Well, I got almost-finished. I dremeled out the windshield (didn't look great but looked decent enough. Was popping the head in place then BROKE off the entire windshield from the top corners back).

 

I swear this is just my luck.

 

I messaged a guy in the junkyard but with no luck. If nobody answers in the next day or so, looks like I'll be buying a rollbar for just the windshield.

How do you go about taking out the pins? I tried and gave up, although I didn't really exhaust my efforts, I just got tired of trying.

 

I was going to shoot some decent pictures but Ratchet just went to hell suddenly. It was SO close, I was popping the head in place and the wildshield just broke off. The KOs not as good of quality as I thought.

 

*sigh*

Sorry to hear about your troubles Mandingo, that sucks.

 

Anyway, both of mine went real smooth actually. Here's some pics:

 

 

 

 

 

I added my reprolabel Jazz Alternator in there too, still one of the best upgrade sets out there IMO.

Eh, s*** happens. It's my first try at any customs, so I guess it comes with the territory.

 

Glue's drying, I guess I'll let it run like it is until I can get a replacement windshield. It's not horrible, I'm just a perfectionist and it bugs me that it's not perfect.

 

Nice job on the heads, Iron Maniac. Nice simple graphics, I'm going for something with a little more graphics, but I can always take them off. Nice to see everyone's different Ratchets. Valkfan's heads are fantastic!

 

Painting's tricky, especially if you haven't done it in about 10 years. I either got good faces or good helmets, but one or the other ended up messing up slightly. My Ironhide's been done, My Motormaster is done, but I want to get some custom labels from Reprolabels. I emailed them last week asking that if I designed MM's label sheet, if they'd print it for me. No reply yet. Has anyone had them make custom graphics before?

 

Also, my Wildrider is done too. (simple head swap for Battle Ravage from a KO Swerve head, works well IMO)

 

Hope to have pictures as soon as Ratchet quits being a little Starscream on me.

Here's a couple more shots of Ironhide:

 

 

 

I used the "Silly Putty" metod on both heads and it went real smooth.

How do you go about taking out the pins? I tried and gave up, although I didn't really exhaust my efforts, I just got tired of trying.

 

Hey MR, sorry to hear about your bad luck. The one thing I really like about taking apart the bootlegs is that both ends of all the metal pins are SMOOTH. This makes it much easier to remove them for customizing.

 

My friend made the small tool pictured below for easily removing pins from my Alternators. One small metal pin driven into the rubber end of a door stop with a round piece of leather attached to the other end by a small screw. Now I can push the pins through with force from the palm of my hand. You wouldn't believe how easy this tool allows you to remove pins. Thanks again PJB!

Haha. Necessity is the mother of all inventions. Thanks, Valkfan.

Finished. Well, almost. I'm waiting on Ratchet to dry 100% before I transform him into a Jeep. I have to watch out with his crest on his head, it takes an extra twist and turn than Hound's head to fit it into the hood.

 

 

Motormaster: Man, Hasbro, why didn't you do this instead of Nemesis Prime? Note Valkfan's custom Sideswipe head. It works really well as a repaint, because it's not really like the other Sideswipe's head, so you don't have duplicates. 1 more Stunticon to go (Breakdown).

Motormaster + Wildrider: I am talking with someone from Reprolabels about designing custom decals for both of these simple headswaps. I used a repro Swerve head from Alyosha. It works well as Wildrider (color scheme is spot-on), and it gets rid of that horrid cat head, AND now I get to have Swerve's head without the mediocre character/atrocious paint scheme.

 

Ironhide #1

Ironhide #2

 

Ironhide + Ratchet: Hanging out with Hot Rod, my "newest" Alternator Autobots.

 

Ratchet #1

Ratchet #2

Ratchet #3

Ratchet backside: Here you see the hardtop.

 

Technically, he can transform with a hardtop attached, similar to Skids. Except it actually fits better upside down, so I left it as a removable hardtop that fits on top of the back-kibble and actually hides it. It looks pretty good in vehicle form. I'll post those tomorrow, I have some drying left and I think I may want to squeeze in a slight graphic on the sides below the doors. Thanks again Valkfan for the fantastic head sculpts. They look really great on the shelf, the only thing giving away that they're not real is my amateur paint job.

Ratchet Jeep with hardtop

Ratchet Jeep (different angle)

Ratchet Jeep with hardtop removed

Ratchet Jeep front

Ratchet Jeep rear

 

You can see that the windshield has a few rough edges, although I think I patched it fairly decently for what I had to do to fix it. Although it ended up with a few rough edges and a blurry streak, it's still better than a semi-melted windshield. (don't get any paint thinner on the KO windshields, btw—the clear plastic's not as strong as the real deal.)

 

I actually tried several more complex/newer graphics, but the simpler I kept Ratchet's graphics, the more he looked like... Ratchet. I think the hardtop turned out pretty decent. I'm torn between Valkfan's and Iron Maniac's clean faces and mine. Theirs looks straight out of the box like a real figure, but I also like the look with the darker wash around the faces so that it makes the helmets look deeper. Kudos to you guys on the paintjob, it is a fantastic and clean and as good as anything Hasbro/Takara could produce. I'm just bummed that mine didn't go on as smoothly, although it didn't turn out as bad as I feared it could happen.

 

I have a 8.5x11 sheet of vector graphics (PDF or .AI format) if anyone wants them, with miscellaneous red stripes/markings/Jeep logos/Rubicon/Autobot symbols.

I think I'm going to try the hardtop look too. Looks good!

I think I'm going to try the hardtop look too. Looks good!

 

Thanks, Iron Maniac!

 

I still can't get over your paintjob quality. Looks factory! There's something nice about the simple and clean white Jeep, but I think the hardtop looks good too. It helps to differentiate from the other 2 Jeeps enough so it doesn't just look like a repaint. I like both so much though, it's hard to decide.