K is for Kennedy Space Centre - Helicopter

I think it's fair to say this helicopter is a bit fictional, looking more like a deformed Sikorsky H-19 Chickasaw from the 1950's, rather than the famous Sikorsky SH-3D Sea King '66' of the Apollo programme, but then this set probably predates the Apollo missions by a year - my cursory investigations suggest these sets date from 1968, the set was renamed the Johnny Apollo Moon Launch in 1970?

 

In the simple style of a dime-store 'readymade' but in a soft, polyethylene plastic, like the T.Cohn/Airfix vehicles in the shops at the same time, rather than the more frangible polystyrene of the true 'dimestores'.

 

The hook and string are missing, usually a sturdy length of button-thread, I'll have to hope one turns up on a damaged model, going cheap! There was only one helicopter in the set, one of the few pieces not duplicated.

 

The bulges seem to be an attempt at the flotation wheel-housings of the Sea King, but placed up on the top of the helicopter? It's a 'space helicopter' isn't it? For a space station! It's certainly in 'space toy' metallic blue plastic!

F is for Follow-up - Noreda and Injectaplastic

I mentioned in a comment the other day that I try to avoid 'khaki' subjects in December, and that's true, especially the more war'y stuff, but the odd bit gets through, and these ready-made AFV's are a perennial favourite of mine, with two purchases in recent months, both European brands.

 

I think this is the Injectaplastic Jeep, with a gun that's new to the collection, the owner has added waterslide transfers which some of you may recognise from plastic kits (Airfix and Esci - I think?), and which completes the line-up with their Munga and Kubelwagen, both seen here passim. It's darker green than my existing sample of these, though.

This was in the same purchase and is the Noreda one, which I seem to already have, but the trouble with show-purchases is that you are pressed for time, and have to make split-decisions on whether or not to buy something, based on what you can remember having, what you think you may have, and/or what you've seen and/or posted from elsewhere!

A comparison shot with the Triang Minic tin-plate in clean state, but missing it's key, hopefully I'll have one in the spare key zone! All a similar kid's handful size, and two of them needing a comparison shot on the Airfix Jeep page!

 

Also with the two jeeps and gun, came this truck with yet another take on that 1950/60's staple, the twin AA 'pom-pom' gun, now euphemistically referred to as a 'technical'! Again this seems to be Injectaplastic, from the wheels, and is new to the existing sample, but needs paint-removal, before I take better shots.

 

Then I picked these up last Saturday, from Tony Herrington, long time 'plastic warrior' who was stalled-out at the London Toy Solder Show, these are the Noreda truck we've seen before with canvas tilt and GS trailer, but now, also, as a tanker version, with tanker trailer and an additional 'goulash cannon' field kitchen.

 

The kitchen, while simplified for production in one shot as a pocket-money toy, follows the basic design very well, we had similar trailers on field exercises in the 1980's, four hot-plate/bain-maries over an oven and grill with the chimney long-enough to take the gas fumes (wood smoke or burnt oil in earlier times) away from the faces of the troops operating the equipment, or queuing-up for 'range-stew' - baked-beans, tinned potatoes and tinned mixed-vegetables cubed, with cheap sausages, diced in a thick gravy!

R is for Renwal . . . or not?

Further to the earlier post, and in part an answer to Andy B's comment on that earlier post, I already had one of the tanks Brian sent, but mine was marked Renwall and is silver and green. Brief research (a google images results page!) reveals that they come in reversed colours as well - green body/silver turret &ect . . . missile, gun, whatever. A rule which breaks-down on the single mouldings, as seen on Ed's Blog with the Army Ambulance, where you get one or the other!

 

Brian's donation on the left and my sample on the right, it's possible they are trying to depict the M103, a heavy tank designed to face-up the JS/T10 series of Soviet biggies during the early Cold War, which, unlike the Stalin's or Britain's Conqueror (that all looked 'heavy'), was more of a scale-up on the M46/7/8 series, and looks quite normal in some photo's?

You can see clearly, that where mine is marked 'Renwal' the new addition has a clear remnant of mechanical scrubbing on the tool to remove the maker's mark. I think Plasticraft bought some Renwal tooling, could the all-green (more realistic) one be a Plasticraft issue? It's also a different shade of green, but I've seen other colours/shades so that proves nothing!

Another silver/green marked Renwall combo', they all have other markings including a title block, normally on an upper (normally visible) surface, and a stock-code/tool-number, along with the branding, usually underneath.

 

And another, this being a sort of giant Sparrow Missile, doing service as a Nike/Ajax anti-Nuke' SAM. Sadly, it's not a working "You'll 'ave yer' eye out..." toy, but a useful item for space bases and the like.

