Sonic Controlled Land Speeder

One of the more unusual toys in the Star Wars vintage line was the Sonic Controlled Land Speeder. Unusual for the technology used in its design and functionality, unusual for its rarity today, and unusual because it replicated with near-exact detail an identical but much less expensive toy in the range! 

The "sonic control" was of course the defining feature of the toy. The Speeder incorporated an electric motor which ran a shaft driving the front wheel. Some rudimentary control was allowed by incorporating a microphone in the top engine nacelle. The "remote control" was just a loud clicker... when the microphone picked up the clicking sound, it engaged a motor to turn the front wheel through ninety degrees.

 

Tough to find a boxed example of this particular toy. This box is missing one end flap but it's not the end of the world by any means.

A little bit of an illustration here on how the sonic control works.

Very clever of Kenner to design the sonic controller to look like Artoo-Detoo!

Now to the tableaux... not a very creative play scenario on the box art I'm afraid, so I've just replicated a few of the box photos showing the toy and figures from different angles.

Only two components to this toy: the speeder and the sonic controller. Watch out for yellowed and broken windshields as they are commonly seen on loose examples. Note also the pegs on the rear deck allowing figures to be secured to the toy.

A couple pics here showing the detail sculpted into the cockpit dashboard by the Kenner designers. Unlike the regular landspeeder where the dash detail was provided by a sticker, the sonic controlled version got some really neat sculpted detail on the dash and the console. "On-off" switch can be seen in the centre of the console.

See what I mean? Dials and gauges galore... pretty cool.

Some more of the dash detailing.

Here's the bottom of the speeder. You'll note I've photographed two different examples here as neither one has a complete set of warning stickers. The driving wheel is at the top right of this photo. You'll note that it's mounted to allow directional rotation.

Note the two battery covers at left and right of image - these are often missing from loose examples of the toy.

The sonic control itself is just a little marvel of industrial design. Fortunately the sticker is quite white on this example - they tend to get quite ragged and yellow on loose examples.

Some copyright information included on the controller.

Here's a comparison shot showing the Sonic Controlled Land Speeder (R) and controller alongside the regular Land Speeder (L). As you can see there's really no mistaking one for the other - aside from the size difference, the Sonic Controlled model is distinguishable by the vented centre engine nacelle, non-retractable wheels, and battery compartments!

Now here's what you've been waiting for - some video of the Land Speeder in action. Listen for the clicks and note the response of the toy, quickly turning 90 degrees with each click.

I want to send out my thanks to JJ, a local collector who sold me this Speeder. He fixed the electronics and motor but a problem remained for me to address. The motor drives a shaft that extends vertically down through the Speeder body. A plastic gear fits onto the shaft and drives the toothed driving wheel in a bevel configuration. However a design flaw in the toy means that most will fail - over time the plastic gear slips on the shaft and while the motor might still drive the vertical shaft, no rotation is transmitted to the rubber driving wheel. This can be remedied by simply using superglue or JB Weld to firmly re-attach the gear to the vertical drive shaft. It's easy to see what needs to be done once you take apart the mechanism - there's a good video on Youtube that shows it all.
 

Until next time stay healthy, friends!

"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 ;-)

How Does This Even Happen? Plastic Reaction in 12" Stormtrooper

One of the survivors from my childhood collection is my large-size Stormtrooper. I have some great memories of playing with him out at my mother's family's farm, especially building a parachute for him out of a handkerchief and throwing him as high up in the air as I could...

So imagine my shock and dismay when I noticed this crazy problem with his hand. I'd never broken the figure, so this wasn't the remnants of an ancient repair... it apparently just happened spontaneously over the 30+ years I've had the toy. I got some sage advice from "Sharp", a senior member on Rebelscum.com, who wrote:

"That's almost certainly a plastic reaction going on there. I'm 99% sure. While I don't know the specific chemistry involved, some of the Kenner softer plastic (hands, bandoliers, etc.) reacted over much time with the harder plastics of the types often seen on the 12" figures. I've seen this on a hundred Stormtroopers and my share of Jawas and Chewies with their bandoliers fused or melted to the body in places where they've been touching for years. This isn't hard to imagine as a great many of the loose examples out there have been sitting absolutely immobile in boxes in attics and such. I've seen MISB 12" Stormtroopers with this type of reaction as well as many whose hands simply fall off the arms. As far as I know, this is no way to keep this from occurring. Needless to say, the folks at Kenner developing these toys were not thinking about the condition of these toys in 30+ years time.

