Support us on PATREON: / retroblasting RetroBlasting tackles repairs and restoration on not one, but two vintage Kenner Star Wars TIE Fighters! #RetroBlasting #TIEFighter #toyrestoration
These restoring videos are so satisfying to watch. 😌 Thank you giving old toys new life. You inspired me to do the same for my #vintagetoycollection ☺️
I really NEVER want to see a dislike on any of your videos, just because you do them with full effort, and you guys have passion for the subject. Keep it up Retroblasting! -Ripley
Guys thanks so much for taking the time to make these videos. Whether your from the US or the UK love the fact that we have a shared love of toys!!! Big up for team Retro blasting!!!
Thumbs up for the Hills Department Store reference! We had one near Kingston Pike in Knoxville. I remember getting my Kenner Indiana Jones Desert Convoy Truck there.
Wow! you really have some patients to fiddle with all these toys. I have a lot of early GI Joes and a box full of the weapons and stuff. I have two helicopters. The big brown one I know you have because I seen it in your garage. I also have a Millennium Falcon in my eave upstairs. I wish I knew how to restore stuff. My Gi joes don't need no repairs I just need to have the patients to match up everything
I restored my Darth Vader Tie Fighter also. But it was the original with the spring wires. I was able to remove them and soak it with vinegar. Now it works great. I also added new decals on the wings. Next I plan to get another Darth Vader Tie Fighter. To custom in battle damage.
Just a shout out to UK viewers, I am not sure if other countries have a Maplins store but they do sell a small motor exactly the same as the old Kenner ones for your Star Wars ships, my Falcon motor had completely seized so I bought a new one, you would not know the difference, they do come with small metal pegs but you can remove them just by pulling them out, it was about £5 but well worth it. Great video, keep the restorations coming, how about Thunder cats in the future??
I loved that you said hills, my favorite childhood memories are about going toy hunting at hills and ben franklin. I wish I hadn't sold my tie fighters now since I know I could have repaired them.
I'm impressed at how well you took care of your toys AND that you managed to keep them with you till now. Sadly I lost a lot of my favorite toys because we moved around a lot when I was a kid. The only one I managed to keep with me is Thunder Gunner from my collection of Matchbox's Road Blasters, He's lost all his accessories and most of his paintjob.
Wilson Tortosa My mom's toys were burned in the yard one day while she was at school by a drunken stepfather. After that she swore she'd never do the same to her kids. As a result, I was allowed to choose if I wanted anything sold at garage sales - Inexplicably, I sold my Knight Rider and Michael Knight, and my Hot Wheels Sto n Go Service Center, but I kept everything else.
I'll say it once and I will say it again,I love these resto videos! It would be cool to see transformers resto too. But I know that's a touchy subject for u. Lol!
***** I had the 1984 TIE Interceptor and would dogfight with my brothers Roboskull (Action Force) A couple of years back I bought a new much more accurate TIE Interceptor in the colours of an Imperial version of the Red Baron. It's the same size as the old 84 issue and I can't recommend it enough to all the Star Wars fans. With it's special markings and it's size, it's a very sleek imposing beast.
Believe it or not I just discovered your channel. You do great work. I am not sure I am talented enough to fix one of these. One of my ties has a loose wing. Keep up the great work
1 week too late! I just did a restoration of mine last week. Motor was seized, luckily I never stored batteries in it, so that was all clean as new. It took me forever to get it back together, but I finally figured it out. Now I just need to find someone with a laser printer so I can get the stickers printed out. By the way nice work with this video.
Hills department store n nashville on charlotte ave on top of the hill......my favorite store ever as a child. All my he-man an transformers came from there. Man u brought back sum memories lol
I'm also working on restoring the Darth Vader Tie Fighter. So did I use vinegar as well to take off the battery acid from the componet. And I'm ordering new stickers for the wings to bring it back newly restored.
Many of my toys came from Hills. Almost all of my motu with the exception of my firsts, I purchased castle grayskull at Kmart and had no money for figures so mom bought skeletor and fakor
Beautiful city. I know Hills was primarily centered in the Midwest and points East and South. It was a part of my toy trifecta, including Gold Circle and K-Mart. Now only K-Mart remains, and it only by a thread :(. Awesome vids! Just discovered you guys and have been binging. Keep up the great work!
