OER Zaber - RESTORED!

[Yurei Avalon]

Recently I purchased a built, nearly complete OER Zaber off of ebay. To refresh those who are unfamiliar with vintages memories, Zaber is from the old European line and is a black colored saber tiger with blue caps and silver-ish accents.

Since I found it so cheap I went against my normal rule of buying built zoids and got him, he's missing the back clip that holds on his guns as well as the two hoses on the battery compartment. A contact someone pointed me towards is selling me a replacement original OER zaber back clip, but sadly lacks the original hoses. Working on finding the pieces from another saber tiger variant or shield liger variant and then painting as needed....

At any rate, he has all the usual attractiveness of saber tiger.. and so much more.

The Good:
-He has a very attractive, unique color scheme.
-He comes with a chrome gold pilot, hurrah!
-He has the typical old line smoky black cockpit canopy.
-He has beautiful sculpt and detail, from Back When the Mould Was Young
-He's got that old slip style battery cover

The Bad:
-He's old, and thus hard to find
-He's nearly impossible to find MIB
-He is usually fairly expensive
-He's usually only found being sold in the UK

The Just Plain Odd:
-He's very 'loose' feeling, particularly the legs and on/off switch. Not really fall apart on oyu loose, just... easier to post loose. Maybe this was because he was turned onand walked a lot or something... dunno.
-Marked on the bottom jaw is the word "SINGAPORE"
-Stamped on the battery compartment is copyright tomy singapore as well



This zoid is a bit of a restoration project not only because he's missing some cosmetic parts, but also because the previous owner totally did not clip ANY flash whatsoever x.x so I have to take him apart and trim. I'm also going to give him a gental cleaning. Surprisingly, the zoid wasn't very dusty. He was however a little grungy in a spot or two. Finally, once cleaned and trimmed he'll get an Andy treatment polish. His stickers also need minor trimming where there's a little peeling.

Once the "restoration" is complete you can expect new pictures


Other things to note are the fact that he has some moulding changes compred to say, my TDP great saber. I haven't looked at my holotech kitty or NJR saber closely yet, but i'll post further comentary on all the differences I see. At a quick glance i've noted some head details/body changes between the different releases.

And now, for the pics. Apologizes for them being so dark

[Andy F²]

Also note that *all* of his teeth are pointy, so none of the crappy snipping or rounding-of-tips. Yum yum.

[rantinan]

ya overbid me by a single pound on that one. ah well at least he's off to a good home.
I recomend diging up an nar zabre for hte hoses n clips, it;s what i was gonna use.

[Yurei Avalon]

technically, I had a fair amount more put down for my max bid, but no one else bid to jack the price up higher...

and I'd like to use original parts if possible. The hoses though.. I don't have any spare ones And I don't have a NAR lemony kitty either. I need one and a cloudy golden to complete my tiger collection.

[stormhawk]

Yurei, this Zaber fella appeared in SG sometime ago when I was much younger. Not just confined to the UK.

That said, I doubt you can find one in MIB condition like you suspect. If you're looking to restore the fella just use the regular Saber Tiger. Parts should be the same. I bet they're pretty cheap to get a hold of, going by el'kapitan Adamassc's TRU thread in Acquisitions.

Folks with the Great Sabre should have a spare clip since its not used when the CP-02 is fitted on.

[Yurei Avalon]

hrm. I have great saber but, the clip IS used. Although my shield liger variants should have them and shouldn't be using them...

and that makes sense then, given how he says "Singapore" on him. I have seen 1 MIB one on ebay and it sold for... well, more than I had to spend at the time.

The only saber tigers released by hasbro in the US were the bright yellow one and the holo one, NEITHER of which were sold in my area to my knowledge, ever. NH got a terrible zoids selection, mostly newer wave stuff. And their colors of the foremention needed parts won't match zaber too well anyway.

[stormhawk]

Oops, my bad. I haven't taken out my GS for a long time. Indeed the clip is used.

Anyway, the regular Saber Tiger has a black clip I think. There's plenty of them where I'm from.

[rantinan]

*grins* thens the breaks for me yueri. Like i said a good home:) It;s a dang shame oyu have no lemony zabre... i actuaoly like the tigers team so much i have 2 of em. And i needantoher, poor oamri not having a zoid.

[adamassc]

I wish they had a Zaber Fang, cause that's one I'm lacking. I got holo kitty Zaber Fang and a Zaber Tiger, but no bleedy eyes yellow Zaber Fang.

Ah well, that's a nice kitty you got there, Lady Avalon. Best wishes restoring him.

[Yurei Avalon]

that's alright, next week prob i'm going to bleed my eyes out with a SHINY saber kitty xD hurrah for zoids 2!

and yar. i'll get a lemony kitty one of these days when I see one cheap. The golden one is going to be the problem ><

[Andy F²]

stormhawk said:

Yurei, this Zaber fella appeared in SG sometime ago when I was much younger. Not just confined to the UK.

You sure it wasn't the OJR version or the Zoids 2 version you saw? It shouldn't have been available in SG unless it was an import or something.

[stormhawk]

Andy, stuff produced IN Singapore do appear IN Singapore every now and then..

That said, it wouldn't make sense to import something in when its made locally. I am sure its the OER Zaber that I saw.

[zabrezed]

Congrats on your purchase, OER Zabre sure is a thing of beauty, definitely my most prized possession anyhow. Is the motor in good working condition on your model. I was stupid enough leave a battery in mine for far to long and it leaked, so the poor guy is stationary

[Yurei Avalon]

yes, the motor still works strongly as advertised, however when you turn him on he does odd jerky motions and pops caps off- most likely because there's flash in the way. I haven't had time to trimhim yet. When my replacement parts get in I will.

As an update, a gentleman in the UK is sending me an original zaber replacement back clip, and 2 claw hoses which i'll paint to match.

[Yurei Avalon]

As promised, new pics of my restored kitty ^^

Through a contact Andy was nice enough to point me to, I recieved an original OER zaber replacement back clip, minus the little hose that attaches to it. The same gentleman also sent me two claw stomach hoses. Finally, to restore the small hose I was missing on the back clip, I filled it in with a spare one form shieldy DCS-J.

All 3 hoses were primed and painted silver, so while they don't perfectly match they're durn close enough. And they look good.

Zaber was also taken completely apart, cleaned and all the flash was trimmed. I gave Andy's pledge polish a try, but it didn't really do much. Stickers were trimmed a tad, and the caps had to be worked on and "oiled" back up since they ahd dried out and hardened some and thusly all of zaber's joints were lose and would fall off.

And now, the after pictures!














and now, he's a happy Zaber... which is good, because I have much evilness plans for him... mawahaha!