Q Force – Surfer Variant Type 3

[Quickfire]

Perhaps as bananaed as a noodle flambue pickled in a distillery (current status), the flaw is that the were not made at Palitoy/in Europe, thus no different 'plastic pellets' around. Maybe.

Was used to seeing the Joe figs incorporated into with their 'Made in Hong Kong' butt-stamp.



Always assumed they were imports even if that was just what was on the mould, but large corporations probably wouldn't bugger about like that on the manufacturing (... ....)

So remembering, but not checking, when the August 1984 firings happened the incoming management had already decided to ditch and import the figs and just package them up in Coalville?

Thus there's not the different plastic lying around for the new moulds.

Looking at an figure the mighty butt-stamp is 'Made in Hong Kong'.



But, the era vehicles from the Joe range do have a different plastic texture (?softer) to those manufactured in the US at the same time (remember seeing on a Flophouse movie about whats-her-name the nun turned toy collector). So maybe some figs were made in UK/Europe as with the vehicles (but don't the vehicles also have a 'Made in' stamp on? Don't have one to hand...)

What all this means...

Brings us back to the Summer 1984 catastrophe and management issue. All the kit is manufactured for Xmas, demand is sufficient to bring in a new run ... also as the management know they won't be manufacturing the following year they either source different pellets for a final run, or use surplus pellets/resin that has been sitting around in non-ideal conditions in a typically drafty Midlands warehouse and just bung it in. Or with the design team changes the temps just don't know what they are doing or don't care. Essentially slash and burn meets entropy and lost institutional knowledge. Or pellets destined for vehicles get used for figs.

Er.. that's it.

[Quickfire]

An excellent theory!! Especially the plastics knowledge. I've been looking into injection moulding if late and it is, as Quickfire says, based on melting down pellets that are then injected into the moulds. The colour mix or consistency is determined by the ratio of pellets melted. So that can easily account for plastic hardnesses, or colour variants. Especially in tricky to mix ones like the oranges or yellows. I've got some noticeably different oranges and yellows in my little space gang.

Danke Herr D, yeah it was a long time ago but we manufactured everything from basic blocks of plastic for office desks through to transparent sunglasses cases and translucent credit card / id holders (hard plastic). The whole pellet management issue was critical, different types etc. Basically a little funnel full of the mix ran down into the mould if remember correctly. But only the boffins were allowed on the moulding side of the factory, I went from sweeping to picking to despatch, was always having the odd look at the moulds tho' thinking of and how to start making them all over again one day or other ... Also forgot all the terminology now, wasn't really paying deep attention as was just there to make sure I had an extra 120 quid at the end of the week to mitigate student grant syndrome.

Don't forget, Steve, that both age & storage conditions can also have an effect on the plastic & its colour too.

Definitely, maybe even on the mix itself, let alone the figure. They were probably just chucking in whatever remained before ceasing manufacture of the line. The moulds weren't gonna be used again so probably reinforced the "f%k it" factor.

[Hopper]

Interesting, Herr Muller.
It makes sense, even allowing the not-British manufacture of Series 3 AF

Essentially, as you succinctly put it, "slash and burn meets entropy and lost institutional knowledge" plus the possibility that "pellets destined for vehicles get used for figs"...
And bam! You have a perfect recipe for a really crappy pile of figures.

What we are seeing then is plastic toy equivalent of that last great, unsent, cuneiform tablet that lay, unfired, in the kilns of Ur - translation... "Help, please send help. The barbarians are at the gates."

[Quickfire]

What we are seeing then is plastic toy equivalent of that last great, unsent, cuneiform tablet that lay, unfired, in the kilns of Ur - translation... "Help, please send help. The barbarians are at the gates."

Just what we all needed, more Mercian cuneiform adorning the Palitoy carcass

England - now of genius
the eidolon
Unsubstantial yet voiding
Substance of quicklime

So much for rude uncials, the true governaunce of England.

Exeunt omnes