Gang-molding

From Transformers Wiki

Three sets of the same gang-molded toys. The smoky-clear parts in the bottom row are all lavender in the middle row, and all black in the top row. See the pattern of consistent plastic-color changes from row to row across all the toys in each set? This is gang-molding in action. Take note that the rightmost column uses paint applications to drastically change the car panel colors, but the plastic below still conforms to the pattern. (Not shown: The eighty-six other versions of these molds.)

Gang-molding is the practice of using the same plastic mold to simultaneously manufacture different parts for different toys. This is typically a cost-saving feature in manufacturing; steel molds are very expensive, so if you can, for example, make four individually-sold toys out of three toys' worth of steel molds, that's a huge savings.

Multiple large Transformers toys are not typically gang-molded; the procedure is normally used either for a single large toy and a smaller one that is associated with it, such as a Headmaster and its head component or a Bulk and its partner Mini-Con, or for several smaller toys, such as a Mini-Con team. Sometimes gang-molded toys are sold together, as in these cases, but there have been instances of toys that were sold separately having parts from the same molds, such as the Axelerators Skram and Windbreaker, or either set of Go-Bots molds.

In most cases, producing one of several toys that are gang-molded together will automatically result in some or all of the parts for the other toys being produced as well. This is why all the toys in certain types of groups tend to get redecoed at about the same time — making a toy from Armada Firebot's mold, such as Anti-Blaze, will also create similarly colored versions of Makeshift and Prowl (in Anti-Blaze's case, Scythe and Checkpoint respectively).

Not all toys that are packaged together are gang-molded. The three members of the Clear Skies Mini-Con Team, for example, are molded independently of each other.

In some rare instances, when Hasbro and Takara plan a retool of a toy even before starting production of the original version, they may also cast the original parts and the new parts from the same mold. The unused parts will then be dumped or recycled. One of the best known examples of this procedure is Cybertron Scrapmetal, whose head was produced on the same sprue as the Coby Sen'yō Rumble head, even though the latter was originally only used by Takara.

1 Notable examples of gang-molding
2 Notes
3 See also
4 References

Notable examples of gang-molding

Many parts on the Giant Planet Mini-Con Team are gang-molded; note how they all have pieces cast in a shade of purple plastic that's shared between them.

The Generation 1 Headmasters and their Nebulan partners
The Generation 1 Double Targetmasters' Nebulan partners/guns (gang-molded in groups of three, one from each toy per faction)
The Generation 1 Pretender Beasts' inner robots (gang-molded in pairs, per faction)
The Generation 1 Small Pretender figures' inner robots (gang-molded in groups of three, per faction)
The Generation 1 Pretender Monsters' inner robots (gang-molded across the whole group of six)
The Generation 1 Micromaster patrols (gang-molded in pairs, two sets per patrol of four)
Each of the Generation 1 Micromaster Transports (Micromaster figures and their respective trailers)
The Generation 1 Micromaster Combiner Squads (gang-molded in groups of six, the whole squad)
All the Generation 1 Action Master figures with the exception of Optimus Prime (gang-molded in pairs, including those that came with vehicles) and the single pack Action Masters' weapons and accessories/partners (gang-molded in groups of six, including the six European market exclusives)
The Axelerators, aka the Generation 2 Cars or "Small Autobot Cars", and the Skyscorchers, aka the Generation 2 "Jets" or "Small Decepticon Jets" (gang-molded in pairs)
The Rotorbots, aka the Generation 2 Rotor Force (gang-molded in pairs)
The original six Generation 2 Go-Bots (gang-molded across the whole group of six), which later became the Robots in Disguise Spychangers
The originally unreleased second batch of Generation 2 Go-Bots (gang-molded across the whole group of six. Some of these molds were damaged, meaning that two of the toys were unusable when the other four were eventually released under Robots in Disguise)
The Machine Wars Basics (gang-molded across the whole group of four molds)
The Armada, Energon, and Cybertron Mini-Con teams (gang-molded in groups of three, the whole team)
The Armada Bulks and their respective Mini-Con partners
The Power Core Combiners Commanders and their Mini-Con partners

Notes

The whole gang-molded nature of the Generation 2 Go-Bots makes it entirely possible that the BotCon 1995 exclusive Nightracer figure originated from the same production run as the Japanese versions of Go-Bot Optimus Prime, Megatron and Soundwave. This would explain why Nightracer sports parts in a lime-ish yellow plastic rather than the blue color her creator Raksha had requested^[1]: The "godawful yellow" is also the color of Soundwave's car shell.
Likewise, the gang-molding process was also the cause for the clear-parts and solid-parts variants of Generation 2 Go-Bots Gearhead and Motormouth: The clear plastic parts corresponded with the clear car shells of their wave-mates Firecracker and Blowout, whereas the solid plastic parts corresponded with the car shells of Go-Bot Optimus Prime and Megatron (redecos of Firecracker and Blowout, respectively).