DIG FOR VICTORY!

I'm always on the lookout for replacement Action Man equipment!

Made in Hong Kong for Hallmark of Kansas City, here's a bag of nifty plastic party picks that would sit well in Palitoy's Fighting Man's footlocker! A spade with a bayonet!

Can you think of any 'replacements' like this?

JOHNNY LEMON OUTER SPACE MEN DIY ACCESSORIES

In the world of Johnny Lemon home DIY toy parts anything goes.

Take this Vanish powder scoop.

That would not look out of place as an accessory to one of Colourforms' Outer Space Men!

A neon search globe -catcher or a day-glo helmet perhaps!

Similarly my wife's milk whisk would make an ideal cosmic lance for one of them.

The spinning spiral tip would make mincemeat of Scorpio's antennae!

And for the classier HG Wellsian version how about this glass plant water flute for a majestic staff. 

You know they'd fit right in!

Can you think of any other kitchen spare parts?

Johnny Lemon Martian Eye

With War of the Worlds tripoding through my mind this week I couldn't help but notice that the inside of our BBQ spice looks like ...... 

George Pal's Martian 3-split eye!

All it needs are the three different colours!

to look like this!

Now that's a Johnny Lemon DIY toy part if ever there was one!

Then came our masher

sporting what appears to be a radar or tracker screen at the bottom!

I know I've seen this array on a toy or fantasy gizmo but can't think what. You?

Have you any Johnny Lemon toy parts in the home like these?

Home Made SpaceX Toys in the Kitchen

Continuing yesterday's theme of DIY SpaceX toys and inspired by Bill's desk-top Needle Probe I thought I'd have a go at some more, this time in the kitchen.

I've cheated a bit and used illustrations of kitchen utensils rather than physical utensils themselves, simply because I wouldn't get away with wrecking ours!

So here goes:

Take two plastic lemon squeezers, a star ice lolly mold and two green biro tops:

instant Space Patrol 1.

Up second, take a blue plastic spatula and cut off the handle and glue it on top, squaring off the ends.

Instant Cruiser 1.

ha ha!

A bit of fun in the kitchen!

Your models or designs ideas welcome!

With Triangular Chocolate and Triangular Trees: Project Toblerone

Continuing my theme of home-made toys here's one DIY packaging idea that nearly worked!

For years I have fantasized about creating a Project SWORD Task Force 1 double vehicle gift set.

Its triangular box was the inspiration. How I hear you cry?

Why, Toblerone of course! Two Task Forces in one box!

Well, yesterday I was presented with the opportunity to buy a large Toblerone and I grabbed it with both hands. Its my favourite Swiss choccy and even better when its the big version!

Alas, despite my chocolate-covered grin, the boxperiment failed.

I couldn't get my Task Force 1 to fit! Too big!

Another quarter inch on the box and it would have!

Ah well, trial and error and chocolate got us this far.

REBUILDING A JOHNNY SEVEN ONE MAN ARMY

Mentioning the Johnny 7 earlier today reminded me how I used to enjoy buying and selling them  .... or at least trying to.

My first adult reunion with the One Man Army was finding a single loose butt at a car boot sale in the early 90's. I may have sold this on as I found it.

I think my next Johnny was a mint boxed one just for me in the early '00's. It cost an arm and a leg and I pay Bill to guard my other toys in the loft with it!

This purchase whetted my appetite to buy in an incomplete One Man Army to finish off and sell on in 2007.

After much searching for and buying spare parts it looked like this in the end.

The Topper box I got was pretty shot but there wasn't anything I could do about that.

It had several pesky holes and tears.

Finding the plastic grenade was harder than a thought it would be and this damaged example was the best I could do at the time.

I had to source a replacement shaft for this shell as well. It ended up being a repro.

At least the red missile was good.

and the other green missile.

Alas, I had to buy in replacement and repro plastic bullets.

The toy machine gun lever was fine though.

as were the other mechanics at the back end.

But by far the hardest and most expensive spare part was the toy pistol.

Eventually I found this decent example and in it went!

I can't recall if these were reproduction leaflets. I think I may have had them photocopied from my originals at a copy shop.

And that was that. Job done. One complete Johnny Seven give or take a few repro parts, which I described thoroughly to the eventual happy buyer.

It must have been worthwhile because I bought this trainwreck in next!

I think this Johnny got the better of me and it was sold as is some time after!

Have you rebuilt a Johnny Seven? Did you have one as a kid? Do you have one now?

Remember, no one man is an army!

Space on The Brain

I've clearly been going on Moonbase Central far too often, I see spacecraft in the simplest things!

Mark J

*

Ha ha, love it Mark!

I'm the same.

When I see a toilet duck all I see are red Thunderbird 2 engines!

What do other space stuff do you see readers?

making massive missing missiles for my one man army toy: johnny 7 up

I love Johnny Seven.

Years ago I suggested that missing missiles could be found in the kitchen.

I called these replacements "Johnny Lemon" and with tongue very firmly in cheek I blogged about them [you can follow this bitter trail by clicking its label below]

So when I recently saw some huge foam NERF gun ammunition in a toy shop I was inspired to up the ante and max out my Johnny.

In a post-news world were size matters the One Man Army has gone fake-large.

I give you Johnny 7 Up!

Not to be tried at home .... even I haven't!

First Up we have the 1 litre PARTY CRASHER.

