As i was answering a thread on rebelscum someone pointed out that his x-wing had a rubber band in it when he broke it appart to repair it. Another person said the same thing his own x-wings.

Here was my reply to that thread.

"I did not find any rubber band in my x-wing when i broke it appart, Mine came with its original beaten up ANH box so i know it is an ANH release. But the rubber band hypothesis is interesting, It may have been a fix to fix the x-wings for the other subsequent movie releases tough....perhaps from ESB and ROTJ....that would be a logical explanation to it and it would be even nicer if that was the case because you could actually date loose x-wings then. Get a thru ANH x-wing over a different. That is if the molds are decals were exactly the same all thru the original trilogy. That i am not sure of..

food for tought....and research"


Now the question is, was it a factory occurence or just some trick to fix the locking mechanism that got passed along some friends over the years? would anyone know anything of this surprising easter egg if this could be categorized as such.

Of the five X-wings I've repaired none have had internal rubber bands & all wing mechanisms work.

The 2 different locking mechanisms:

from http://forum.rebelscum.com/t1047626/
which also mentions a rubber band

Interesting. I've never heard of the rubber band thing. I'm positive my X-Wing doesn't have a rubber band mechanism.

This is very strange indeed. I have cracked open several X-Wing fighters over the last couple years and not once have I ever seen any sort of rubber band mechanism.

Haven't had the opportunity to open up on of those battery driven ones, but if it helps some, none of the ones I have opened have had rubber bands inside.

Is the rubber band just holding the batteries in place or does it have a function?

Rawlin wrote:

Is the rubber band just holding the batteries in place or does it have a function?

I'm picturing it looped over the R2 head & onto the blue button- this would provide extra locking tension ?

aussiejames wrote:

Rawlin wrote:

Is the rubber band just holding the batteries in place or does it have a function?

I'm picturing it looped over the R2 head & onto the blue button- this would provide extra locking tension ?

Could be that. Someone who have opened one will have to confirm thing with old rubber is that it usually don't last long.

I read this thread and the one on RS with interest. I've seen the insides of the non-electronic Palitoys a few times but never the Kenner electronics.

So today I opened up my Kenner 1st issue LP X-Wing Fighter and look what I found....








Was surprised to see the elastic band! I didn't completely remove the top and bottom shell as I didn't want to put any undue stress on the elastic, plus this X-Wing light & sound still works so I didn't want to risk damaging that either. But you can clearly see from both sides a regular-looking tan colour elastic band.
The elastic looks in pretty good shape despite a couple of nicks to its edges. It also has some tiny flecks of black paint on it (from Luke's chair probably).
I bought the Fighter from eBayUS two years ago complete with box, inserts, instructions.

aussiejames wrote:

Rawlin wrote:

Is the rubber band just holding the batteries in place or does it have a function?

I'm picturing it looped over the R2 head & onto the blue button- this would provide extra locking tension ?

Yes! The one end loops over R2's head and onto the base of the blue button... the other end loops under Luke's chair.





+ here's the pics of the fighter coo and original box coo

Ah Ah, so they do exists.

The black stuff on the rubber band would be the glue used to glue the black seat to the fuselage.


Now, that being said, It would seem that i was somewhat wrong in some of my assumptions since you have provided pictures that this would be an ANH vehicle. But by the same token, we can assume that we "could" date these rubber band editions as later releases. Wherein Kenner tried to fix the problem with the locking mechanism of the x-wing... it would be the only logical explanation for this.....


Maybe this stamp could identify what version is what.



maybe the rubber band version have a different ink stamp on them...


my repair thread for those interested.


X wing repair thread


Cheers!

Artoo_Detour wrote:

I read this thread and the one on RS with interest. I've seen the insides of the non-electronic Palitoys a few times but never the Kenner electronics.

So today I opened up my Kenner 1st issue LP X-Wing Fighter and look what I found....








Was surprised to see the elastic band! I didn't completely remove the top and bottom shell as I didn't want to put any undue stress on the elastic, plus this X-Wing light & sound still works so I didn't want to risk damaging that either. But you can clearly see from both sides a regular-looking tan colour elastic band.
The elastic looks in pretty good shape despite a couple of nicks to its edges. It also has some tiny flecks of black paint on it (from Luke's chair probably).
I bought the Fighter from eBayUS two years ago complete with box, inserts, instructions.

aussiejames wrote:

Rawlin wrote:

Is the rubber band just holding the batteries in place or does it have a function?

I'm picturing it looped over the R2 head & onto the blue button- this would provide extra locking tension ?

Yes! The one end loops over R2's head and onto the base of the blue button... the other end loops under Luke's chair.





+ here's the pics of the fighter coo and original box coo

R2, silly question but is the box fully American USA issued ?

Great info! Great thread, here is mine over at RS: http://forum.rebelscum.com/t1087740/

Yes Mojo, i kinda stole the thunder out of this story. Really all the credit goes to you. It seemed like an insignificant detail at the time but it got my interest real big and that is why i posted this here because we have people here that have seen most of everything and i thought people could explain this pretty quickly.

I guess most everyone has been caught by surprise with this since this seem to be a somewhat of a new discovery and rare. No one has any real solid info on this so far so it will be fun to see how this turns out. One thing for sure is that if this was indeed factory made, i can see these go in value because of their rarity.

Now if we could find a way to identify these "special" x-wing without having to break them appart, if they are special indeed it would be super fun.

Good photos from every angles and good description might help shed some light on this and maybe we can make out if this is common to a very specific release of the x-wing or maybe a random event?

it is fun to discover this after all this time. So spread this news to other venues, we may be able to get an answer sooner than later.


cheers!

oh no way, no credit to me at all. I'm a total noob. I was following YOUR thread on my build. But now having looked at both types. I prefer the rubber band. The spring is .... too uneasy.

I suppose we need to give names to each type.

Rubber band with spring beneath the blue button

- or -

Blue button in a plastic housing with the spring on it's side

Wish we could ask a kenner employee

budspencer wrote:

R2, silly question but is the box fully American USA issued ?

definitely, I checked all the box details and it's the regular full USA 1st release with the LP logo

Mine is the same.

Does anyone know someone at Kenner that could explain this?