 

Comparison with the Norada we saw the other day (back), possibly also trying to be an M103? The Airfix 'Pershing' (front, nominally an M26?) and a diminutive, carded Marx cap-firing die-cast to the right!

M is for Military Marvels from 'Merika!

So, around the same time as the show the other week, I got a lovely parcel from the other side of the pond, and having covered the show a couple of weeks ago, and Peter's stuff from it, last week, it's time to show gratitude to Brian Berke, by sharing his plunder with the rest of the loyal readers, and we're starting with the military, in what was a vehicle-heavy donation.

This should be a Renwal readymade, very much in the same vein and size as the similar Airfix Attack Force, or stuff we've seen here from Injectaplastic, Jean Hoefler, Manurba or Norada, but this one isn't fully-marked, and has already led to a follow-up! It's quite 'space-tank'y isn't it?!!

 

Gilmark's Sherman behind and a lovely, early, polystyrene, US-made Lido jeep, trailer and gun in front. Following the pattern of the 25lbr and quads, I suspect some artistic licence from the 1950's dime-store supplier, with the very British limber added to a jeep, and a gun closer to the early war 37mm, which, although quickly rendered ineffective by advances in German armour, remained far from obsolete, retained as a very useful infantry support weapon, and which WAS towed by jeeps, among other tractor-vehicles.

 

It is a sad inevitability, that Royal Fail have to take their boatman's coin from pretty-much every parcel from Brian, Chris or Peter, and on this occasion it was the Auburn jeep which paid the price. No matter, I will glue it, and before the cyanoacrylate dries whitish, shoot it with the Airfix jeep for that post, on the Airifx blog.

 

Annoying though, as I'm pretty sure I have the original Auburn Rubber 'rubber' one somewhere (chunk of PVC), and having the polyethylene replacement turn-up is a fine showing of the other side of that coin!

Also the Auburn one I think, or 'based on', although we have seen various versions here over the years, not least the Banner, Bell, Lido and Merit ones, but unmarked and a clean mould-shot, so probably one of the US 'army man' issuers rather than Hong Kong's finest?

 

These on the other hand, are Hong Kong, but rather uncommon 'German' blue plastic, probably from Ri-Toys (Rado Industries), and one of their bagged or carded rack-toys of the 1970/80's, but equally possibly a sub-pirate, the tank being a cruder copy of the Blue Box one, than I remember Rado being responsible for!

 

Brian kindly put these to one-side when I mentioned them a while ago, and it's the Faun 6x6, NATO-era, 10-ton Bundeswehr truck from Roco Minitanks, with a load of assault boats and the larger rubber-boat.

 

Interestingly, I think that grey wheel, is the early sign of 'styrene-rot, and it's only the second time I've seen it, but on the other occasion it was A) also Roco product, and B) also from the 'States, probably AHM over-stamped stuff from the late 1960's? On that previous occasion, I rather blamed the climate in Florida - well, Americans themselves, seem to blame Florida for most things!

 

It's not like the brittleness of dying polyethylene, but more like the Mazak-rot you get in early die-casts, the grey bloom eventually getting fine cracks in it before crumbling, more like biscuit. As with other plastic diseases, I'm sure it's a batch thing, but whether it's down to too-high or low injection temperatures, incorrect operating-pressures or corrupting additives/inclusions . . . as yet, as far as I know, that work hasn't been done.

Many thanks to Brian for all these, and there will be more on the Renwall tank next!

N is for Not So Free French Forces!

I allowed myself a couple of small purchases on evilBay after all the maths was done last month, and this was one of those buys, I felt a bit guilty as the underbidder had been winning for days, when I spotted the lot went slightly over with my bid, and won it, but to be fair, or honest, he dodged a bullet . . . 

 . . . as they arrived stuffed in a tube with a bit of packing rammed-in at one end, and in more pieces than I had bid on! Now, I haven't negatively fed-back, there's no point, the chap (or chapess)'s other listing revealed they didn't know what they had, its relative age or likelihood of damage, equally, neutral feedback wouldn't be fair either, so no feedback means if they ever ask, I can try and explain politely, I leave the lecturing to less salubrious characters! "Wel done on ebay “corrector” " chimes-in the lick-spittle phuq-monkey!

 

Anyway, a bit of superglue (the front bumper on this was hanging-together) got them presentable enough for this post, and now I know they exist I'll look out for better ones. They are - of course - if you recognised the truck in the previous post, the Noreda 'readymades' from France, already an eclectic mix last time we looked at them, although not as eclectic as the Injectaplastic set.

Actually quite a nice M3 half-track for a simple pocket-money toy, possibly a little bigger than the Blue Box one, and it's soft-plastic clones, but certainly a further source of them and ten-times more accurate than Marx's effort!

 

This is interesting, as there was already a jeep in the line, we've looked at it here already, while this is part Dodge 'Beep' and part Willy's Jeep, longer than the real jeep I think it is the Dodge 'weapons carrier' that is being attempted.

