"Vintage" Custom Long Snoot

 

One of the things that's awesome/infuriating about the vintage hobby is the randomness of the original Kenner lines in terms of character selection. For example, in the original 12-back selection, did we really need a "Death Squad Commander" instead of getting Grand Moff Tarkin?

That's the infuriating part. The awesome part is that with the insane expansion of subsequent Star Wars waves, vintage enthusiasts now have the tools to roll their own vintage figures! One of the hobby's greatest proponents in this regard is Matt of Iron Cow Productions, whose business I've featured on the blog before. Matt makes some amazing customs and isn't afraid to share the recipes, which is admirable. I took him up on one yesterday to make my own custom vintage Garindan ("Long Snoot"), the snitch who ratted out Han and Chewie to the Imperials in Mos Eisley.

Here's what you need - a modern Garindan and a vintage Death Squad Commander (I guess he is good for something after all - j/k). Pop them in boiling water for a few minutes, then take them out (carefully) and pull their heads off. The bodies are quite soft so it's easy.

Now you've got a Garindan head with a hole in the bottom and a DSC body with a hole in the top. I had some hard plastic tubing around from a modelling project that fit perfectly. I cut a short length and secured it in Garindan's head with superglue.

It's a simple friction fit into the DSC body. Bonus - the head turns just like a real factory figure, but fits nice and tight so it won't come off.

I painted the DSC body with grey craft paint (this is necessary to cover up the chest insignia on the DSC's uniform) and put on a coat of gloss varnish to match the factory finish. The donor DSC had some nice vintage patina already that looks great, and it's not unusual for vintage bodies and arms not to match exactly due to aging. The last touch was to cut down a Darth Vader cape (repro from eBay seller) and voila - one "vintage" Long Snoot.

Here's another one I made earlier...

Have fun kids!!

Millennium Falcon Spaceship (Kenner Canada)

 

"You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!"

Oh man... where to start with this one. Released in 1979, the Falcon was the biggest ship by far in the Star Wars wave. For me as a kid, this was the ne plus ultra of Star Wars toys. The Falcon! It's huge - it has a smuggler's compartment - the ramp goes up and down - laser cannon - WOW!!!

Unfortunately for 8-year-old me, all this coolness came with a serious price tag. In the States this thing cost something like 25 to 30 bucks when a mini-action figure cost $1.97. Here in Canada... $44.99!!! That was far too expensive for me to even ask for as a Christmas or birthday gift back then. Nowadays I see kids like my nieces and nephews getting multi-hundred-dollar gifts like electronics and video games so maybe the world has moved on, but back in the day I wouldn't even have dreamed of asking for this as a present.

Hold that thought - in fact I DID once dream about this toy. I can remember that dream quite clearly. I dreamt that I was playing with the Falcon and left it beside my bed. When I woke up I actually looked for the toy there beside my bed; the dream was that vivid. Of course I was crushed when I realized I'd only been dreaming.

Fortunately, though, 8-year-olds grow up and get jobs, and buy themselves the expensive toys they were too shy to ask for as kids. That's how this Falcon came to be in my collection. Can't remember where I got it exactly but I love that it's in a Canadian bilingual box. I'd owned a loose Falcon as well but sold it on as itwasn't in great condition.

Now on to playtime...

As usual, I've set up some figures to replicate the box art. As I've said before, the Kenner packaging is just so outstanding in terms of its art direction. I can imagine the designers coming up with the ideas for photography illustrating the play features they built into the toys.

The droids use the smuggler's compartment to hide from Stormtroopers.

 

Han and Chewie in the cockpit.

Luke practises with his lightsaber while Chewbacca and R2-D2 "enjoy" a relaxing game of Space Chess (tm). Sadly the training ball and arm are reproductions, unobtrusively marked as such.

Luke in the gunner's station - rotate the cannon to hear laser sounds! (assuming lasers make a sound like hockey cards in bicycle spokes, that is)

Of course the main box art set-up is great too. You have to wonder why the Stormtroopers are just standing around outside the ship though.

 

I thought I'd include a couple of detail shots of parts that are commonly broken on this toy. This is the ramp. Note the tab in the centre that fits onto the body of the Falcon. This is often found broken off the ramp, and without this tab it's almost impossible to get the ramp to stay locked upright.

The struts are also easily broken. Their fragility is compounded by their tight fit into the ramp piece. Often, the struts break off and it's so tough to extract them from the ramp that the whole assembly has to be trashed.

 

Some beauty shots of the ship. I love this toy so much :-)

Interior of battery compartment.

Detail shot of button.




Here's where the magic happens.

Had to include a shot of the proprietors.

 

Solo selfie!!

