Now, you might be thinking, “But wait!  Goodwinds Kites has been around for ages!”

True, but Goodwinds LLC, the composite rod and tube company, is a company that grew as an offshoot of Goodwinds Kites- an offshoot purchased by Leland Holeman, Roger Holeman, and Amelia Cook four years ago.

A lot has changed in those four years.  We still supply American-made carbon and fiberglass rods and tubes at the very best retail and wholesale prices.  We still are happy to custom cut every order.  We still enjoy working in this industry.  But also, we have hired four staff in addition to the owners.  We’ve added another website, www.gwcomposites.com, to appeal to engineers and industrial companies.  And, we’ve expanded our product offerings and our on-hand inventory four-fold.

In the coming year, you’re going to see a few great changes to Goodwinds.  Chiefly, we will be redesigning our website, www.goodwinds.com, to be easier to navigate and to facilitate ordering.  We would love to hear from you – any suggestions or feedback on the current website and how it can be improved would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you to all our customers, employees, and friends for a great four years!

We’ve had a crazy few weeks, and it already seems as though 2012 is busier than last year.  We’re settled into our new space at 2629 Henson Road in Mount Vernon and we have experienced an increase in productivity and precision far beyond our imaginations.  The new saw room is pristine and really allows us to make accurate cuts to our carbon and fiberglass rods and tubes.  Having our total stock in one big room makes it easy to keep track of it, and we are able to better anticipate inventory needs, which, of course, means that we can fulfill orders faster and more completely.

Well, the move wasn’t the only trick we had up our sleeve for bringing you better service in the new year; oh no, we’re about to launch a new website that will allow you to access information and specifications about our American-made carbon and fiberglass!  We’re calling it our “industrial website” because it’s goal is to provide information for engineers and tinkerers to allow them to better build their products with Goodwinds’ rods and tubes.  You can look for more information about this new website here as soon as we are live – within the next two weeks!  Of course, you’ll always be able to access our large line of carbon, fiberglass, line, connectors, tapes, fabric, and other accessories at www.Goodwinds.com.

In short, we think 2012 is going to be a great year!  Drop us a line to find out how we can help you with your composite rod and tube needs.

It is possible to still purchase inexpensive Chinese carbon rods and tubes.  Chinese carbon is made with fewer carbon fibers and more vinylester or epoxy (the glue that binds the carbon fibers together) than American carbon, and is less strong as a consequence.

Because Goodwinds supplies many industrial companies with carbon, we have chosen to continue to supply high-quality, American-made carbon rods and tubes to our customers.  We understand that quality is important to our customers, whether you are a hobbyist or one of our industrial partners or an engineer.  You will see prices rise at Goodwinds, but hopefully not very much as we work with these new price fluctuations.  And we will always offer quantity and wholesale discounts.  Please contact us with any questions.

The first days of the show are specifically for retailers, and we would love to show you how we can save you money and offer you better carbon that your customers want!  We have an easy online-ordering process with deep discounts – who doesn’t want to save money in this economy?  Also, we are willing to ship custom lengths of any of our rods and tubes.  This means that you get what you want without any waste.  Finally, no order is too small to qualify for the wholesale discount.  That’s right, you can order  $50 or $5,000 worth of carbon and fiberglass (at custom lengths, if you like!) and you’ll get the same great prices and the same great service.  We want to be your composites supplier.

The second part of the show is for the public.  And boy, do we love meeting the public!  We’ll have lots of neat wrapped carbon tail booms and sailboat masts, microcarbon rods, and carbon tubes for sale so that you can get started on your project right away!  We’ll also have lots of samples to touch and explore – the possibilities are endless, and we would love to hear what great ideas you have for working with Goodwinds’ composites!

Come visit us at booth #1913 in the Donald E Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont (Chicago), Illinois October 21-24!  We’ll see you there!

Goodwinds’ employee Paul de Bakker will be competing in a number of events starting on Tuesday, and he will be joined by Leland and Derrick at the FlyMart on Thursday and Friday.  Come take a look at our carbon rods and tubes and take advantage of some great deals on wrapped carbon tubes!  If you don’t already have a store account, talk with the boys about how to get one.  We are looking forward to seeing you there!

Paul is originally from Holland, and he has lived in the United States for the past couple of years with his wife, Delita.  During that time, he formed his own boutique kite company, Focus Kite Designs, with a longtime friend and fellow kiteflyer, Hunter Brown.  The two design and build upscale, high-quality kites for shipment all over the world.

We at Goodwinds lured Paul and Delita away from North Carolina with the promise of hiking Washington’s beautiful mountains, kiteboarding in the fantastic Puget Sound, and participating in kite competitions, such as the Washington State International Kite Festival, in the Pacific Northwest.  Paul is quite the competitor, routinely placing in both indoor and outdoor kite competitions:

 We are so excited to have Paul with us at Goodwinds.com.  He’s young, he’s fun, and he’s extremely knowledgeable.  He will be working with a variety of industries, including hobby and RC stores, to meet their carbon and fiberglass needs.  Drop us a line and say hello to Paul today!

Many of the foam weapons used in LARP and medieval combat games use a fiberglass core.  Warlord Sports (www.warlordsports.com) is a quality purveyor of foam swords using Goodwinds’ fiberglass.

“Warlord Sports uses fiberglass tubing in the vast majority of our
products. When properly padded it has incredible resiliency, just the
right amount of rigidity, and a strength-to-weight ratio that simply
cannot be beat. We manufacture an entire line of top-end combat sports
products that rely on fiberglass tubing as the core component and no
other material can replace it.” -Brennon Meiners, Warlord Sports

We are happy to be a part of the LARPing world and supplying fiberglass to Warlord Sports.  We also work with Edhellen Armoury and Merchants Wares, so there’s lots of Goodwinds fiberglass in LARP across America.  Check it out, you might just find a fun new hobby!