Using Heat to Fix Warped Parts

Hello, everybody!
Now for another of my erratically timed and possibly helpful posts...

Today I will be looking at a problem exhibited by Nendoroid Petit Izumi Konata:

She's super cute!!!! ^__^ (I just got her.)

There's one little thing which bugs me, though... her ahoge (the bit of hair on top of her head) looks a bit too floppy.

The picture on the box has it sticking up a bit more, but on my figure it's flopped down so it's touching her head. Have a goosey:

The picture on the box – It's so cute!!!! ^__^ (Yeah, the novelty hasn't worn off yet...)

Hmmm. It kind of lacks impact. (But her face is so cute!!! ^__^ )

This is a really common problem, and sometimes it's much more serious.

Slight warping of parts is really common on new figures, even from the best of manufacturers. A lot of the time, the warping is unnoticeable, but sometimes it messes up the visual impact of the figure (as in this case) or, worse, it causes parts to be incapable of fitting together. I have this problem sometimes, particularly with Figma accessories – they're so small that even a couple of millimetres of bending means they just don't fit together at all! (Oh no!)

Another common issue (this one shows up most with Nendoroid Petit stands in my experience) is when a peg or ball joint is just too big for the hole it's meant to fit into!

Yet another issue is when parts are so stiff that you're afraid they might break when trying to put them together. For example, if a Figma's changeable hands are very hard to swap.

Luckily these problems can all be fixed with one simple method!

(Now for the unnecessary explanation, in case you're interested... if not, skip to the next section...) 

Nendoroids, Figmas and most other figures (and most toys in general) are primarily made from PVC, which is a thermoplastic – that just means it melts when you heat it up. If you heat PVC up to about 120ºC, it turns into a nasty burny liquid which sticks onto your skin and burns the shit out of you. It is this sticky lava of death hot liquid which is injected into moulds to make figures and toys.

I won't be melting Konata's ahoge until it becomes a liquid today (very messy), but I will be heating it.

PVC becomes soft and pliable long before it melts... so I'm going to warm up the plastic and reshape the ahoge so that it looks more like the pic on the box.

This method is great for reshaping slightly bent parts or pieces that don't fit together properly!

You do it like this:

1. Heat up the part a little bit with a WARM hairdryer. Remember, we don't want to melt our figures (unless you want to make them into some kind of halloween-themed diorama) so don't make it super hot. The part should feel nice and warm to touch.

Keep your hand in the air stream from the hairdryer when heating figures.
When you feel like the dryer is making your hand a bit too warm, switch it off.

You'd be amazed how fast little figure parts can heat up. I only need to use the hairdryer for a few seconds.

If you don't have a hairdryer, you can put the part in a basin of warm water for a couple of minutes.

Swapping Figma hands / Inserting a peg which is a little too large for its socket:
In these cases, gently heat the arm/socket but not the hand/peg itself. Do this by the method described above. Then just push the peg into the socket as normal. It should be much easier when the plastic is warm.
HYBRID LOVERS TAKE HEED! This method changes the shape of the socket (permanently in most cases) to fit the peg you are pushing into it. If you are hybridising parts from different figures by this method, be aware that the original peg that the socket was designed for may be loose afterwards.

Now, back to reshaping warped parts...

2. While the plastic is warm, bend it into the position/shape you want.

How hard this is will depend on what the part is. For Konata's super cute ahoge (So cute!!! ^__^ ), I could do it with gentle pressure of my thumb and forefinger, but for bigger parts you may need to use both hands. It depends a lot on the exact plastic used and the size of the part.

In general, I only do this with fairly small parts.

Remember to be careful! Don't force parts! If the plastic won't bend, then it may need to be heated more.

If it's uncomfortably hot to touch and it still won't bend (you shouldn't even make it that hot in the first place), chances are the part is too big or is not made of thermoplastic. In this case, you should stop before you damage your figure!

3. Hold the reshaped part in the new position until the plastic cools down again. If you're feeling impatient, you can run the part under cold water to cool it down faster, but PVC cools down fairly quickly by itself.

Why do my hands always look purple in photographs??? >:@

4. ....... just kidding. There is no step four.

The Ahoge is Fixed!

So cuuuuuuutteeeee!!!!!! ^__^

Just note: Sometimes parts like this bend back a little bit after cooling. If this happens, you may want to repeat the process of heating and reshaping 2–3 times, allowing the plastic to cool in between.