Just another idiosyncrasy that makes these toys so charming!"

Bizarre, eh? Welcome to the world of plastic chemistry ;-)  Anyway, I wanted to post this story as a resource to others who might be searching the Internet for an explanation for this very mysterious issue.

Keywords: plastic reaction, plastic melding, plastic melting, 12" Jawa, 12" Chewbacca 

Kenner Alien 18" Action Figure Spotlight and Restoration

By 1978, 20th-Century Fox knew that their Star Wars property was a money-spinner like no other movie before. Science fiction was HOT and studio execs were anxious to get their hands on any kind of project they could find to leverage this trend.

So it was a natural for Fox to greenlight Alien. Directed by journeyman Ridley Scott, the film became an instant classic and a cinematic icon, spawning several spinoffs and sequels and generating millions for the studio.

But while Star Wars generated cubic money through merchandising tie-ins, Alien didn't. The film really wasn't "toyetic" in the way that Star Wars was, but nevertheless Kenner obtained a licence for the property and produced one toy - a large-size (18") action figure. While not popular in its day, the toy itself has become iconic among Alien collectors and toy fans for its audacity - a figure for kids, based on an R-rated movie that kids weren't allowed to see, in a scale that no other toy used, absolutely faithful to the hideous visions of a weird Swiss artist, of a character that exuded a sheer otherworldly horror. A natural fit for the toy aisle!

Having said this, the story that the toy was "recalled" for being inappropriate isn't true either... in fact the figure was a poor seller, and was finally blown out in remainder bins. Only later did collectors discover it, and demand has caused prices to rise to the level seen today - a nice loose example can run $200-300 with figures in boxes fetching up to $1,000.

Although I'm a relatively recent convert to Alien fandom, I've been aware of this toy as a collector for some time. As I'm a Giger fan as well, this is a must-have. The figures are available on eBay from time to time and that's where I found mine - fortunately complete with the clear cranial dome and all of his back spines intact.

The figure is remarkably faithful to Giger's vision. I'm still shocked that Kenner execs actually cleared the toy for production and thought it might sell. What parent would buy this for their 8-year old?!?!

Rear view showing the rubbery back spines and the plastic central dorsal spine - this is often broken.

The tail is a separate piece that locks into the body with a serrated washer on the inside of the figure.

Detail of head. The paint application on the head glows in the dark - as if the figure wasn't creepy enough already.

With clear dome removed.

Here's the action feature - press up on the trigger (shown in photo below) - the spring-loaded jaw opens up and the inner jaws extend.

Here's the trigger that works the action feature. Copyright info is on this piece also but is not entirely visible!

The often-missing clear dome piece. Apparently it comes in a "smoked" variation as well. As one might imagine, the piece was easily lost by kids and is comparatively rarely seen today.

Unfortunately the figure I obtained did have some (undisclosed) issues - as commonly happens with these figures, the rubber loops that hold the arms had been lost and the arms were held together inside the body with a limp bungee elastic. Not acceptable!

So I devised a repair that somewhat replicates the original fastening, while being pretty easy to install and reversible in the (admittedly unlikely) event that the original rubber fasteners are ever reproduced.

I went to a local big box store and picked up some plumbing o-rings. I had some strong plastic tubing around the house already. I cut a short length of tubing - wider than the internal arm hole but not too wide. Cut a slit lengthwise in the tubing and insert the o-ring as shown.

Insert the tubing end into the arm hole...

Work it around so that the tubing lays crosswise across the hole and is held in place by the tension of the o-ring. Place the arm inside the body of the disassembled toy and loop the o-ring around the central post as with the original. Screw the body back together and you're done.

An alternate repair method with some great photos is here.

The Alien now occupies a shelf in my office along with a copy of the awesome "Giger's Alien" book. The cabinet above will hold the new set of Alien 3 3/4" figures from Super7 when they arrive; for now I'm keeping my Super7 "Early Bird Envelope" up there.