Vintage Action Man Helicopter restoration: part one - Toy Polloi

[@SamSnoekBrown]

I think one of my favorite things about videos like this one is seeing you think your way through these repairs. Really clever solutions to some of these issues, but also, kind of reassuring how much of it is really just eyeballing and trial-and-error!

[@toypolloi]

There is no manual for toy repairs so you just have to go with what comes to mind.

[@TheToyBoy1978]

Looking good so far Dave! Some superb styrene work there👌 I didn't expect it to feel so surreal watching you fix my donation. lol Looking forward to part 2! 👍

[@toypolloi]

It's been a fun, if tricky, project. But I do like a challenge.

[@sithcarebear1]

I love that they went all out on Action Man! You might get vehicles for a 3.75 line but to have the assortment you see in this 12 inch line would be unheard of today. Great work so far, Dave! Can’t wait to see Part 2!! Cheers!

[@kjamison5951]

I really loved seeing Action Dave alongside Action Man! Tremendous start to a worthwhile project. I have my original helicopter and a spares helicopter to renovate. Great ideas here!

[@mx472000]

Fantastic!

[@drawingbyhand]

Brilliant action man restoration on helicopter toy polloi.

[@toypolloi]

Thanks

[@richardcoleman3425]

I love the original fix for the winch hook - using the key from a corned beef tin - That's a Dad's Repair if ever I saw one.... Brilliant! As for your work... Exemplary as usual, Dave. Top Marks - Alpha Plus!

[@ICHIBANDIPPER]

I had this same helicopter in about 1982, brings back great memories. Top restoration! Cheers Dave, Ross.🍻

[@Classic80sFanboy]

Even though I don't collect Action Man Dave, what a great video and amazing results!!👍

[@toypolloi]

Thanks. This is quite a complicated project. But great fun.

[@markstammers1965]

Loving the 1980s Doctor Who inspired intro title... and the videos pretty good too!

[@Tim-57]

Hey Dave Great 1st half video of the repairs. Thank you for sharing and take care.

[@toypolloi]

Thanks 👍

[@Tim-57]

@@toypolloi 🙂

[@ActionPopCast]

I do love an action man video. Great work TP 🤟🏻🤟🏻🤟🏻🤟🏻

[@toypolloi]

Thanks 👍 This is turning into quite a project.

[@lostonwallace1396]

Dave, this is the sort of project that you do that I absolutely love the most: toy projects where you recreate and fabricate replacement pieces from styrene! I like these particularly type of fixes because styrene sheets aren't hard to acquire, and any viewer might manage to pull off these same kind of fixes after carefully watching you repair videos. You always make things look easy (whether they actually are or not), and that helps a viewer like myself find the confidence to try a similar toy fix. Part 1 of this is already looking incredible, and I'm looking forward to seeing how you tackle the issues with the landing skids. Matching olive drab paint can also be a bit tricky, as there doesn't seem to be one standard "olive drab" color. Sometimes they're more yellow than green, or vice-versa, so that will be interesting to see as well. I know you're going to pull this off with flying colors, man, so I eagerly await your next video installment!

[@draigaur9543]

I had one of those helies ,great memories!

[@paulgould3719]

Thanks for making these videos you have inspired me to start cleating classic star wars and star trek toys and your videos have helped me to restore all my collection thank you so much.

[@toypolloi]

That is awesome!

[@TheRetroTinker]

Looking excellent so far Dave!! Looking forward to part two!

[@toypolloi]

Thanks 👍

[@georgemartinezjr]

Great Job Dave never Sease to amaze me when comes to patching this Old Toys Love to see out side and Fly it like it was Meant to do

[@toypolloi]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@kieronball8962]

A great part one, to this amazing Action Man helicopter restoration, Dave. I love your work with anything Action Man, as it's a toyline close to my heart.

[@CrabOfDoom]

I really want to recommend that you add the can key to your nerd vest, somehow. It's vintage toy restoration, from someone who was doing what they could, with what they had, and that took some creativity. The tail fins fix is very, very clever. I couldn't picture what you were describing at first, but seeing it in process made perfect sense. Always did like 'mosquito'-looking helicopters, and glad this one is going to get the chance to be whole again.

[@thetworoos]

Great work! Looking forward to part 2!

[@toypolloi]

Thanks. Part two is just as complicated 🖖

[@sparkles122]

Your videos have given me the confidence to do my own restoration of a g1 transformer sandstorm. Its a bit tatty and needs new stickers but thanks to you i think I'll be able to do it.

[@papitoluis4175]

Gracias....ese helicóptero me trae muy buenos recuerdos de mi geyperman....saludos desde España!!!