Though of course, sometimes near enough's good enough.

Anyway...

This is a broad method and the principles can be applied to many different problems!

When I bought my Figma Nanoha, the wing things on her feet (sorry, I haven't actually seen the anime, so I don't know the names of any of the things... or if the things even have names), didn't fit on at all. A little heat applied to the attachment parts and a bit of bending, however, and Nanoha flies again!

The background is a calendar of "Scenic New Zealand" which I bought cheap in March one year.
Cheap old calendars make great (and cheap! Did I mention cheap?) backdrops for figure photos.
... by the way, when I took the photo, Nanoha was hanging from a Figma stand which I blu-tacked
to the top of my desk, but I photoshopped it out. You can tell I had fun today, can't you?

Anyway, that brings this post to a close!

Happy Repairing!

Best of luck!

     Cheers!

          Sparkey

Misc. Figma Care – If a Figure Seems Disappointing

To my long un-updated blog,

This will be a landmark post, ladies and gentlemen!

That's right.

I am finally writing an article in which my subject will be A FIGMA! :O

Today I will be sprucing up Figma Araragi Koyomi, because he's a bit unappealing, and has been ever since I bought him.

Here he is:

Okay, so there are a couple of things you might notice right away.

Araragi had three main problems and because of them I had never really liked him, but it's really not his fault and all he ever needed was a bit of TLC.

Since I fixed these minor issues I've started to really like him! He's actually really cool!

So... The Actual Problems:

1. His paintwork is really dull and unappealing.

It looked cool on the prototype, but my figure looks kind of flat (it's a bit hard to tell from the picture, but he was really boring compared to my other Figmas).

2. He has a smear of ugly glue on the front of his shirt. :(

3. There's a slight chance that you've picked up on this already, but his arm keeps falling off.

The Actual Solutions To The Actual Problems:

1. The Dull Paintwork.

Many Figmas seem to suffer from a phenomenon I'm going to call "Factory Dust". It's not very noticeable, but they have it straight out of the box and it really dulls the paint, especially dark colours.

I think it's probably caused by a coating of fine dust or powder, but luckily, it's still easy to get rid of.

Just rinse the figure under running water. No soap required.

That's it. No tricks (apart from keeping the plug in so that small parts don't go down the drain if they accidentally fall off). Plain, cold, running water straight from the tap. 

It works on Nendoroids too, and doubtless many other types of figures which just don't seem as bright as they should. 

If your new figure looks a little dull, try giving it a cold bath!

(Somehow it took me about nine months to think of this...)

Araragi's colouring came up really nicely after cleaning. It's actually really surprising how much better he looks. I didn't realise he had that much "Factory Dust" on him!

    .... I have no idea what the stuff actually is, though... I'm guessing it's something to do with the packaging process, but I will probably never know.

An effective yet impractical method of washing figures.

OK, next!

2. The Ugly Smear of Glue.

First up, a photo:

When I got Araragi, there was more glue on his
shirt than shown here – I only remembered to take
 a picture half way through removing it.

Damn! So ugly!

Like so many of its smudgy conspecifics, this blemish is small but super visible and super annoying! (... it may even be super glue........... heh.)

I don't know how many figures come out of their shiny new boxes with horrible glue smears on them, but I figured I'd write this up in case anybody else is having this kind of problem.

To remove the ugly smear, I used a really big sewing needle to chip away at the glue:

An embroidery needle? It's fairly sharp but it's huge – nearly 10cm (4") long!

Very gently chip away at the glue, taking care not to damage the plastic underneath. In my case the glue was on one of the "flexible material" (AKA rubbery) parts of the Figma which meant it came off quite smoothly.

I say the glue came off smoothly, but there were still a few little bits left over which wouldn't come off with the needle.

Because I am a very obsessional person, I carefully filed these off with a fine grade emery board type file. It's meant for making PVC jewellery and I think it's officially a "polishing" file.

Seriously, some of these files are so fine that you can file the surface off paint without scraping through to whatever's underneath. It's fishsticking amazing!

I highly recommend getting some because they're also great for removing paint smudges (and they're cheap. I got a pack of three for ≈$6.00).

    ~ yeah, you know I didn't really mean "fishsticking".

