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I didn't own the vintage Droid Factory Playset as a child and up until very recently I was only really familiar with it from photos. However, when four job lots of parts for the Droid Factory (including the base and crane) appeared on eBay at the same time I knew I was in with a chance of getting a fairly complete set plus spares. As it turns I managed to get my hands on all four job lots without much competition and now I have plenty of spares to re-sell.

Find Kenner Droid Factory on eBay

The Kenner Droid Factory Playset did not feature in any of the movies and has no real basis in canon but it does feel right as a base for the Jawas whose main role within A New Hope is to trade in droids and their parts. The playset itself was perhaps aimed for a slightly younger audience than other early releases of the Kenner ships and vehicles. It's many parts are very tactile and are meant to challenge inventiveness and curiousity as there seem to be endless variations of all the different droids that can be made. In some ways, it's pretty much the Kenner version of Meccano.

As the first playset which Kenner released its also interesting that the focus of the Droid Factory playset is upon construction and not destruction and there are no weapons, blasters or canons included.

The main peices I'm missing now are one of the wheels, one of the arms and the tubing as well as most of the pins. And, I don't have the complete Droid Factory R2-D2.

My Droid Factory R2-D2 has his dome and his barrel body but I don't as yet have any of the legs. Two spare legs for a regular Kenner R2-D2 did turn up with one of the Droid Factory job lots and I customised these by clipping off the ends of the pins used to attach them to the body and then attaching them using double-sided sticky pads. Thus my Droid Factory R2-D2 does stand up but only precariously unless I use some of the other legs which come with the playset.

I am really pleased to have as much of the Droid Factory R2-D2 as I do since he's really hard to get hold of and I now have the 1978 R2-D2 the R2-D2 with sensorscope and the R2-D2 with Pop-Up Lightsaber as well as this Droid Factory astromech droid. Just the Droids Series R2-D2 figure to go.

Palitoy Droid Factory Playset

The Palitoy Droid Factory playset really was the poor cousin to its Kenner counterpart and used much cheaper plastic which seems to have either come in black or a yellow colour and this version of the Droid Factory didn't have any crane, but instead some sort of conveyor belt. Not many of these seem to have survived these days probably because of the flimsiness of the base.

Amongst my Droid Factory parts I do also have one curious variation. I have a couple of the hook parts for the crane which come in the regular hard black plastic. However, I also have a hook peice which, whilst being of exactly the same dimensions and obviously from the same mould, is made out of quite bendy rubber. I have no idea at present of the provenance of this variation.

With the parts that I have I can make a few of the droids which came with the blueprints that Kenner included with the Droid Factory playset.

I can make a full Quad-Pod Droid.

I can also make a full Tracto Droid

For the Mechano Droid I'm just missing the lever.

I can't yet make a full Rollarc droid as I'm missing one wheel and don't have quite enough pins for the wheels.

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All Star Wars action figures, vehicles, collectibles and Star Wars toys shown on this website are the 3.75 inch scale and from my own private Star Wars collection unless otherwise stated. Where possible original vintage accessories have been used but in some instances I have placed Kenner Star Wars figures with either reproduction weapons and accessories or for Hasbro figures close approximations have been used. This is mostly the case for modern Star Wars lightsabers where the correct item can be very difficult to identify on some ocassions. Vintage Star Wars action figures are shown with their original weapon or accessory when I have them. When a vintage Kenner action figure is shown with an accessory which is not original I have tried to point this out where possible.

All of the Star Wars action figures shown were purchased second hand, usually incomplete, and in bulk. They have been reunited with their original weapons and accessories where we could get hold of them.

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