Prather Products & Hyperformance Products, Inc.

This is the first time in about 9-10 months I have even looked at Intl Waters.

I was curious to find what information was disseminating regarding Prather Products. I am surprised at the garbage that has developed about Prather Products.

To set the record straight, Hyperformance Products, Inc. has purchased the assets of Prather Products, Inc.

K&B, Great Planes, and any others have "copied" Prather props.

If you purchase a "Prather" marked prop from any of these sources and they tell you they are "Prather", they are not! WE OWN THE MOLDS!!

In reference to coupler material being sold by the foot or by the piece, currently all couplers will be sold BY THE PIECE until we receive enough demand for lenghts. If the demand exists, we will sell by the foot. Fuel tubing will be available within two weeks - by the spool and in 3-foot packages.

Regarding hulls, we have over 80 molds. Some will be destroyed, some will be modified, some will be placed into production.

If you need further information, get it from the source - Hyperformance Products, Inc.

www.hyperformanceproducts.com or 866-GO-HYPER

Best regards,

David Rippe

President

Hyperformance Products, Inc.

Well Dave we appreciate the "from the source" info but since my 2 e-mails have so far gone unanswered I'll ask here- will you guys be making the Prather #8113 (4-40) & #8114 (2-56) pushrod seals again???? :unsure:

Hello Don:

If it was only and easy undertaking to figure out all of the suppliers, molds, parts, and instructions we would have everything in stock now. However our main focus was to prepare the prop molds.

In direct answer to your question, YES, we will continue to produce the seals. However, it will take some time to regenerate the supply. We have a few available , not on our site yet, but they will be.

It has not been an easy task to sort through all of the product, parts, molds, etc. we purchased from Prather. It again has not been easy to rekindle relationships Prather had with suppliers.

The best I can say is to keep checking our website for updated products.

In addition to our machining business, we are desperately trying to make improvements in our products and the "Prather products" we have acquired.

Regarding the e-mails, It is simply "difficult" to reply to all I receive. Maybe I should try forwarding my e-mails to my phone. I can still work on a machine while talking on the phone!! It's just difficult to respond to e-mails on a timely basis - most people want an instant reply which I can tell you will not happen unless I happen to be sitting at the PC.

Best regards,

and "Thank you" for your interest.

David Rippe

Hyperformance Products, Inc.

That's great news Dave!!! I bought all I could find when Prather announced the closing so I'm good for a while but I know I will still buy more as will others. THANK YOU!! B)

Also I would like to see the 4-40 seals sold like the 2-56's were, just the seals (no pushrods) never really understood that one. :blink:

You might want to stop by I/W a little more than every 9 or 10 months, you'd have a mainline to your market. ^_^

Don Ferrette said:

That's great news Dave!!! I bought all I could find when Prather announced the closing so I'm good for a while but I know I will still buy more as will others. THANK YOU!! B) Also I would like to see the 4-40 seals sold like the 2-56's were, just the seals (no pushrods) never really understood that one. :blink:

You might want to stop by I/W a little more than every 9 or 10 months, you'd have a mainline to your market. ^_^

Click to expand...

Hi Don:

Again - I just don't have the time to respond to so many e-mails. I'd rather make parts! Hopefully the boaters will begin to understand that we don't make parts in our garage. This is an Incorporated business, producing precision products not only for the modelers but companies they come into contact with regularly as well as those not even considered.

We do our best to make improvements, we do our best to be innovative (Angle-Drive for example), we do our best to provide existing products. Re the Angle-Drive, I have had a few "issues" raised by purchasers and we are working through them. We will have a new version very, very soon... please be patient readers. In fact, I believe no model company has made this claim, we will ship new models of the Angle-Drive to all purchasers we have on record - it will take time though - again 866-GO HYPER.

Best guess on product availability, check our website or 866-GO-HYPER.

Thank you,

David Rippe

Hyperformance Products, Inc.

David just out of curiosity how is they can get away with selling copied props? Isn't that some type of patent or copyright infringent since you purchased the molds and other equipment? I just saw the props on the K&B site and even though they don't say Prather on them they are still obviously a direct copy.

Just as a note, I also emailed Hyperformance Products (David) a while back and never got a response.

However, I called him just two days ago and got excellent customer service, and the parts I needed are on the way. Myself being a new online retailer, I am quickly realizing just how hard it is to keep up with emails.

A phone call is still hard to beat, even in this day and age of "E" technology/commerce. You can gte much more accomplished in a fraction of the time of writing countless emails.

Just my $0.02

~James

Mike McKnight said:

David just out of curiosity how is they can get away with selling copied props? Isn't that some type of patent or copyright infringent since you purchased the molds and other equipment? I just saw the props on the K&B site and even though they don't say Prather on them they are still obviously a direct copy.

Click to expand...

Good question Mike! Unfortunately it happens repetitively in our industry. Look at many of the boats out there. Look at hardware, pipes, etc. Copies are sold to people who buy them - knowingly. There was a $700 million bust of fake imports from Japan yesterday in the US. People buy "fakes" even though at similar or lower prices. I wanted to let boaters know that there are "fake" Prather Props on the market.

I can bet that there is a boat being made right now that was a Prather (we will have it on our site today). It wasn't marketed by Prather until now! So if you see a boat out there that looks like our new 3.5 Mono - beware!

topfuel443 said:

Just as a note, I also emailed Hyperformance Products (David) a while back and never got a response.
However, I called him just two days ago and got excellent customer service, and the parts I needed are on the way. Myself being a new online retailer, I am quickly realizing just how hard it is to keep up with emails.

A phone call is still hard to beat, even in this day and age of "E" technology/commerce. You can gte much more accomplished in a fraction of the time of writing countless emails.

Just my $0.02

~James

Click to expand...

EXACTLY my point - just spent an hour typing responses.

Best regards,

David

It would be my guess that all the Prather propeller patents expired years ago. Not copying them while they were still in business was probably more of a courtesy( although Warehouse Hobbies copied the larger props years ago) than a legal issue. Patent lawsuits only make money for lawyers,not for plaintiffs.