An equally good alternative to a file would be fine grade polishing paper (like sandpaper but
super fine. Regular sandpaper isn't much good for figures because it leaves noticeable scratches).
On a side note, Araragi's colouring has heaps more impact now that he's clean!

Right. The glue is all fixed! On to the next problem...

3. His arm keeps falling off.

Yes... um... it does keep falling off.

Ever since I got him, it's been fairly loose. It stays on okay most of the time, but when I try to pose him it pops off with very little provocation. The socket in his shoulder just seems a bit too shallow.

To be honest, I haven't managed to fix it yet. I tried a few things and none of them worked, but if I manage to repair this loose joint, I'll write a post about it.

For now, Araragi's arm will have to stay loose, but he still looks WAY better than he did when I got him!

... and his arm isn't too bad anyway...

             ... at least, Mayoi doesn't think so.

^___^

Anyway, I hope this post was at least a little bit helpful, even if I didn't end up fixing Araragi's arm!

As always, best of luck with your figures!

Cheers!

Sparkey

Generic Action Figure Repairs - Two Methods to Fix Most Breaks!

Greetings!

So I've been looking at my stats recently, and I am getting a lot of refers from people looking for info on fixing broken Figmas.
I haven't actually managed to break any of my Figmas yet, but they're not so different in the way they work to a lot of other figures, so here I will be explaining two methods of repairing figures which are applicable to almost all PVC toys (including Figmas!) and can probably fix over 90% of breaks!

OK, first up, I'll explain the difference between a low stress area and a high stress area:

Low stress areas are not put under much pressure. They're usually not moving parts and if they are, then they're only moved minimally.
If you want to fix one of these, read Method No.1.

High stress areas are the things which break most often. They're things like shoulders, knees, necks, elbows, hips, etc, which have quite a lot of stress put on them when the figure is being played with.
If you want to fix one of these, read Method No.2.

Method No.1 – Supa Glue
For low stress repairs.
This is a really good (and DUH obvious) method for visible areas which are not part of a moving joint. It would be great for non-posable scale figures, snapped accessories (like swords or firearms) or other small things.

The example figure I will be repairing is Nendoroid Millhiore F. Biscotti!
Isn't she pretty?

Unfortunately, just after I got her, she fell of her horse... er... bird... er... mount and her ahoge broke where it attaches to her head!

Ahoge means "foolish hair" in Japanese, and, if you didn't know already, that's the silly bit of hair sticking out at the top of her head.

In Nendoroids, large ahoge like this are actually posable! You can rotate it from side to side so it can point in any direction (I love Nendoroids)!
I would not recommend trying to fix anything which will be put under higher stress than this ahoge with glue alone. I'm careful when I'm posing it now, but it's been a few months and it hasn't broken yet.
I didn't take any pictures of it when it was broken because it was before I started this blog, but here's a shot of how it looks now:

You can see the break just above where it attaches to her head.

Anyway, after freaking out and practically crying (she is nothing without her ahoge! NOTHING, I tell you!) I glued it back on with supa glue.

This is very easy.

Just put glue on the broken surface and then push the two parts together until the glue grabs. This usually takes about 30 seconds or so.

If it doesn't grab the first time, it probably means you used too much or too little glue. Don't be discouraged if you have to try this a few times with different amounts of glue... oh yeah, and don't get the glue on your skin because it sticks to people :O

Note: Supa glue only works on really clean fractures, so if the plastic around your break is a little mushy, you might want to try a different adhesive. For info on choosing the right one for the job, have a look at my glue info page.

As you can see, the supa glue worked a treat on Princess Biscotti. Her ahoge is even still posable!

Look at that ahoge go!
(This looks way better when you're listening to fast music)

Another example of where this method is really useful:
Figma Marisa's cup had come unstuck from her hand and needed to be re-glued.

And that's Method No.1.

Method No.2 – Drilling & Pinning

This is my personal favourite method for fixing high stress fractures: this includes action figure joints! YES, THAT MEANS FIGMAS!

The equipment required is not necessarily the kind of stuff that everybody has lying in their desk drawers, but if you're a figure collector, these tools are an invaluable resource and well worth the small amount of money you will pay for them.

All of these things are easily obtainable from hardware stores, hobby shops and online!