Awesome! TIE Fighter resto added to the X-Wing and Death Star restos, which leaves only the Landspeeder from the 1978 lineup to go (although the Sonic Landspeeder was a JC Penney exclusive at Christmas too). I guess the Vader TIE Fighter and Falcon restos round out the 1979 lineup except for the Imperial Troop Transporter (remember I have some extra parts from my resto of my childhood ITT I can donate to a future ITT video, otherwise I'll use them for a 2nd and 3rd ITT project). One tip I have on TIE Fighter resto display is to remove the springs from the wings while displaying, as like the spring in the Death Star canon they tend to put pressure on brittle old plastic parts which may cause them to crack and fail over time. If storing your TIE Fighter, leave the wings off so the clips don't have pressure on them. I know that between my brother's '78 TIE and mine, we only had one button that didn't have a broken tab on it, but it was partly cracked off. They are a real weak spot on this ship. For some reason my brother's Vader TIE Fighter faired better, either the plastic was improved by '79 or we just didn't play with it as much.
Oh, also of note. While restoring the two 1978 TIE Fighters, I found they differed from my 1979 Vader TIE Fighter in that they lacked the zip-tie that was on later ships. The molding of the ships prevented adding a zip-tie to them, so apparently Kenner changed the mold to add the zip-tie during assembly.
***** I also forgot to mention that my '79 Vader TIE has the solid hatch design, while your later Vader TIE has the revised TIE molds with the overhead window openings. As far as I know the '79 and '80 Vader TIE had this original hatch, and the update happened with the '83 Battle Damaged TIE and the BD blue TIE mold reused to make the Collector's release of your Vader TIE in '84 (re-released along with the Dewback and Landspeeder).
***** Target, Hills, Zayre and K-Mart were my major toy-drooling spots as a wee lad in Indianapolis in the 80s. Hell, I remember when JC Penny had a toy dept. Never even heard of Wal-Mart until my second time living in Syracuse from 91-97.
I've not had the Kenner sound working on my TIE for a long time (battle damaged version which I did apply the stickers unlike my X-wing). Maybe all I need is to put in new batteries I'm actually not sure, but now that I know what to do on the inside I think I'll try it. Ill let you know of the result.
It scary to think I had the 3 tie fighters as a kid, and I picked them all up, working and complete from yard sales for £3 each. Then our crazy neighbour, broke in through our attic and stole a ton of stuff from up there. Which included an Diecast voltron, A team vans, A couple Knight Riders, AT-ST's and a whole bunch of stuff I can't remember. Also my Tony the tiger Tran Ams SoB lol. Least I know hes in prison for life though.
Ive never seen one of these in real life or in a video before, so I was a bit surprised to find out the motor somehow makes a high pitched screaming sound.
It's odd that Kenner never produced the TIE Bomber from The Empire Strikes Back. If I had two original Darth Vader Advanced TIE Fighters, I'd use the two cockpits, turn one of them into the generators like in the film, modify it a little and stick them together. And, for that classic retro feeling, I'd paint it white like the original Kenner TIE Fighters. What do you think?
Hello! Again, I recently posted on your X-Wing tutorial and how happy I was to find it, just finished watching your Tie Fighter's tutorial, so I checked my Tie Fighter to see if it still works. I had a couple of batteries, so I tried them, and was disappointed that they didn't work, even though the copper was still shiny, then I remembered you reversed the batteries, I tried it and success! But only half, the light still blinks perfectly, but I don't have any sound from the motor, so do you think I need a new motor???
Kenner rereleased the vader tie towards the end of the line in a "collector edition" along with the landspeeder and the dewback. I know the tie was updated with the cutout slots in the top hatches. Is that the one you have there?
Thanks you very much for these videos. I completed a restoration on the X-Wing and it went perfectly however I did not mix up the chemicals for the whitening of the yellowed parts I bought a bottle of "SalonCare 40" developer at Sallys Beauty Supply. I completed the restoration on this Tie Fighter as you described and I cannot get the motor to work. The light works perfectly. Any suggestions? Again GREAT JOB!
Love the videos. I still have my childhood Darth Vader TIE Fighter, but mine doesn't have slots in the hatches. I've seen both variations, but I can't really find any information on any variations except the packaging. Do you know anything about that?
DRAGOIV 80 We are working on videos for both of those, and everything else you can possibly think of. As you know, we put a lot of thought and time into our feature videos, and we strive to get good condition toys for visuals. That involves a good script, good research and good visuals and all that equals time. Eventually, you'll see it all here at RetroBlasting. Stay tuned.