 

Seems to be missing a pintle-mounted MG behind the seats, and while the other holes could be for passengers, so far I've only found the strips of four, and they are two long, and would need another hole at the other end? The figures in this post are two strips of four who have been separated.

This is also interesting, as I think what we have here is an attempt at a Conqueror, the heavy tank designed to face-off against JS III's, and it would make it the fifth ready-to-run Conqueror after the Lipkin, Lucky, Rocco and Triang ones. Albeit, this one having certain elements of Centurion - as the real Conqueror did - and even, in the turret (and probably more accidental), shades of early M60's.

Before and after cleaning!

And then it gets even better, with a slightly crude King Tiger II! Added to the Atlantic and Airfix Tiger I's and Airfix's Elephant/Ferdinand, and that family is wrapped up, as far as wargaming readymade's goes, not to forget the Tiger I and Stürmtiger which some Chinese rack-toy maker gave us in the last few years . . . it's all on the Blog, just got to use those Tags!

They were filthy, this was a cursory cleaning of the Tiger II, and I wondered if one of the factors in brittleness of polyethylene might be connected to cigarette- or other-smoke deposits? It's worth the museum curators looking into, as there may be a chemical process happening at the surface of the polymer which causes, or triggers the leaching of the free-radicals?

D is for Dirty Daimler Done a Decency!

I picked up a ratted old Airfix 'readymade' polypropylene 1:32nd scale Daimler Armoured Car a while back, and thought to get it cleaned-up over Christmas, this post is a quick report on the results of those efforts.

As you can see, paint and markings had seen better days, a few of the smaller pieces are missing and what you can't see is rusty axles one of which was bent two ways!

The various plug-ins were hot-screwdriver welded in the factory and while the hope is I can find a worse one, with it accessories, going cheap, most of the second-hand ones in a Google image search are missing the spotlight, so hope isn't high!

After disassembly, all the pieces went in a bleach-soak which got a shaking every hour or so for most of an afternoon/early evening, after a few shakes you can see the colour of the bleach suggesting things are happening! The wheels, being a different material, were easy to clean with a bottle-brush, it was only a bit of overall grubbiness, and paint-overspill on the insides.

Before (above) and after (below), axle before straightening.

 

Where the paint had worn-off, presumably years, even decades ago, there is some sun-fading, rather oddly to RAF dessert-pink! Silicon bumper-gel might bring out the colour, but I'm not sure if I can be faffed to try, it looks a whole lot better as it is.

 

The other missing item is the stowage-box and rack which is more likely to be found, while the ariel needs replacing, really, I got it a bit straighter than it had been (along with both weapon-barrels), but really you can't do hot-water treatments with 'propylene like you can with PVC or even 'styrene or 'ethylenes - it's too rigid in its final form, especially when that form is the result of chewing or bending!

S is for Soviet Space Tanks!

You know I like the odd space tank and you know we often see early Soviet toy AFV's here, so let's combine the two!

These are clearly trying to represent the old air-mobile Russian BMP (or at a stretch the regular-force's BMD) and the ASU mini assault gun, but by using running-gear more reminiscent of an MT-LB's or the BTR50 (fully-tracked cargo trucks)'s and using identical superstructure, what we've ended up with is a 'new' family of space tanks . . . bargain!

Waiting for the 'Off'

Crewed by gum-ball copies of Giant Aliens (shades of 2000AD's Invasion and Bill Savage fighting the Sov's to liberate Scotland!), the BMP-alike is in the foreground, the ASU-alike behind, you can see that both have too many road-wheels for either real life vehicle, while the identical superstructure is clear.

Airborne Infantry;
'Seek & Destroy' missions

The fact that they are bright blue (Soviet 'Airborne' blue?) helps with the off-world theme and here supported by Giant originals (note the better quality of the mouldings).

Construction is a simple clip-together and the hard polystyrene equivalent of Airfix 'readymades', but with less accuracy! I don't have a maker for these yet, they are unmarked, but I haven't looked for them on the two main forums yet, so that will probably come with time.

'Bivouac'

I love them, clearly recognisable as Soviet armour, they are also and undeniably 'Space Tanks'; yeay! I've marked them up as 28mm, but their fictionalisation makes them what you want them to be.

Some Wiki-pages so you can make up your own minds;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMD-1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASU-57
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MT-LB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BTR-50

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP-1

G is for Gilmark . . . again!

I posted two of these back in 2017 after a nice exchange with Ed Burg over at Toys & Stuff, but another exchange had then already been in gestation since about 2009, to wit a pair of first version Airfix Attack Force Patton's leaving these shores in a swap for 'something nice', well, that something-nice was finally settled-on the other day, and here, courtesy of Ken Taylor (who doesn't have a Blog I can link to!) are the other two Gilmark's.