This is a modified empty 7Up bottle ready to serve and I don't mean drinks. This air-rammed guzzle tube will turn any kids' Birthday into a Battlefield where only the fizziest survive! 

When the Trifle needs rifle, when the jelly needs welly, when the pies need GI's this is all you need. 

The PARTY CRASHER! 

No-one gets any cake!

Last but not least and for that most dangerous of ropey war zones, I bring you the THE TENT FLATTENER! 

The TF is a 19-litre air-filled camping water butt mega-missile that will turn your Johnny 7 into a canvas-levelling piledriver.

 Equally lethal in the garden during summer tent nights or the family camping trip in August, the TENT FLATTENER will flatten a tent in one single salvo of plastic damnation. Your tented siblings, friends and rivals will be pounded like pillows whilst you sing Awning has Broken!

The TENT FLATTENER

No-one gets any sleep!

*

Can you think of any more harmless but spectacular spoof ways to beef up the 7Up range readers? 

INSTANT DRIP: MORE FROM THE JOHNNY LEMON ARMY TOY RANGE

A few years ago I developed the kidtastic Johnny Lemon range of DIY toys.

Whilst having a bath today I was inspired to extend the range when I looked closely at my hand wash bottle.

I turned it upside down and stick the nozzle on the other way and voila!...

.....instant medic drip for the One Man Army field hospital!

It can be hung during the garden skirmish from a branch or even a bird feeder!

Pretty neat if you can't get hold of the real toy McCoy, which I'm not sure even exists now or existed back then in the Sixties!

To go with the instant drip the professional kid army medic needs a helmet - courtesy of Tupperware.

Finally, something that has mesmerised me ever since I had a brace of small plastic ones, like this below, that came with my Action Man Stormtrooper, the WWII Stick Grenade.

The ideal DIY solution for the Sixties garden battle would have been something wooden like half a broom handle or better still a truncheon topped with a baked beans tin painted dark green. However, wood and tin flying through the air would have been as devastating as the stick grenade itself!

For a less headache-inducing effect I might opt for a bog standard plastic baseball bat...

with a green Tupperware beaker container pushed over the fat end [ these even come with a brush, which might be a handle stand-in itself!]

So there you have it. there will be more from my Johnny Lemon range of exclusive trash military toys as soon as I see some useful rubbish that inspires me.

In the meantime if you have anything you think can be part of the upcycle army then do let us know!

JOHNNY HEAVEN: NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF JOHNNY SEVEN

Back in April I did a tongue in cheek post about replacement missiles from kitchen spares for the Johnny Seven OMA toy rifle. I nicknamed it Johnny Lemon and used plastic Jiffy lemon juice bottles but recommended finding the better looking green Waitrose lemon bottles:

Well, just when I thought I'd squeezed this particular lemon dry, in July I stumbled across an American Ebayer actually selling these spares, both green and yellow no less, on Ebay! Interestingly the seller had copyrighted his creations as follows "Mr Johnny Seven is The Sole Owner Of The Certificate Of Authenticity Any Copies or Reproductions Of Any And All Are Strictly Forbidden" [in fact this is but a small part of the copyright notice!]. Well they do say that great lemons squeeze alike! His green replacement is thus:

Leaving the squeezer behind, I am always on the lookout for interesting Johnny Seven variations. One such toy I've known about for a long time is the Jolly Seven, a Japanese James Bond rifle by Tada issued when Thunderball came out and really quite rare. In fact the only online reference I can find of it is on the definitive James Bond Toys site.

So I was amazed when a Greek lookalike appeared on Ebay this summer, the Leizer 200 by Alfa toys. It's certainly one jolly good knockoff!

Have you any Johnny Seven toys, variations or knockoffs?

JOHNNY LEMON REPLACEMENT MISSILES FOR YOUR TOPPER TOY ONE MAN ARMY

In these austere times I look to hardware shops for cheap replacement vintage toy parts. For example, the Topper Toys Johnny Seven One Man Army is often missing one or two of its missiles. I think I've found a rather citric solution to this, which I call "Johnny Lemon"!

Johnny Lemon replacement missiles come courtesy of your local supermarket in the shape of the humble lemon juice plastic container as modelled below by a particularly handsome bottle I found at Morrison's. Lemon Juice containers [or Jifs as they were known in my youth] are light, have a classic bulbous missile shape and a very useful detachable lid, which allows you to glue a plastic suction dart shaft onto the neck.

Here's one I made earlier. Rather than gluing the shaft I have simply inserted it for photographing. Mrs. Moonbase wanted it back for the lemon juice I'd poured into a cup!

This particular Jif is flat-bottomed. The yellow colour is okay but what we really need is green. So you can imagine my citric excitement when I found these green lime juice bottles. Result! Johnny Lemon now offers green missile replacements too! This particular lime container is stocked by Waitrose, the Lady Penelope of British supermarkets and rather hard to come by in my neck of the woods! For lemon fans they stock the same style in yellow too.

So Johnny Lemon can now replace the rifle's two green missiles. Ignoring the grenade because it's too hard, that just leaves the red rocket. This is where it gets tricky, as we have to leave the citrus world behind and enter the murky world of red plastic containers. Being unfussy about the exact shape I have settled for a replacement, which is both red and cheap - I give you the plain old ketchup bottle!

Johnny Lemon, at a supermarket near you! Keep your eyes peeled! Your replacement hardware stories/ thoughts/ trials always welcomed whether comical or deadly serious!