Created and submitted by Austin Crompton, NZ

left: gold Mego glider, middle: 'vintage style' Palisades green Glider, right: fully stripped Palisades Glider.

"All (good) things come in threes and micronauts Space Gliders are no exception. I had finally purchased mint vintage gold and blue versions but needed green to complete the winged trio. I eyed my newly acquired but less than perfectly painted green Palisades series 1 Space Glider and decided to give him a vintage style overhaul. The following describes this miraculous transformation using a blue version. Enjoy the Space Glider Strip."

  

the basic Palisades blue Glider


equipment required

"This is not exhaustive but I used the following: Paint stripper, old toothbrush, old small brush, old tiny brush (e.g. #2), metal polish, protective goggles."

 

"Remove the screw from the gliders back and dismantle arms from tube and legs from pelvis. Following the manufacturers instructions apply paint stripper to the handless arms. Clean up the arms until free of paint."


left: polished arm, middle: unpolished arm, right: unstripped arm

 
Polish the arms with metal polish and soft cloth. ''The removal of just the thigh paint is all that is required for the vintage look; this however requires more care than for the arms."
  
 
"The thigh strip has to be done in three stages. a) bend knee backwards as far as it will go, apply stripper with tiny brush to the inside of the thigh side of the knee area, ensure that you don't touch the lower leg paint with stripper. Wash and clean the stripped area. b) Straighten the leg and apply stripper to the back of the knee joint, this area should overlap with the first area stripped thus fully stripping the paint from the inside of the knee area (this gives a nice clean finished look). Clean up this area once paint loose. c) Now the knee area is clean apply stripper to the rest of the thigh, clean all thigh paint off, wash and polish."



"Reassemble the glider and buff up the arms and legs for a final time. Give our mighty hero his helmet, dashwing and blaster and he's all ready for action unless...you are still stuck in 1978 and want to give him a Mego helmet and hands. If you want to go 'all the way' you can strip some more and create the truly cosmic silver Space Glider!!"

Many thanks to Austin for this tutorial on how to do a strip job on your favorite die-cast Micronaut, and for showing off a very cool custom job!