Dave Kessel, an engineer by trade, is a director of the electrical engineering company Kesseltec (PTY) Ltd. together with his brother. Dave’s background however has always been predominantly about new product design and prototyping various product concepts.
Dave is an avid wildlife & travel photographer and rekindled his childhood love for aviation when visiting the Oshkosh airshow in the USA in 2017. Early 2020, Kesseltec procured laser cutting machinery to streamline production processes. Then the Covid-19 pandemic struck, lockdowns were implemented and like with so many other companies, Kesseltec’s production slowed down significantly.
The planned trip to the Oshkosh 2020 airshow was cancelled too. No products to churn out, no photography (besides a few local birds from his balcony) and no aircrafts in sight. With lots of time on his hands, Dave started exploring various model aircraft designs that could be cut with the newly obtained laser machine.
He was looking into various ways to easily assemble these aircraft models without the need of the traditional glue, specialized paint etc. which the usual plastic models would require.
The models were also designed in a way that they could be effortless or challenging to build without having to be an expert model builder. So it started, first with the Bombardier Challenger model for a pilot friend, then another model builder friend asking for a P-51 Mustang model, a family members bored teenager asking for another model and so on…
Fast forward, 20+ aircraft models later and the Oshkosh Airshow trip finally happening, which showed a lot of interest in these models commercially, it was decided to create a new division of Kesseltec called KesselKraft. We hope you enjoy our models as much as we do!
The KesselKraft Team
Dave is an avid wildlife & travel photographer and rekindled his childhood love for aviation when visiting the Oshkosh airshow in the USA in 2017. Early 2020, Kesseltec procured laser cutting machinery to streamline production processes. Then the Covid-19 pandemic struck, lockdowns were implemented and like with so many other companies, Kesseltec’s production slowed down significantly.
The planned trip to the Oshkosh 2020 airshow was cancelled too. No products to churn out, no photography (besides a few local birds from his balcony) and no aircrafts in sight. With lots of time on his hands, Dave started exploring various model aircraft designs that could be cut with the newly obtained laser machine.
He was looking into various ways to easily assemble these aircraft models without the need of the traditional glue, specialized paint etc. which the usual plastic models would require.
The models were also designed in a way that they could be effortless or challenging to build without having to be an expert model builder. So it started, first with the Bombardier Challenger model for a pilot friend, then another model builder friend asking for a P-51 Mustang model, a family members bored teenager asking for another model and so on…
Fast forward, 20+ aircraft models later and the Oshkosh Airshow trip finally happening, which showed a lot of interest in these models commercially, it was decided to create a new division of Kesseltec called KesselKraft. We hope you enjoy our models as much as we do!
The KesselKraft Team