 

Radio-Controlled Jawa Sandcrawler (ESB Kenner Canada Version)

The Radio-Controlled Jawa Sandcrawler was the toy that the Land of the Jawas playset should have been. There - I said it. Every kid who got the LoJ playset secretly wished it was this. Setting aside for a moment the cool radio-controlled action, this vehicle is just plain cool - super-detailed and looking like a scaled-down scratch-built prop model straight from the movie.

But it was expensive... according to rebelscum.com, it retailed for $29.99. That's the same as the Millennium Falcon for Pete's sake! And the Falcon has a lot more perceived play value than the Sandcrawler, which appears in only a small part of one movie.

Needless to say, I didn't have this toy when I was a kid. And try finding one today for reasonable money! It's tough. This loose version was acquired on eBay last year. It's in decent shape and complete but for one small part, but let's take a closer look...

The cockpit section is revealed by raising a hinged panel. Note decals.

Interior showing the elevator piece in raised position. It's an open cylinder that slides out the bottom of the vehicle.

Another interior shot (sorry about the dust, the Jawas are filthy aren't they?)  The interior detail is remarkable considering that the top doesn't open on the main body of the toy - you have to reach in through the main side door.

Here's the interior with elevator lowered.

And here it is lowered, from the outside.

Underside lip of the elevator locks in upright position on the small tab at centre.

The ladder detaches from the door panel (below) and is therefore easily lost. One thing I noticed when staging the shot with the figures is that the ladder in my production toy attaches on the opposite side of the door, when compared with the door on the toy used for box art shots:

Note ladder on front/leading edge of door panel...

But attached on rear/trailing edge of panel on production toy. Also note the ridiculously cheap bent plastic "hinges" on the door panel. So many 'crawlers have broken-off doors, just as a result of normal play. The plastic hinges can only take so many bends before they break right off... a shame as this damage is irreparable. Uncharacteristic of Kenner toys too, as they're usually well designed for sturdiness.

Bottom of toy showing copyright info.

Back of 'crawler has amazing film-accurate detail.

What was I alluding to on Rebelscum when I referred to "a rare Canada-only item"...? Bingo! Remote control with French decal. This is a bit strange, isn't it. Apparently the ESB-branded version of the Sandcrawler was only marketed by Kenner Canada - there was no US version of the ESB Sandcrawler.

If you click on the picture above you can just see that the decal has been applied over top of another one... which I would bet money is a Star Wars-branded sticker. Not that I'm going to peel it off to confirm, though.

Top view of remote showing button. You can barely see the sticker overlap here, as well.
 

Bottom of remote controller showing the clear decal and manufacture date of January, 1980.

Close up shot of the end of the antenna on the remote. Don't poke your eye out, kid!

The only part that's missing from my Sandcrawler is the often-lost battery cover on the remote, but fortunately it displays well even without that. I feel pretty fortunate as a Canadian collector to have obtained an example of the Canada-only ESB variant remote - especially since eBay vendor was in Texas and appeared to have no idea that this Sandcrawler was unusual in any way. Collecting is funny like that sometimes!

Impressive... Most Impressive!

Much as I love the vintage Kenner line in all its imperfect glory, it always bothered me a bit that some very important characters were left out. I'm not alone in this, as the Internet is awash with nerdrage on the subject.

Some, however, have resolved to do something about it... I've delved into the world of customs myself a couple times, making custom vintage Grand Moff Tarkin and Cantina Star Pilot (Bo Shek) figures. But this guy has taken it to a whole 'nother level...

Check out these custom figures by Iron Cow Productions. Simply mind-blowing and for the most part, simple recipes. I know I'll be cribbing some of these ideas to make some more customs of my own! Thanks for the inspiration, Matt!

"Droids" A-Wing Fighter Landing Gear Repair/Restoration

A common problem - A-Wing Fighter with busted landing gear. I'd always wanted to add an A-Wing to my collection but quailed at the high prices asked for boxed and even loose examples. Synchronicity intervened one day as I was cruising eBay and found one with broken landing gear in one auction... and a loose replacement part in another. The ship was $50 and the part, $8...

Once everything arrived, the first order of business was to disassemble the ship by removing six screws.

Once it all came apart it was clear that all was not well. One of the landing struts was broken. Out came the cyanoacrylate glue for a repair...

Not good enough, unfortunately. The superglue just wouldn't hold by itself. Time for the big guns...

... JB Weld. This stuff will stick most anything together (except the fairing stays on a 1995 Ducati 900SS/SP, but that's another story).

The JB made "Kwik" work of the repair.

Here's how the ship goes back together...

...carefully laying the engines over the upper ship half.

Landing gear in "down" position.

Screw it all back together...

Voila - one very presentable A-Wing Fighter at a significant discount over buying a mint example. A-Wing Pilot is pretty pleased with his new ride ;-)