P is for Plant'tastic Plastic

Another carded blister of rack toy tat from those mighty toy suppliers; Kingstar International, and another from Peter Evans, this being donated back in the spring. RTM comes to a close and I feel I haven't done it justice, but actually with over 70-posts in August at the time of writing, I think it just went so smoothly it only seems like I didn't do much!

However there are so many in the queue we will still have the odd one though the year - as always!

This is interesting not for the toy animals, which are a typical set of mini, soft PVC-alike rack toy generics, but for the false-plant/fish-tank accessories thrown-in as make-weights/volume-fillers, but we'll have a quick look at the livestock first . . .

. . . all eight of them! Ignoring the facts that they are not in scale and that the kangaroo has sloth lichen in his fur (the elephant's aluminium, and the lion gold so why not!), they can be seen as reasonable for what they are, the llama type is unusual and both the bear and the lion are also nice sculpts.

I have - still in Picasa from last year - a folder called 'RTM- Henbandt et al' which deals with about ten or eleven of these sets, it's now penciled-in for next August, but I may try and get it done in the next few weeks so's to compare with this lot, who ended up getting their own post, due to the plants.

The 'plants' are three plug-in sections of larger synthetic plants/artificial flowers, although - from the leery colours - I suspect fish-tanks as an end destination for the bulk of the production, however a few ended up in these blisters, and while on one level fruitless fillers with no means of being stood-up as 'trees' they are very interesting from a technical point of view.

The easier to understand are these, where it would appear a twin-nozzle injector-head is used to fire a shot of yellow (or light green) polyethylene, followed (instantly?) by a shot of red (or dark green), the second shot pushing the first up the cavity as it mixes with it for yellow-orange-red or gradated green effects.

This however, presents one with more of a headache, as it appears that the (and this is all guesswork on both types) green is shot to almost full-cavity, then a jacket of red is shot over it, but it's not over-moulding as the green survives at the tips of the leaves and is visible under the red at the branch-joints and end-plug/loop.

I can only guess that the green goes in at under-[optimum]-pressure, then the red is immediately shot at a higher over-or-optimum-pressure, slipping over the top or 'surface' of the green, but also pushing the green into the tips?

It may be that a red polymer-stain/colorant is injected into the mould before the green has fully-cooled, but it's not clear, and both aught to lead to more/redder leaves nearer the gate at the end-plug/loop?

Either way it's very clever and I'd be interested to know more, however the way other posts here looking at technical aspects have resulted in further work appearing elsewhere, I'm sure someone will go and find out and wax-knowledgeable, in the near future?

I haven't got the time; next week we are World War II box-ticking and while I have the images, I haven't done the blurbs yet! Some clues here . . . 

https://www.plasticmetal.it/en/multi-injection-molding-machine/

. . . suggest it's a form of 'bi-injection'?

E is for Elite Soldier Rack Toy - Not!

The Force Elite Soldiers has no soldiers in it!

Another one sent to the Blog by Peter Evans, and featuring various generic elements we've seen before under other branding's, this set is credited to that timeless rock of the toy industry; Kingstar International! There? Do you hear that? That's Tomy, Hasbro and Mattel quaking in their boots!

The 'bits', the flag will go to charity, the helicopter too probably, but only because I picked a couple up a few years ago in Fire and Police toobs from the now defunct 99p Stores (where they were branded PMS I think) but the carrier will be retained as a sample, it sort of goes with the old Ri-Toys warships, and the trees will go with all the other palm-trees.

These are the best bit, again we've seen them before, both 99p and Poundland (Funrise?) and possibly other generics? I seem to be building complete batteries of these vaguely 1:72nd scale missile launchers (and the other vehicles in the - contract manufactured - series), but it's trying to get each in every colour variation/camouflage which is taking the time!

Just as the Britains khaki infantry and Wild West swoppet piracies of the 60's were copied and copied again, as the Airfix piracies of the 1970's likewise and then the Airfix Paratrooper 'armymen' with generic helmets in the 1980/90's, so these new generics are being copied and re-copied, compare these two and you'll see lots of little differences, they are easy to copy as they are simple mouldings, so pantograph well, but the red one is a poorer copy.

