WOTAN IS ON THE BASE

I'm bowing out of blogging for four weeks so that I can help with preparations for my daughter. She's getting wedded.

Fellow blogger Wotan has very kindly offered to step in and as of tomorrow Wote has the comm.

I hope you give him a warm Moonbase welcome.

See you in July.

HOME MADE MOON BUGGY: A COMPLETE RE-HASH

This will be my last post for a month before handing over to Wotan, who is kindly giving me a break, so I thought I'd update you on my Moon Buggy progress today.

This was how my project started out a month ago using a whistle, before I got stuck into my other mash-up, the LT-10.

The original Moon Buggy toy can be seen in all its glory on Paul V's terrific SpaceX website, which I refer to constantly.

http://www.triangspacextoys.info/SpGAtoys/MBug/SpLTMBug.html

So, with the LT-10 finished and my practice golf balls successfully delivered from China, I cut one of the balls in half. 

These will become the Moon Buggy wheels I hope.

Having lived with the big toy driver for four weeks I had gone off him and his Boba Fett rocket launcher completely. 

He's just too big for a decent Moon Buggy and he had to go!

This allowed me to add some proper shape to the empty seat.

I also re-did the decal in the SpaceX II livery.

But overall I still wasn't happy at all with the way this project was going.

It just doesn't look enough like the original toy.

So, I sawed it in half and took off the spring.

I also tested a silver pen top as a possible wheel axle holder.

With renewed zeal I rebuilt the whole rear end so that it slopes like the real thing.

I also replaced the spring with a shinier one and moved the seat forward.

I've also removed the decal to make room for a smaller one and the words MOON BUGGY later.

Finally I've added a small button just behind the spring.

That's it so far.

What do you think?

I'll post the finished product when its done later in June but for now its over and out readers.

ELECTRIC HELICOPTER AND BRM TOYS

Hello Woodsy

Further to the recent battery in the home debate here are two DIY Battery toys from the 60's.

Regards,

Terranova47

NYC

FARPOINT TOY SHOW FINDS

Hi Woodsy.

Here's a quick view of my Farpoint toy show acquisitions.

First, Star Fortress by Tara Toys.

Made to appeal to the Star Wars set, it's in pretty good shape for a 40 year old cardboard and vinyl folding playset.

Tara Toys used this same pattern (star fortress) to make "Hulk"s Hideaway" playset

And finally, a Hot Wheels Adventures micro playset.

The free rolling vehicle unfolds into a jungle play set complete with cars,a giant ape, a dinosaur and giant spider.How could I pass THAT up?

Well, that's all for now.

Enjoy your time off,

Brian F 

NJ USA

FARPOINT TOY SHOW USA

Pics taken at the recent Farpoint Toy Show USA by Brian F for Moonbase readers' enjoyment.

What do you like readers?

ITS A TOY SHOW BECOMES FARPOINT

Hi Woodsy. Some exciting news came my way recently.

Years ago, I told you about a vintage toy dealer called "It's a Toy Store".

Well, the owner of this store has joined forces with another dealer and opened a new store called Farpoint.

They recently had a show with dealers from New Jersey and Delaware.

I attended and snapped some pics of the fun!

To follow.

Brian F 

New Jersey USA

MALY MODELARZ PAPER SPACESHIPS FROM ROB C

Hi Woodsy!

As per a comment I left on the PS blog recently, I thought I'd send along a few pix of Soviet Paper Rocket models, that I got from a very nice fellow in Russia some years back. They are from the early to mid 1960s, and I am sending just the covers (for now), as I think the illustrations are very "Swordy." I'm not sure these are too far off the mark for the blog, but thought I would offer anyways.

These paper model books were ubiquitous in the region for decades, primarily from a company called Maly Modelarz out of Poland. Most of their line was warcraft - tanks and airplanes and ships - but they also had some very nice civilian cars and other misc items - including these very cool spacecraft. The pages inside the book were the "parts" of the kit, printed on card stock.

I tried one of the Maly Modelarz tank kits a couple of years ago, and gave up in frustration - paper models are HARD! Hard to build accurately, at least. Plastic models seem a snap in comparison!

If anyone wants to see the "inside" of any of these books, I'll be happy to oblige.

Finally, I think all of the spacecraft depicted are fictional, but I could be wrong - that space capsule might have been from an actual Soviet design, and the satellites might have been real as well. Blog readers might be able to ID one or more of the ships.

Enjoy!

Rob C

USA

KEVIN'S CENTURY 21 GARDEN VEHICLES

Nice day so I took some shots in the garden, my T5 scratchbuild and Anderson-style truck!

Take care,

Kevin D

UK

SOOTY: SON OF BRADFORD

We've been looking after Moonbase Grandson today. We visited Lister Park in Bradford. In the big house, Cartwright Hall, there are homages to David Hockney, local art legend and the glove puppet Sooty.

Bradford was the birthplace of Harry Corbett. He went on to invent Sooty, perhaps the most famous glove puppet ever.

Sooty was one of those brill kids TV shows I enjoyed as a nipper in the sixties. Harry had already been doing it for years. I think my fave gloved character was Sweep, the cheeky squeaky dog and Sooty's pal.

I hope to introduce Moonbase Junior to Sooty and Sweep at some point.

Harry's son Matthew took over the famous gloves. He also starred in Dr. Who's The Daemons, a series which Scoop blogged about a few years back. 

I often wonder if it was Matthew who bought a Sooty off me on Ebay. The buyer was called I am The Real Sooty! It didn't go for much!

Do you like Sooty readers?

As a complete aside, in Cartwright Hall in Lister Park they also have this huge statue of Humanity Overcoming War.

War had a familiar look I thought ....

.... like an Engineer from Prometheus!

All I can think of now is sleeping now we're back home.

Childminding is so tiring!

Have a great evening readers.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Satellite of Love

 I found a nice little piece of ebay the other day, the small satellite from the 1980 Corgi Moonraker Shuttle. Its unusual to see it on its own and also quite rare to find it present in a loose model of the shuttle itself.

I'm not a huge Space Shuttle fan, personally and was a bit disappointed when the film version was almost the same as the real one, apart from slightly simplified windows. But the little die-cast and plastic satellite - which oddly bears no resemblance to the movie ones - is quite nice. Fold out solar panels allow it to sit snugly in the bay.

SCRAMBLED

Imai box art

HOME MADE SPACEX LUNAR TRANSPORTER LT-10: ALL DONE!

Well, after superglueing my hands together and jumping up and down loads in frustration I've finally finished my home made scratchbuilt LT-10 Lunar Transporter inspired by the Tri-ang SpaceX original.

The aerials came together using  a couple of red cap gun cap cases as the little bases and two globe headed pins painted white.

The decal is a combination of stickers cut to size and some colouring with pens.

The lettering is letraset scratched to size on the gloss side of a strip of sticky tape. It stuck onto the side of the mascara tube really well.

You can see the boxy undercarraige here that I had to make to carry the wheel axles.

At the rear I placed a magnet for added value in case accessories need attaching. This magnet was capped with a piece of metal to sort of suggest the die-cast base of the original. The wheel structure was the hardest thing I had to make!

In a fit of excess I also made a custom Lunar Trailer using an old radio aerial and parts from an older scratch project.

The aerial still extends for those tricky moon journeys ferrying bright green isotopes across the craters.

Rather neatly the aerial is able to push into the e-cig exhaust on the Transporter!

This junk project was a lot of fun I have to admit.

How do you think it turned out readers?