This is the method I used to fix RAH Roy Mustang's broken head, which you can read about here!

For now, however, the figure I will be demonstrating on is Pure neemo Kanata Sorami!

Poor Kanata. Her knee joint popped out and so I took off her boots and trousers to fix it, but in doing so, I broke her foot off! *facepalm*

Even though she can still stand with the foot off (I just jam her leg into her boot) I wanted to fix it, because she's just not the same with an amputation.

Here's the busted foot and the ankle it's busted off:

The foot snapped off at the ankle joint.

Pure neemo ankles are extremely similar to Nendoroid and Figma joints!

Something like this is way too small and gets put under way too much strain to be fixable with glue alone, so I'm going to drill a hole in each side of the joint and insert a bit of wire before gluing.

Here is Kanata with the tools I will be using:

Anticlockwise from top: 1.25mm wire, pin vice with drill bits, a suitable adhesive for mending PVC,
wire cutters, pliers, a 1/6 scale designer Bauhaus chair for Kanata to sit in while I work (optional).

To start, drill a small hole into the fractured surface on each of the ankle and the foot. The holes should be roughly 3-4 millimetres deep (for my empirical friends, that's about 1/8") and the drill bit you use should be the same width as your wire, or as close as possible. My closest drill bit is 1.3mm and that works fine with the 1.25mm wire.

Me using a pin vice, in case you were wondering what it does exactly. It's
basically just a little handle for a drill bit.
(My hands aren't usually purple – I have eczema and it's cold.)

The foot, after drilling.

Notice, in the above picture, that there is a centreline in the joint. This is not a mould line. It is the juncture of two separate pieces of plastic. It is the movement of the two pieces against each other which makes the joint functional.
Also notice how the hole I drilled does not go directly through the centreline, but instead to one side of it, through the original broken surface.
If you glue a wire through more than one of these pieces of plastic then the joint will be frozen and will not move anymore!
It's exactly the same deal with Nendoroid and Figma joints.
In fact, here's an old Nendoroid joint which has been taken apart, so you can get an idea of how it works:

The hole in one piece fits over the central peg in the other. This allows
the two pieces to rotate around each other – simple, but very effective!
Many joints are constructed this way.

Here is the ankle after drilling:

If the end of the peg is really mushy after drilling, just neaten it up a bit
with pliers and a craft knife/wire cutters so that the joint will fit
together nicely when gluing... this picture was taken after neatening.

Notice how the hole is slightly to one side in the above photograph. This is to correspond with the fact that the hole in the foot is also off-centre. If you can't get this quite right, it's no big deal, but it's better this way.
... Actually, to be honest, I was hoping to pull the peg out of the leg part before drilling to make it less awkward to get to, but the pliers didn't grip properly and I just ended up mashing the peg :/

Of course, this method is not limited to this kind of joint. You can use it to fix all sorts of things, like this fracture, in the straight shaft attaching RAH Roy Mustang's neck to his body:

This was successfully fixed by drilling and pinning
and Roy has since been posed many times over.

Anyway...
Now that the holes have been drilled, it's time to cut a piece of wire to fit them.
The length of the wire should be equal to the combined depths of the drilled holes.
For example, if I drilled a hole 3mm deep in the ankle and 4mm deep in the foot, then the wire will have to be 7mm long so the whole joint fits together nice and snugly.
It is advisable to cut your wire to the right length before gluing anything. Believe me, it's just easier that way.

Once you've cut your wire, glue it into one part of the drilled joint and let it set for a few hours.

Kanata's foot with the wire glued in. The bent wire in the foreground
was used to spread the glue.

Now that the glue is at least partially set, apply more glue and glue the whole joint together... with glue (I really love glue, don't you?).

This is how the joint looks now that it has been put back
together – it looks a bit messy close up, but from a normal
distance you don't notice it much.
It's certainly better than having no foot!

Figma Chie has come to look at Kanata's foot while the glue is drying.
She makes a pertinent (if dry) observation.

Now wait for the glue to dry. I don't know how long this will take. It depends on the type of glue, the temperature, atmospheric conditions, alignment of the planets, etc...
Make an educated guess based on the instructions on the packet and add a few hours. That's my advice.
...
   ...
      ...
OK, so the glue is now set and... did it work?

Heh. Sorry about the lighting... I think a cloud must have come across
when I shot some of the frames...