Wales versus Austria? I think we can all agree who'd win, but we also know Germany would get the blame and Austria would be let-off scot-free!

H is for How They Come In - Another Box From Peter

Mr. Evans, co-founder of Plastic Warrior magazine, has kindly sent the Blog another box of goodies, this time with no warning, and my assistant didn't allow time for full opening of the treasure-chest either; before she downed-tools and went to sleep in the lid!

It comes before I've had time to fully sort-away the last lots from Peter, Chris and Jim, and a frantic photo-session left another bunch of fledgling articles in the queue and a host of mental notes to dig-out this or that for more expansive posts at some point.

The trouble is - and it's a nice trouble to be in - I'm adding lots of nascent articles to the queue, photographing loads, bringing the two collections together and such like, but . . . time moves on with hideous rapidity, it's only a few months to RTM, ie; a year since I got everything out of storage, it's already four months since Christmas!

Yet I've barely begun to get on top of the consolidation task (I've been sorting Hong Kong AFV's this week, alongside the Peter parcel, an eBay lot and several charity-shop finds) while those who have contributed stuff will know how much of it has yet to appear - I can only say what I've said before - it all will, eventually!

What I finally recovered from under the nose of my sleeping assistant! You will recognise the vehicles as having previously been 99p Store or Poundland (about three or four years ago), now in new packaging/brand marks, the animals in the other blister-card seemed - from a cursory glance - to be from the old unpainted Rado Industries mouldings, but they are actually different, just similar, especially the big cat with spots.

In a plain-white polymer with some whacky paint (the elephant and lion are over-sprayed silver and gold respectively!); we will look at them closely along with the contents of the pack underneath in RTM - if I remember!

The Simpson's character set (some capsule toy/blind-bag thing?) is lovely; they are 'unit-scale' so Marge ends up smaller than her baby, due to her large beehive bouffant! And as Simpson sets go, a good selection of characters with 24 of the most common here in 25-35mm.

The two 'detective' rabbit babes (the one on the left is holding a magnifying glass) seem to go with the Sherlock Homes type in orange with the gun - all three are PVC and marked Yolanda. The 'mouseketeer' is a crumbly-rubber and unmarked, he's lost an arm and his sword, but goes with another - already sorted - in blue or green somewhere, so a growing 'sample' nevertheless!

Some other highlights include a couple of Phidal princesses we may or may not have seen here. It's a fact that those who worry about the state of the 'hobby' need to understand the hobby is a collective of 600-2000 individual ideas about what 'The Hobby' actually is, while the toy industry is quite healthy and full of figures - Phidal are producing more new sculpts per year than Airfix ever did, that they aren't WWII combat troops is of no interest to today's kids, who want TV/movie related stuff!

Three Crocco for Wheetabix figures are next to the Phidal's and a blob of Fischer PVC is on the end of the upper row - Paulinchen from Fix und Foxi's Pauli family.

The lower row consists of mostly older characters, including another of those French (maybe Pif Gadget) figurines, two Kinder Smurfs, a Miss Piggy from The Muppets a couple of unknown (to me)'s and the annoyingly sensible one from Scooby Doo as a pencil top. The key ring is from one of several anthropomorphic insect movies (Bug Life, Antz, or the other one!) from the rush of them awhile-back.

These are interesting in that I have a London Toy Fair report in the queue for a Totaku, which shows another healthy aspect of the 'industry', with the Schleich/Papo/ELC (et all) action-figure sized, synthetic-rubber solids, and here are two others, obviously based on the worst franchise ever (I saw the first and they can't have got better!) - Alien V's Predator.

Further - on the subject of 'hobby' health - consider the vast ranges of incredibly accurate and beautifully decorated animals (wild, domestic and prehistoric) from Schleich, Papo, Safari, Plastoy, Wild Republic, and so on, and measure them against the staid and eventually stale offering from Britains? Or the simplistic sculpts of Charbens, Starlux or Reisler . . . nothing wrong with the Britains range - for or in its time - or any of the others, but the picture is vastly improved and far more dynamic now.

Cheers Peter, another eclectic collection of things to entertain loyal readers going forwards!