So...with some Christmas money, I picked up RtS Insecticon and Brimstone. Although the Insecticon is fine, Brimstone has a problem...his shoulders won't come together right in vehicle mode(Er...by shoulders, I mean the blue parts, not the actual shoulder.). Some of the pics I've seen has the same gap, but mine seems particularly bad....so I come here asking if anyone knows how to fix this problem. For now I have the blue leg plates folded up to hold it in a bit, but this doesn't seem like a very good long term solution.

 

So...yeah....please help?

 

EDIT: Also...how do you tell a pin join is in danger of breaking? My Insecticon has a spot of lighter green on the right side of the pin,and it feels as if it might be getting close, but I'm not completely certain..

 

Ironic how this took a bit of a 360, though...xD

On brimstone check for any mold flash around the henges and connection points, basically they are tiny littler burrs of plastic that should had been removed at the factory, but for whatever reason they wasn't.

 

You could also put a layer or two of nailpoilish over the - peg near the gascap. If there is no stray flash then this should provide enough friction for the peg to hold the two gas tank shells together.

 

If they nail polish doesn't quite hold then you can CAREFULY brush on a layer or two of superglue using a q-tip. Generally when I use super glue I put a small drop on top of the area, and just use the q-tip to smooth it out. However I cannot warn you enough about super glue, because if your not carefull then it will ruin the paint/finish of anything you might accidentally splash it on, and if you put on to many layers then it could also cause stress marks or even break the socket. Also I highly recommend you let the glue dry at least 15-30 minutes per layer, and wait for each layer to fully dry before applying another layer.

 

 

Anyways, I would like to share a issue I have had with a figure lately. On Generations Thunderwing it appears that plugging his guns "or any other 5mm peg" into the sockets on his wings causes the socket to get stress marks or even split. My conclusion is that this is because for whatever reason hasbro gave the inside of the socket a hexagonal shape instead of a standard circle. So when you use it for its intended purpose it puts large amounts of stress on the socket and damages it, it also appears that this occurs on a very large majority of all thundering figures, hopefully hasbro will fix this on thunderwings repaint.

Thanks! I found a few suspect spots and cut a little off...the hinge on the right side is a bit scratched up now, but it holds together a lot better. I suspect the real spot is on the other side, where it plugs into that T-shape on the legs...there seems to be some flash there, but the angle makes it really hard to do anything there.