- (Micromachines) Action Fleet A-10

- Lots of plastic!

Since there is no real reason to describe the concept of the Rattler, I'll just describe building it. I mean this one isn't a "remote control version for Cobra" or anything like that, though I guess you could technically use it for that if you wanted. I could see that as a possibility, but for now here's the build of it.

Originally when Micromachines came out with a military line that was in their Action Fleet set, this gave me the idea of making this Rattler. This was at the time that Galoob was making Predator, Aliens, Star Wars, and several other things with little micro people to drive them. Back around 1998. This A-10 really stood out and I just had to give this a try.

Over the last few years though, I slowly went back to it. I never really sat and did any heavy work on it. Everything I did ended up being a roadblock. The back gun turret was the main issue. I had to use thin clear plastic to bend in a circle, but I had to figure out how to glue it in place. Super glue was really all that worked well, but it fogged the plastic. It ended up that I really didn't have a choice so I kept with the super glue and just tinted the whole clear plastic as white. A better choice might be to build a mold and pour clear resin to get it to look right.

The engines were a lot easier. The wing engines just required shaping out plastic to fit correctly. There's a plastic rod ran through the wing base to allow it to tilt just as the full sized one does. I glued pieces of plastic under the wings for stoppers so the wing can not swivel too far. The back engine is just a piece of wood shaped to fit and plastic piece carved to work as the details and the tail.

For the missiles I had to use pieces of plastic and shape them out. It was just a process of deciding what to do. I went with my own idea of missiles since putting everything the full size Rattler had under this little plane would have looked over done to me.

For the painting and stickers, I tried to match it as close as I could. I used Krylon fusion paint for the blue. The labels are printed with a color printer. Since I went with my own ideas of missiles, I went with my own idea of how to paint them. I wanted a little more red in the plane and this was a perfect place to put it.

Over all I'd saw it was a 2 week build if you estimated the actual work time. I've actually been kicking it around for more than 5 years though. Well longer than that if you count when I actually bought it (back in 1998 and it's now 2007). Finally I got it wrapped up and can call it finished. I'd still like to make the turret have clear plastic, but I'm still calling this finished for now ...