987. It always had old Aurora and Renwal kits of unpopular subjects that never sold when they were new.

I know this is an old post, but I just found this site and offer the following:

My grandmother worked for Renwal.  If I recall, they were located in Carle Place, Long Island, New York.  My father built the Visible V8, and I don't recall him having any issues with building it.  Regarding the complaints I see in reviews of this model, I suspect the Revell is using the very same molds Renwal used; if so, they're undoubtedly worn out.

I remember Rewal's model of Augustine Rodin's 'The Thinker', which my grandmother kept in her house.  I also remember some of the Navy ships and the submarine, the Visible Man, the automobile chassis kit.  I don't remember what it was called, but they also had a model which consisted of a base with a round tower, and on top of that was a chrome plastic ball.  There was a crank connected to a roller in the base, with another roller in the chrome ball, and running from the base to the chrome ball over these rollers was a wide rubber band.  Turning the crank would create static electricity, and if a florescent light bulb was held near the chrome ball, it would light up.  I seem to recall the manual saying it could create up to 50,000 volts, obviously only with billiamps (is there such a term as billiamps?  There’s gotta be a term smaller than milliamps…) of power.  I don't recall much else about what else was inside this to generate the static electricity, but I do recall bringing it to school in fifth or sixth grade, with my teacher so impressed with it that she let me go to all of the other fifth or sixth-grade classes to demonstrate how it worked.

If one Googles "Renwal models", the second hit is "Renewal Model Company" (linking to this thread).

I thought that was too good not to mention.

Here's a little bump for this old thread.  I followed this auction, recently ended, on eBay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RENWAL-1-1200-US-NAVY-TASK-FORCE-COLLECTION-B-6-MINIATURE-SHIPS-NO-6300-RARE-/131566875853?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2047675.l2557&nma=true&si=dskjxcEKE7W1mfFdcFiCw9tYEqc%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

I had not yet heard of Renwal's task force sets, in my research into 1/1200 plastic ship kits.  I'm intrigued.

Looking at the photos of the kits in this box, the "B" set, it looks like they're all original, though the Hornet's hull parts do look like they could be related to the Pyro Essex, derived from, that is.  The other ships,  I have not seen yet, among the kits from other manufacturers of 1/1200 ships in plastic.

But on the box, there are some pictures of subjects in the "A" kit, and the USS Washington is included.  I am very curious now to know if that is the same kit as Pyro's "American Battleship" kit (sold variously as the North Carolina, the Washington and the Massachusetts).

Has anyone else ever seen these Renwal kits before?

It's also amusing to see the closing bid price, too.  Someone's e-adrenaline was up, that's for sure.

I wonder if anyone has written any books on Renwal, in the meantime, like Graham did for Monogram and Revell...

Glencoe made it possible for many of us to actually build the Mars Liner and Nuclear Powered Space Station for only $10!!!