Original Mego Factory Head Molds Found

[Mikey]

Oh ok, so what looks to be very worn on the outside doesn't matter.

Got it

[MegoSteve]

Yeah, the insides are sharp and relatively clean. Unfortunately, they're really tough to photograph, too.

[starsky]

very cool!!! thanks for sharing these finds!

[Earth 2 Chris]

That is insanely awesome. And considering how hard to find the Elastics are...it's a rarity of a rare item!

Chris

[toys2cool]

awesome!! Great find

[cjefferys]

Those are really cool. Items like this for Mego toys don't show up very often, so these are great to see.

[Wee67]

Great find. I'm as equally interested in hearing their backstory as I am in the find themselves. This place rocks!

[pmwasson]

Its interesting that the details show up on the outside. Anybody know the process that was used to make them?

[vulcan2074]

Wow! Thats a great find.
Sammy

[drmego]

What we are seeing is the outside of the mould - the inside is what's important - that is a negative image
of the actual head.

The moulds are placed in a frame. Liquid PVC is squirted into the hole and it is put in a rotational casting
machine that slowly spins the PVC around so that it covers the interior of the mould. After a few minutes,
the liquid solidifies and the operator pulls the frame out of the machine and drops it into water to cool it
down enough to handle. He then preps the next frame and gets it into the machine.

While that is rotating, he pulls the previous frame out of the water, and using a pair of long handle tongs,
pulls the rotocast heads out of the mould while they are still warm. If he waits until the head cools down,
he'll have a hard time pulling it out of the mould.

The newly made heads are collected in a plastic bin, and the operator re-fills the moulds with liquid PVC,
just in time to pull the other frame out of the machine and drop that into the water.

I watched a 20something year old guy, naked to the waist, working the machine, and sweating profusely.
The factory has no air conditioning and smells of diesel exhaust.

[darkmonkeygod]

Artifacts from the process are true treasures for me. I love seeing this stuff, and in idle moments of wondering about toys, find myself longing to know where these pieces have ended up. Thanks for revealing 'em!

[Meule]

Wow, just wow. Never expected to see anything like this... EVER

[babycyclops]

Those are extremely cool items to see. Great that they have been re-discovered.

[palitoy]

All props go to Steve for this incredible, happy vintage find. Although it is disheartening that this gets less comments than some non-Mego related threads, it's a pretty big deal IMO.

It's crazy to hold a piece of Mego history like this, the Spider-Man mold has red plastic residue on it.

[Tothiro]

I already live in Florida... So what I'm hearing here is that I just need to figure out how to heat up PVC in my garage and not suffer the horrible health effects of that, and I have my own hot and sweaty Mego factory!!!

@palitoy - this is super cool, but my own head would pop off if one of the 8" line head molds were found - put that puppy to work!