Dinky Eagle resto

Skidmarks_Diecast

Got such a kick out of digging thru my closets, to find my FASA collection, I decided to dig further, thru all my closets, and found much of my Dinky sci-fi collection. This the first Dinky Eagle I owned. Got it in late 1975. I wanted a Dinky Eagle as much as a horny 17 year-old wants p#$sy. Maybe even more. Unfortunately, at 10 years old, I thought that the reason it had spring-loaded landing gear was because you were supposed to drop it onto asphalt driveways and concrete sidewalks. I also thought the reason it had a compartment release button on top was so you could go "bombs away" on...well...anything that would get damaged by dropping a Dinky Eagle passenger compartment on it.

With the paint job beaten up pretty badly, at 11 years-old, I got the bright idea to refresh its pant job by globing on thick layers of Pactra olive drab (which was the closest approximation of Dinky Green I had) with a Testors paint brush. Also decided to apply my own "rad" paint job to refresh the passenger compartment.

Now, having dug it out of the closet, I've decided to restore it. Haven't decided yet whether to leave it raw, paint it off-white (to match the on-screen Eagles), gloss white (similar to the Eagle Freighter), or paint it Dinky green or Dinky blue.

BTW... I'm looking for a good source of Dinky Eagle parts. Need some of the little plastic bits and a set of stickers/decals.

robn1

I'm surprised it survived all that abuse! That's a tough little ship. Nice work cleaning it up.

I know there's an Ebay dealer that has decals for the big toy Eagle, don't know about Dinkys though.

JMChladek

You could probably post this question over at Eagletransporter.com's forums since they specialize in all things Gerry Anderson, ESPECIALLY Eagles. You might find a source for the parts you need there, but overall it looks pretty complete considering the hard life it has had.

I know of one other modeler there who decided to do a full restoration job on a SHADO UFO Interceptor, but rather than redoing it in the metallic green, he restored it in a coloring more fitting of the Interceptors on the show as the toy that Dinky SHOULD have done. It looked pretty dang AWSOME when finished. He didn't necessarily try to decorate it entirely like a studio model as it still looked like a toy with the screw holes and seam lines, but it was quite a nice blending of toy and model features.

As for the Eagle though, that is a little more problematic as they did one white Eagle (the first run of the Freighter). So I don't think I would paint it white. Off white is possible, although gloss off white would be better (you could go white pearl to bring back some of that metallic sparkle and still make it look like a toy, yet white at the same time). The red on the transport pod door also has me thinking of perhaps doing it as a rescue Eagle with the red and white stripes on the pod for a really cool splash of color and red stripes would match the color of the skylight windows in the pod (and since Dinky never did a rescue Eagle, if you ever got the chance to make a reproduction package, the whole thing might make for a nice "what if" toy).

Interceptor6

All 4 engine bells "and" all the windows!! YOU'RE GOLDEN!
Look up Toy Tinker thru Google. He carries some Eagle parts. I've redone a couple Mobiles and Interceptors, but my Eagles aren't much better than yours!

dcarty

Oh, man that's cool! I still have my Dinky Starship Enterprise that I got for Christmas in 1976 I remember drooling over pictures of the Eagle and the Thunderbirds--especially Thunderbird 2-- in the catalog that it came with.

I've also purchased some parts from Toytinker and never had any issues with him. Nice replica parts.

I was notorious as a kid for modifying toys to make them more "realistic". I would have painted that Eagle all white in a heartbeat. In fact I painted the nacelle caps on my Enterprise red, the shuttle grey, and the nacelle "exhausts" silver (don't ask me about that one--though I may have gotten it from the box art on the AMT model). I also cut the name/registry sticker in half to try and position them more accurately on the primary hull but it didn't work because of the grid (curse you grid!!!).

Cheers,

Dave

Interceptor6

Here's a couple of "repaints".
When I get to the Eagles, they'll match the show!

Attached Thumbnails

 

Daddyphat

Wow I had that as a kid and the little hot wheels sized one. I may have a chunk of it somewhere.

Skidmarks_Diecast

Here's an update on my Dinky Eagle resto. It's about 85% done now but I still have to do some detail work, on the paint job, and finish up with the little plastic bits. The passenger compartment windows were blackened with Tamiya smoke and are still transparent. I did the engine bells with Alclad II Chrome.

neosporing

waaat? that's the same toy? looks fantastic!

i had one of these when i was a kid. i miss it dearly.

robn1

Very nice It's cool to see an old toy rescued like this.

EvanW

Good job. I still have one of these. Its the white version with the red canister holder. Magnet is gone and so are the canisters. Broke off a leg during a "Carter" scene about 35 years ago.