[@JulesDesmond]

Love this Dave. It's a testament to you and your style, that you get me watching these videos for lines that I don't really have an interest in. Always great to see new repair techniques and apply them to the toys I do collect. Mrs TP's shoe plastic is such a stalwart repair item at this point! 🤣 It definitely has made me look at the bits and pieces twice, before throwing them in the bin! Looking forward to part 2.

[@toypolloi]

Thanks. Glad you find them interesting. This one has lots of tricky fixes .

[@andrethib]

here in the US, our GI Joe helicopter was identical except that it was molded in yellow plastic. I had one for my GI Joes, it was one of my favorite toys. There was also a "backpack helicopter," my best friend had it for his GI Joe; we had many hours of fun!

[@toypolloi]

The backpack version is the Turbocopter. That's the one I had as a kid.

[@MatthewOfLondon]

I remember the yellow helicopter as I went to a foreign school for a few year in the 70's. One of the kids there was American and I was fascinated by his yellow helicopter. I only knew the green one. No one was allowed near it and rightly so.

[@robertconyers9342]

Fantastic work. You always inspire me

[@toypolloi]

Thank you so much 😀

[@campbellruleV1kiwiGI]

Your work is amazing and inspiring mate. The repairs that you do are incredible.

[@toypolloi]

Thank you very much!

[@MrTommyboy357]

Nice work!

[@toypolloi]

Thanks!

[@johnclarke25]

Looking great as a restoration,I have a capture copter to do as have been fixing up my collection of vintage action men I kept from my fist one in 1967.

[@martinseel2837]

mine is still in perfect shape !!! Nothing broken :-)))) I LOVE YOUR STUFF

[@toypolloi]

You are lucky. This seem prone to breaking.

[@eltenda]

Another cool project!

[@a1exh]

The nostalgia of seeing this toy and the many hours of flying it and the blades flying off as you're bashing that button as hard as you can for maximum rotations.

[@briansadler7270]

Absolutely fabulous video Dave. These types of videos are without a doubt my favorite that you do. Would be cool to see you take a shot at completely building a recreation of something with just a pile of styrene. Nothing but a picture. Lol I have no doubt you could do it. The ingenuity that goes into your repairs is absolutely phenomenal. I'm excited to see what you do with part two and the landing gear. I sort of have an idea in mind for what I might do. Can't wait to see how close or absolutely far away I am from the way you make it happen. Thanks for the video/s

[@loganjorgensen]

12:11 I think the holes are just a nod to realism, they typically do that in real things to reduce overall weight in a sort of large dinosaur bone like engineering practice. These are probably my favorite video topic you cover, Action Man vehicle repair, idk maybe it's the big scale and mechanics. Just a real treat to see you manually machine missing parts back into existence. :D

[@Thehumblecollectoruk]

great fix cant wait part 2 mine the pins broke that hold two halfs toghter but enough to hold toghter .looking forward action man repair too .

[@norooron333]

The new model of action man action man toy polloy with the most difficult mission to solve!

[@TimecodePerez]

Great work! Love this video.

[@toypolloi]

Thank you!

[@brianartillery]

Lovely toy. Never had one myself, but a schoolfriend did. Like a lot of 1970's toys, though, it was rather flimsy. The landing skids and tail were often snapped - I saw the 'Capture Copter' version at a car boot sale last year, and the busted bits were the skids and tail. I didn't buy it, as I don't own any Action Man figures, and, as you can never just have one, or a few bits of gear, ever, I don't want to go down that rabbit hole! Great repair. I'm thankful that the polystyrene used nowadays is a far more stable and robust formulation.

[@DJKC]

Used to have one of these as a child in the mid 70s, straight away I noticed the body appeared to be a different colour from mine. Mine was closer to the colour of the landing part that had broken off. I recall it had quite a short life even then, my dad had to repair the end of the tail as it broke in the same place, as did the landing runners.

[@chrisst8922]

Wish the Repair Shop had stuff like this. They always have stuff from yesteryear.

[@toypolloi]

It would be great if they did a show just for toys.

[@gecko-sb1kp]

That was one of the few toys I never had as a kid but I seen it up close and personal. They had one out of it's box and on display at one of our toy shops in Australia. Slightly different green paint but this was back in about 1975 and it was the GI Joe version. But it looked sweet. And huge to a 7 year old...

[@computer5524]

Thanks for another brilliant repair video. I also like that Frank Zappa Inca Roads style music that you put on your videos recently and it's the best music I heard on your channel.

[@toypolloi]

Thanks 👍

[@Rick_Todd]

There is a really nice condition complete in the box one on ebay right now , Save the pictures before some one buys it , you get some really good close ups.

[@juanjosemunozgarcia1276]

Good video mate

[@toypolloi]

Thanks 👍

[@davesmith-rs1yo]

Reminds me of the capture copter I had for xmas!

