N is for Nuffield Health

These were a part of a recent promotional campaign for a chain of health clubs here in the UK;

I'm not sure if this - clean - image will blow-up at all, it's a screen-grab of a thumbnail I couldn't enlarge, so I've cropped a couple out of a Youtube link, I won't give you a link to as it's got very little to do with the subject of the blog, just a nice use of runners ('sprues') in a design context...

I've tried to ask Nuffield if they actually made them...no reply! Looking at them; some seem constructable, others seem to be missing vital parts, so I suspect just interesting CAD creations to match the promotions theme of wholeness = wellness or some such.

Similar stuff here; Marketing Tools and here; Catch 22 goes Monogram

You'll notice if you follow the links that I used to use 'Sprue' outside the brackets, but it's not correct, and as there are a few etymological usages that annoy me in the hobby (Caisson for Limber among some large-scale or N. American collectors is one, re-cast [for plastics] is another heavily abused term - metal is cast, plastic is moulded) I thought I aught to make the effort to at least get 'runner' right.

The sprue is the deformed (and commonly truncated) cone-shape, usually near the centre of the runner, where the whole thing ('product') was divorced from the mould-tool's injector head. The lack of sign of a sprue-mark on the above is further evidence of their being fantasy creations, rather than the cereal premium stuff I hoped they be! When I first saw them I hoped they were from the same people that produced the recent Dr. Who figures

C is for Catch-22

Do you remember when I looked at sprues used in publishing; Here

Well one of the more recent (2005) budget reprint's of Joseph Heller's most famous novel now has sprue! Not only that but it's credited on the back cover as being a vintage plastic kit of a B25 (North American Mitchell) Bomber, although it doesn't state what make, I'm guessing Revell or Monogram?

One of very few works of fiction I've bothered to read more than twice, hell, it's one of the few novels I've bothered to read more than once!!! I also always watch the film when it's on, it's not true to the book, but it's not far off and has all the set pieces of tragicomic craziness, or plain surrealist hilarity, I can laugh till it hurts reading this or watching the absurd logic of the human condition unfold on-screen.

The above version is at the Bargain Book Warehouse near Waterloo station at the moment (opposite the Old Vic), for next to no money.

Can anyone identify the kit?

Added 28th Jan 2014 - it's the Mattel-Monogram 1/72 Snap-tite North American B-25 Mitchell C24, thought one of the aircraft guys would get that one first...there's one currently on Todeccio-whatever-it's-called; the European collectors auction site!

K is for Kit Sprues - as a Marketing Tool!

For the longest time now Paul Morehead over at Plastic Warrior has run the feature 'Soldiers in the Media' finding the uses people put toy soldiers to in order to sell you something else. I too have always collected toy-related stuff in the more general media and here are a few on a single theme...Kit Sprues.

This was a 'Quick-fit' insurance leaflet from about two years ago, and pulls heavily on Airfix iconography for everything from the logo to the paint tins!

This is a bit older (10 years or so?) and is full of fascinating stuff worth reading (it should be an o-level text!) as well as having recognise able bits of an Italeri or Tamiya (?) sprue...I recognise the guard dog and the officer's map-case!! But I don't know what the sow-weaster hood looking thing is middle left?

This is more recent, and a very good bit of Sci-fi 'near-fiction'. topical as well; Radio 4 have had two programmes devoted to 3-D printing in the last few weeks, one of the biggest tech-con's is currently featuring 'Rapid Prototyping' as the trend du jour, and we (toy soldier people) had two or three very interesting debates about the subject only a couple of three-years ago.

Held on the HaT and Strelets forums if you fancy looking for them, the general consensus was we'd all be able to design our own set in Dreamweaver and take the disc down to Prontoprint for a new set of killer-caveman space-marines before tea, within a year or two! that's er...now!

However a quick read of Makers leads you to spot potential problems even the author hasn't covered, such as a rougue robot-copier vindictively covering the planet in a grey plastic layer of Airfix Drum-major's because the toaster rejected him with a stolid silence!!!!! Be afraid, be very afraid...