Takatoku: Evil Gariba C Bike
Today I have a before/after Brog for you.
A few weeks ago a found a Takatoku Gariba C, or is it Garibr C (?),
on Yahoo. Usually these non Bullmark bikes, even loose specimen have
lots of fans out there…so they go for more Yen I want to pay for one.
Apropos “non Bullmark”. Akumaizer 3 toys are licensed by Takatoku,
but Bullmark produced many (most) of the Akumaizer sofubis, MFV’s,
plastic toys and even the Zabitan Zenmai. Many of the toys are “double branded”
with Takatoku & Bullmark logos. What a great toy manufacturer cooperation.
But I was pretty sure that THIS one, even with box, won’t go for a fortune.
and I was right…
When Evil on his bike arrived in germany, he looked like on the auction fotos.
It seems that he had a bad accident at some point in the last 35 years…
yepp, riding a motobike is dangerous.
I wasn’t sure what really was wrong with Evil when I “analyzed” the auction fotos,
because the quality of the pics wasn’t good (as usual) and the item description wasn’t very
informative too. What I know was that his head was pretty deformed (melted?),
he had many discolorations on his body, the box was “repaired” with some kind of tape, etc.
Could be a nice restoration object, or a few thousand Yen burned for junk…but no risk, no fun ;-)
The first thing I noticed when hold the toy in my hands was that the “discolorations ”
on Evil’s body is only dirt…nice mixture of 30 years old dust and nicotine.
But his bend back head looks really evil…haha, funny wordplay.
Ok, sorry…shitty joke ;-)
When the vinyl is dryed up, it could break, when I try bending the head back into position.
I decided to use the “hot water” method. I think this is the best method to bring vinyl
back into “form”. Better than using a hairdryer.
I restored quiet a few vintage vinyls that way…works pretty well.
I pour only a bit hot (nearly boiling) water on Evil and…
…“PLOEEP” (this was the sound),
Evil’s head was back into position.
Wow, a 5 second restoration. I was amazed!
Getting rid of the tape and cleaning the box, without destroying the artwork, took hours.
Here is the result. A pretty nice looking toy & box. i thing the only thing that is missing
is Evil’s scarf. But I’m not 100% sure if he came with one.
Nice colorful box. The plastic window is a bit battle damaged over the years.
But I won’t replace it, I want to keep it original.
Now Evil is ready to race again with his friction drive bike!
So, this was my little Akumaizer motorcycle story for today.
I have a few more to tell ;-)
More fotos etc in the BBS.