I say the "other two" as I believe they only did the four military models in their wider range of dime-store vehicles, although some of the 'space trucks' come in a  metallic khaki which could pass for 'army man' colours and may find their way into the collection at some point!

But today we're looking at the White's scout car and Priest SPG, both equipped with a 105mm gun. technically a Priest should have a 25lbr and be in UK service, this being a Howitzer Motor Carriage (HMC) M7.

While some of the US half-tracks were fitted with guns for close-in infantry support, I don't think a scout car was ever so fitted, and this has limited traverse depending on which side the out-worker has heat-welded the plug-in - on mine he can sit on the right-hand corners and fire out of the left-hand corners . . . I'll look for one with the opposite configuration; they were only a dime!

The Gilmark with a far more recent offering from late 'Hong Kong' or early 'China', the method of attaching the gun is very similar, a plug-in, whose spigot is melted back, underneath, to provide a permanent washer or hub to prevent it being pulled out. They were common enough at toy soldier and war-games shows in the mid-1990's for me . . .

. . . to hoover-up three of these un-attributed/generics for what was pennies! My gun line with the gun-less one we looked at back at the start of the Blog being used as a 'defrocked' ammunition-carrier, command vehicle or forward-observation-post . . . in the rear!

What I like about the cheapie, is that it pays full homage to the older one (possibly without knowing of the Gilmark at all) with no metal parts, it's 100% plastic and a worthy successor to the dime-store toys of the past.

While putting them away I was reminded of the thermal-printing on some of them. This post ought to be accompanied by a few Spencer Smith troops, especially as both the 'here' and the 'storage' lot have been combined now, but since the Ed post I have discovered I already had an armored car, located the gun-less hull above and lost both the two in that post!

When they all turn up (they haven't got far) I'll do a 'final' post, maybe next summer in the garden with enemy and such-like, these dime-store toys always look better en mass! Cheers Ken!

U is for Update - Airfix Jeep Page

I've added the Noreda Jeep to the Airfix page on the subject . . .

. . . but no need to rush off to it now on the above link, the info' was all in the posts earleir today, but for future reference, it's there now! I will also be doing some Manurba comparison and other (Jean?) Jeep shots for that page in the next few days.

To finish this 'readymade' day, I posted this in a Faceplant group the other day, where it will drop off the radar as everything does there! So sticking it here to get it tagged properly, the over-text is self explanatory, and we looked at them all earlier in the day.

GS is for General Service . . . -Truck, -Wagon, -Lorry

As I've had them all out for the larger articles on Jean and Noreda, I re-shot the Manurba wagons and Airfix 'Duce-', the Airfix post is still in edit, but here's the Manurba comparisons

The Manurba wagon, as stated this morning is a reasonable rendition of the Magirus-Deutz 'Jupiter' 6x6 truck which was the staple truck when I was visiting Germany in the late 70's, by the time I was back there as a serviceman myself in the mid-80's they had mostly been replaced by newer cab-over-engin (COE) designs from MAN in 4x4, 6x6 and 8x8. It also has the lines of the M35 Duce-and-a-half from the US arsenal.

Here we see an earlier toy one in a deep olive-green with grey wheels, and a later issue in a drabber green, with black wheels and wearing a German cross on the bonnet. It is this version which seems to have been sold in the UK as/under the Tallon branding.

Looking at the contemporary rivals alphabetically; we start with Airfix, nominally 'HO/OO' both scale to an approximate 1:76th-1:72nd and are useful additions to an 'old school war-games army, the Airfix being a WWII era type - I'm never sure how you tell a GMC CCKW from a Chevy' from an International or a Studebaker/REO? Except the true REO's seem to have a very different mudguard!

The Airfix model seeming to have GMC/Chevrolet open-cab and mudguards, but the Studebaker's slightly more pointed bonnet/hood and shallower bed, but a lot of it's down to camera-angle and point of view I think - they were all to a common DoD design and meant to be as compatible as possible in workshops?

Both the Jean (here) and Noreda are slightly larger models (I've tagged them 1:64th as well as the other sizes, in all three posts - the US 'HO' slot-racing 'size'), and both are pretty fictional, the Jean having a vague look of the Mercedes 911.

The Noreda effort - like Jean's - fictional, is a 4x4 and has been described as a Berliet truck, but I can't find a match, so it's French Generic Mk1! Again heading toward 1:64th (or 1:70th at a push?) it has the added benefit of a towed trailer - as we saw this morning.

All four stripped-down to open flat-bed for all weather cargo, or miserable, wet troops! Lengthwise they are all much of a muchness, but the two-axle Noreda is clearly a scale or two above, while the Jean is noticeably taller or 'chunkier'.