Cox Kenbrite brochure

I understand that, clear button heats the element continuosly with 1.5 Volts to burn excess fuel in engine. Three D cells are for this purpose.

One D cell is for heating element normally to start the engine. If engine flooded then clear button works as I described above.

9 V battery is for checking glow plug element electrical continuity and lighting the LED.

I don't have this starter, only I guess all of this information.

Have a decent Kenbrite PT-19 box if any of you collectors are interested, PM me with an offer.

Cox shipped molds for the PT-19 to Australia, sent packaging and completed engines w/ mount, wheels and prop. The blue plastic Kenbrite used is a shade lighter, as is the yellow. The PT-19 Boxes had stickers placed over the Cox Santa Ana address, and on the wing the mold was modified to say Kenbrite. I traded a Cox Seafire to a guy in Australia for his NIB Kenbrite PT-19.

Jay

jmendoza wrote:Have a decent Kenbrite PT-19 box if any of you collectors are interested, PM me with an offer.

Cox shipped molds for the PT-19 to Australia, sent packaging and completed engines w/ mount, wheels and prop. The blue plastic Kenbrite used is a shade lighter, as is the yellow. The PT-19 Boxes had stickers placed over the Cox Santa Ana address,  and on the wing the mold was modified to say Kenbrite.   I traded a Cox Seafire to a guy in Australia for his NIB Kenbrite PT-19.

Jay

Hey Jay.  Thanks.  It's nice to know a little bit of history about the Australian connection.  I knew they were made out here.  I remember the TV ads for the PT-19 and desperately wanted one, but we counldn't afford one and I ended up with a Testor P-40 instead- can't compare.
I found one used in box at a swap meet once but the guy had a couple of hundred bucks on it.  Still can't afford one 40 years later.

I have one of those Electronic Sure Starters. I lifted the board out of it and took pictures. I'll have to dig those up.

As I recall, it uses 1.5v from the D cells to light the glow head, places 2 D cells in series for 3 volts to clear a flooded element, and the 9 volt battery is the rail supply for an op-amp comparator (I think it was a LM324?) used to determine when the plug is flooded. Only going off memory here.

I'll dig up those pictures and take a look at it again.

I got the PT-19 Kenbrite from a guy whose father owned a hobby shop in Sydney, and also was a distributor for Kenbrite. He told me it was a display model that his dad had at the store, it was never flown.

I still have my Cox electronic glow starter that I used in the '80s. Kraft made a glow starter equipped with an amp meter that attached to a square 1 1/2 volt square lantern style battery. When those batteries became hard to find I took the meter and installed it in my Cox starter. Worked great. It would indicate glow plug current draw. Nowadays I use a D cell powered glow driver that has an amp meter built in.

Further to the Kenbrite Cox models, the plastic used by them to mould the model parts was inferior to the correct American material. So PT19 fuselages would crack where the firewall is retained in a hard landing, and the stab would break at the narrow centre joiner. We couldn't source enough spare parts for our customers. Also remember that Christmas sales in the mid 1970s were brisk for the Corsair and Spitfire. Too heavy for the poor little Cox 049. But much better flyers were the WW1 Camel and Fokker duo. We'd take disgruntled customers to the roof of our adjacent car park, to show them how to start and tune their Cox engine. Even flew those little biplanes on very short lines up there between air conditioning ducts.

Recently an unusually packaged Cox Pee Wee came my way. In a bubble pack/box with Cox and Kenbrite logos. That one was printed in Australia, so is different from the regular American type at that time.