Monday, January 17, 2011

Failure to launch

Before Christmas I mentioned in one of my posts that I went to Chinook Hobby West looking for gifts and while I did get Logan some Star Wars Lego I also bought some stuff for myself.  One of those things were a pair of vintage Go-Bots model kits.  You can't really compare Go-Bots to Transformers because Go-Bots were so horrible lame in comparison, even the names were stupid.  A space shuttle named Spay-C?  Really?!


Normally, I'm not one for model kits, but I picked these up because they snap together.   They both were transforming models from vehicle to robot and had a pull back motor.  Unfortunately, they were molded in white which meant they would need to be painted, but if I put the space shuttle together I could get away with not painting it because it's mostly white anyway.


We are off to a good start because the box is pretty small and doesn't have that many pieces in it.  This might turn out pretty good.


I take back that part about this turning out pretty good, check out step 1 of the instructions.  Step 1 has you putting the wheels on the pull back motor using a hammer?!  The wheels and the motor are both made of plastic and if you took a hammer to them, then totally get broken.  I didn't use the hammer.

I eventually did get the model put together and I suppose it looks "okay".  Some of the joints don't line up very well and it looks weird.  Also, when I took the pieces out of the frame there was always a lump of plastic where it was connected to the frame.  This made putting some of the pieces together a little more difficult because I had to shave the lumps down.  Even the round wheels had these lumps on them and when I put the rubber tire on one the wheels it was oval and not round.


The stickers didn't turn out so good either as there were too many stickers on the sheet and when I tried to put them on like they had in the pictures they didn't even fit.  So some stickers didn't even make on and some don't line up because either the model is too small or the stickers are too big.  I just tried doing it like the picture!  Why doesn't it work!!

Looking good??


Here we have the instructions for transforming the model, it's a difficult four step process.  Okay, it's pretty easy and probably as hard as transforming the regular Go-Bot toys.


There is my transformed SPAY-C and it looks like he needs some maintenance.  When I popped out his arms the one arm pops off, not out.  I can stick it back in, but it just falls back out.  As long as he stays in vehicle mode, he'll be okay though.

The best part of the model was the pull back motor which worked way better than I thought it would.  It was plastic and looked pretty crappy, but when I tried it out it took right off.  In the end I didn't even bother putting together the second model kit.  Seemed like a waste of time, good thing these things were only $1.99 each.   I still have one more goodie from Hobby West that needs to be done.  It could be a little more difficult and dangerous than a snap together model kit.  If I can pull it off, it will be awesome.   Stay tuned.

2 comments:

mike said...

Lol, step one; Hit it with a hammer!

Usually it takes longer to get to that step in the model building process..

I like the pic with his arm on the floor.. you can almost see embarassment in his face, if he could show emotion.

Keef said...

The great thing about snap together models kits was that they didn't need paint, glue, or tools. Model kits shouldn't even require a hammer at all unless they are made from wood or metal. I wonder how many little kids broke that motor back in the day by using a hammer on it?

Go-Bots weren't programmed with emotion just because Tonka didn't have the budget for it back in the 80's.