[@toypolloi]

It's the same basic helicopter with added extra bits.

[@katenunyabizness9221]

Never seen one broken at the base of the tail like that. It had a hard life and that's quite a nice repair! The skids are almost always broken and seemed to be fragile even when new. Be glad it wasn't the capture version of the copter as those pontoon floats are heavy and snap very tightly onto the skids. That extra weight is not friiendly to the skids' health.

[@kingerikthegreatest.ofall.7860]

Nice job.

[@toypolloi]

Thanks!

[@mikebull1972]

Ha, I remember getting one of these for my birthday and I don't think it lasted long...I recall spending more time looking at it and being forbidden to touch it while various glues tried (and invariably failed) to fix things like the landing skids etc. Too much of it was never really up to the job even from new!

[@MG-id7hl]

Excellent video Dave - the very one I've been waiting for. The chopper I have is in rather a worse state than this but the parts have now arrived so I think it's going to end up a custom rather than a resto. Hope to use pursuit craft pontoons for a float version as the skids are completely knackered. If I'm lucky, it might actually float!...Fingers crossed 🤞...Mike

[@katenunyabizness9221]

Good luck! The copter is tail heavy so the pursuit pontoons may not be long enough or displace enough water to actually float with the copter's weight. If you look for pics of the capture copter you'll see just how beefy the pontoons are.

[@MG-id7hl]

@@katenunyabizness9221 I was never good at physics in school, but I'm hoping if I mount the copter far forward on the pontoons and add balast into the control column...+ the pilot...it should work out. A partial mock up has worked OK, but on dry land. So we'll see. Glad I'm too big to climb into it...but Action Man is definitely up for the challenge 👍🏻

[@jsnsk101]

Do you ever see the Command Bunker anymore? I had one as a kid, still remember opening it at Christmas, it was great

[@toypolloi]

There was one in the last Toy fair video I did. It's on my wants list as I had it growing up. They are always out of my price range when I see them.

[@krystenreid8106]

I am not sure this would have been a very sturdy toy at the time either, I think it would have broken in many of the same places early on, just thinking how kids play with things. nice work getting it displayable again.

[@toypolloi]

It certainly has many weak points to it. And I get the feeling most of these are broken in some way. Just putting the landing gear on feels very risky now.

[@jon-580]

I can't remember off the top of my head, but have you ever tried using Blue stuff and epoxy putty to cast small parts? It is a technique often used to make additional mini figures for games like Warhammer but it strikes me that it would be useful for small parts like the piece missing from the end of the helicopter blade. If you can find original parts on eBay that is the better route but for hard to find parts it can be satisfying casting your own.

[@toypolloi]

I have indeed done that. Often finding the original parts is the problem but in this instance it could have been done.

[@simonrhodes3105]

Another great episode! Would you have any use for a 40th anniversary SAS key figure and parachute attack box set?

[@toypolloi]

Thanks. This is a fun project. Lots of tricky repairs to work through. That's an outfit I don't have. I just have the basic SAS chap as that's what I had as a kid so far.

[@simonrhodes3105]

@@toypolloi You have one now. I'll stick it in with the next care package.

[@toypolloi]

Wow, thank you.

[@miklawson211]

I've just picked up a Cherilea Chopper Helicopter which is in need of some TLC. I haven't had a chance to see what the problems are at the moment , i'll be looking later. One problem i do see are the broken connectors on the rotor blades. I came over to Toy Polloi to pick up some hints. Have you restored a Cherilea before?

[@toypolloi]

Sounds like a fun project. I've only restored the one you see here. But I imagine I have covered most of what you will need already.

[@miklawson211]

@@toypolloi The Rotor blades are retained in a different manner from the ones in the video but i'm sure i've seen something similar repaired before. The Helicopter is good condition over all, at least the landing gear isn't broke.

[@TheDing1701]

How long does it take you to go through a bottle of Plastic Weld? Great video!

[@toypolloi]

Ha ha. Just ordered some more. About three bottles a year currently as it goes a long way.

[@brianartillery]

Should there be a seatbelt? There seem to be slots in the seat for a waist strap.

[@toypolloi]

No, it’s all danger when flying this.

[@brianartillery]

@@toypolloi 🤔 😂😂😂

[@kennybacchus669]

Vintage. Action. Man. Toy. Review

[@i.g.joescale1614]

Ualll! Sensacional, adorei a revitalização, vai ficar um item incrível. Gostei muito da tecnica, ja utilizo algo parecido, porem o teu processo, em passo a passo ficou muito explicativo e didático. Ja vou seguir o canal, e aguardar a continuação. Quando puder, de uma olhada bo nosso canal, acho que vai gostar de algumas coisas. 😉🫡👍🏿🚁