These are great videos. I have never been brave enough to tear down my ships. I do have a question though. On my Vader TIE, the panels have never stayed on the posts. There are tabs that slot into the panels and they have never held. Have you ever heard of this problem? Is there a fix for it?
Dangit, now I want to buy another vintage TIE Fighter. I had a secondhand "Battle Damage" TIE Fighter as a kid and the kid who owned it before me did a horrible job of applying the wing stickers. They were overlapping and wrapped around the wing, it was terrible. I attempted to restore it but never found a decent way to remove the sticker residue. I eventually just gave it away and hoped that the next guy would have better luck with it. Anyways, what are your thoughts on reproduction stickers for vintage toys? Is there anyone out there who actually makes decent ones or should they be avoided altogether?
Nathan Rosario I talk about vintage stickers in the various restoration videos - Falcon, Death Star, X-Wing, B-Wing - and on the second part of our interview with the Star Wars Forum UK podcast.
My first reaction to seeing that amount of battery acid would be to TIE the toy to a tree and shoot it, before burying it in the backyard. Kudos for not doing that.
My tie fighter red light comes on but the screaming sound does not. Do I need a new motor ? Battery compartment is clean. All wires are in perfect shape and connected correctly. Any reply would be appreciated. -- Bernie
Thanks. I did buy another couple of junked tie fighter and used the pieces from them. Much less expensive than buying the clips. Im a big Toypoloi fan.
Do you address how to fix the drooping wings problem on the next part with the white tie fighter? Mine has that problem where if you pick it up the wings get so out of alignment that it looks like crap.
I've been noticing that WD-40 works like a miracle on my dead motors. As you use 3-in-1 oil, just want to make sure WD-40 isn't doing any harm, even though it's bringing my motors back to life, etc.? Whenever you get a chance. Thanks.
+RetroBlasting Thank you so much. One more question, if that's okay - and it's a hard one - the interior of the battery compartment on my Vader tie looks completely different than the one you work on in the video - in short, instead of two sides of flat tab leads, there's one side with those and the other is a spring coiled for both ends of each battery - springs instead of tab leads, for some reason. Any idea why? Did Kenner make an earlier version with springs instead of tabs? Anyway - Now, the bottom half of the spring broke with age - but there is ONE single strand of that 1979 spring left - and after oiling the motor and soaking the copper in vinegar, if I touch the end of that broken spring to the end of the battery with the end of a screwdriver - the sound works like a charm (although not as high-pitched as the one in your video, but still strong) - so I'm *assuming* that I need a piece of metal or copper to fit in there snugly, to keep that last, hanging piece of spring touching the battery. Now, here's the weird thing - the red light *worked* before I did any of this - and now it doesn't, even though I've got the sound working with some trickery, etc. But I see nothing that's changed in the connections or that the wiring got loose anywhere near the light. Basically, I'm knee deep in Vader Tie Restoration HELL, man. lol
+Adam Stevenson UPDATE: I took the complete spring lead double-coil out of my white tie and put slipped it into the Vader and now the light and sound on the Vader work like a charm, after putting it all back together. Only issue now is to re-create that double-coiled spring to put in the white tie that's now missing it (or vice versa, as I should put the white tie's spring back into it). Should be pretty easy to find some spring like that and re-create that double-coil. But hey, at least I know the Vader tie is up and running again. :-) Thanks again for the video, once again, a huge help.
Question for you if you don't mind: I am restoring a 1978 Kenner Darth Vader TIE Fighter and I noticed the hub that connects the TIE Fighter to the wings is a darker grey color than the TIE Fighter itself. Is this normal or is it possible I have the wrong hub? The TIE Fighter I have is light grey and the hub is a darker grey. I've noticed in pictures I've found online that there seems to be a slight difference in color between the TIE Fighter and the hub, but just wondered if you knew any additional information that might help me. Thanks in advance!
thank you Matt you're the best I will keep falling PS please fix that broken Vader I have one don't worry you would I choke you PPS they should make a doll of Melinda he is such a hottie no disrespect intended
OK i'm confused a bit,. my Darth Vader tie does not have slots in the top doors. my interceptor does. I think you might have you doors mixed up. I have had my dv tie since childhood. did they make variations?
I see my mistake, I looked it up. Mine is a 79 release that did not have the slots. thanks, I learned something i didn't know! keep the cool vids coming.