Yep.

And that's Method No.2.

Well, that's all from me!
I hope this helps some of you guys with your Figma-related problems!
Cheers! Sparkey.

When Good Glue Goes Bad (Woooooo)

     Glue doesn't last forever.
     Once figures are a couple of years old, it's quite common for glued joints to come undone for no apparent reason.
     Luckily, fixing these un-glued joins is probably the simplest repair job your figures will ever need – in fact, you probably don't need to be told how to do this, but I'll write it down anyway.


     Today, I will be fixing Nendoroid Miku, whose neck joint has broken apart.
     Nendoroid neck joints are made of several pieces. There's the obvious peg and the not-so-obvious cylindrical insert which connects the peg to the head.

The cylindrical insert in Miku's neck joint has come out.

     This is pretty easy to fix. The break is clean and close-fitting (and no plastic has been fractured! Yay!), so all I have to do is apply a little Supa Glue and put it back in.

Apply an even coat of Supa Glue (sparingly) all over the unstuck surface.
There is no need to remove the peg from the cylinder, since it is not in the
way and even makes a useful handle! Don't get any glue on the peg.

Now just push the unstuck joint back together, being careful to line it
up properly first. This hardly even needs a picture...

Fixed!

... No need to look so shocked, Miku. I said this would be simple.

     As you can see, the repair is now complete. All that's left to do is put Miku's head in a safe place while the glue dries. According to the packet, this should be in about 24 hours.

     See you tomorrow, Miku!

Supa Glue works even on really tiny areas. I bought Figma Marisa
secondhand and the cup had become detached from her hand. A tiny
bit of glue was all it needed.

     More about Supa Glue:

     Supa Glue is great stuff. It will form really strong bonds with only the most tiny contact area... it will even stick skin together. Plastic surgeons use it instead of stitches sometimes.

     ... oh, speaking of which, don't spill it on yourself... and if you do spill it on yourself, then whatever you do, don't touch it.

     Instead, run it under water straight away.

     It won't form a bond until two surfaces push together (which is why it can only fix breaks which are close-fitting), so if you don't touch it before you wash it off, it'll be fine.

     However, if you put your finger on a glue spot on your arm, an instantaneous, super-strong bond will form between your arm and your finger...

     Another thing to know about Supa Glue is that it can dissolve paint. Well, some kinds of paint, anyway. If you're working with or near a painted figure part, keep this in mind, as it would be a shame to accidentally ruin your figure's paintwork when doing a simple repair like this. If you must put glue on a painted area, try dabbing it on a non-visible area first to see what effect it has.

     If you want more information on glue, such as choosing the right glue for a particular repair, please see my page on adhesives, here!

     Thanks for reading! I hope this has been of help to you!

     Good luck with your repairs!

     Cheers! Sparkey.

UPDATE on RAH ROY MUSTANG'S BROKEN NECK!

The results of my repairs are... inconclusive, because I am still waiting for the glue to dry.

Stay posted to find out what I did to help Roy and whether it actually worked...

"Get on with it!
My arms are really tired!"

Any questions? Just leave a comment and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!

Hello, Everyone!

Wow! First post in a new blog! I hope I'm popular!

First up, I guess I'll explain what I'm doing here...

As it mentions in my profile, I am an enthusiastic collector of Japanese figures of many shapes and sizes, but, fun as they may be, sadly these little PVC delights are also highly fragile and any figure collector will have had their fair share of breaks. 

Every Nendoroid collector knows this feeling -__-

     Since I'm pretty handy with a tiny screwdriver and I've had a life-long love-affair with adhesives and paint, when I do have a broken figure, you can bet it's not going to be too long before it's fixed and back on my desk, as beautiful as ever. Not everybody has my experience though, and sometimes when your favourite figure is busted, you just want to cry and shove it in the cupboard.

Do not give up on your broken figures! There is almost always a way!

     In this blog I will be trying to help out my fellow collectors by sharing any knowledge of figure repairs and touchups that I have (and maybe writing a couple of reviews while I'm at it – everyone love reviews, right?).

Right now I'm working hard on reattaching Medicom RAH Roy Mustang's broken head (snapped off at the base of the neck).

"Hurry up and fix me! My arms are getting tired!"

                            Stay posted to see how he turns out!

Cheers! Sparkey.