I guess it would be safe to say that you are "a bit" of a Star Wars fan then ehh? Thanks for the compliment! And yes... I like STAR WARS... but only a little bit. I'm mean... It's alright... It's not like I have an obsesion or anything...
Who keeps giggling like that???!!! Gosh-darn it!!! My life is NOT ruled by STAR WARS!!! How many times must I say the same thing?!!
Well, I wanted to buy some shares, but they wouldn't allow me to. Something about having a company policy against selling shares to people with mental illness / psychosis or some dumb crap like that...
Thanks Will ! Yes, I love that Sandcrawler too, and it is definitely one of the showpieces of my collection.
Basically, I'm a really big fan of vehicles that are correctly-scaled for the action figures they are intended for.
Since 1997, the kind folks at Hasbro have gradually been accommodating me by re-designing STAR WARS fighter ships from the vintage Kenner line (that were way out of scale) into much larger toys (bigger X-Wing Fighter, Tie Fighter with Large Wings, etc)
Due to their enormous size, some vehicles (Millennium Falcon, Jawa Sandcrawler, Jabba's Sailbarge etc.) were just IMPOSSIBLE to make in a correct scale for 3-3/4 inch figures, and still have them be viable toys that could be sold in stores for a reasonable price.
So in the case of the Falcon and Sandcrawler, we were stuck with the tiny out-of-scale toy molds from the vintage 1970s.
Hasbro produced a fully-detailed plastic 6-foot long Millennium Falcon as a store display for TRU stores during the STAR WARS Trilogy Special Edition. This ship was basically a correctly-scaled Millenium Falcon if sized for 3-3/4 inch scale figures. I had to have it.
I won't bore you with the details, but eventually, I acquired a mint, perfect specimen for my collection. I made a box for it (to protect it from damage), and it is displayed in my second floor / attic space with Han And Chewie standing guard next to it.
Next, I set my sights on a correctly-scaled Jawa Sandcrawler. I considered this do-able as a BIG custom-scratch-built vehicle since there was only ONE Sandcrawler seen in A NEW HOPE, and I would not need a fleet of them.
I reached out to a very talented model-builder friend of mine living in South America, and commissioned the construction of this Jawa machine.
He pointed me in the direction of a giant Sandcrawler that he had already built that was being sold by the current owner (a friend of his).
We closed the deal, and five months later The Sandcrawler arrived at my home in a wooden crate large enough to fit a couch in.
The Sandcrawler is heavy (about 25-30 lbs.). It is build out of wood, styrene plastic, fiberglass, and magnetic studs that keep the compartment panels sealed.
There are three compartments that open up to reveal an interior "play environment: The Front Loading Ramp opens up into an "ore-processing station with crane winch and working lights. The top panel lifts off to reveal the Main Control Room with panoramic windows. This space holds about 16 - 18 Jawas. Lastly, the big panel on the SIDE of the Sandcrawler is removable, revealing the two-level Droid Storage Area with working lights.
The custom Jawa Sandcrawler measures 2-1/2 feet in height and 5 feet 2 inches in length. It currently sits atop a six-foot long folding banquet table with several action figures posed around it (depicting the "droid purchase" scene from A NEW HOPE)
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