Removing Drossel's Ball Joint
Tue 2009/09/22 13:53 JST
Going straight to the point...
---> How do you remove broken ball joints?! O____O
Drossel's defective arm joint have finally broken off. No matter how careful I was, well, it just had to snap off. XD
Broken ball joint?! Nyaa~!!
That what happens when you play with Drossel in the bath.
In the bath? O___O
Who does that?
Don't ask when you deep inside don't want to know the answer ^^;
I don't think (even as a kid) that I ever took anything unsuitable for water into the bathtub. I did build lego ships to see if they would float, but that's different. It wouldn't break them in any way even if it failed.
heh, good luck with this one since the shoulder ball joint is pretty hard to take out. you can probably try breaking it into pieces with a pin or some other thin, sharp metal tools.
Can't afford to deal so much damage on Drossel's physique.
If you need a replacement joint on her shoulder, I assume you'd need a white one and this is the only one I could think of that's sold seperately.
http://www.hlj.com/product/YLSPPC-T13
You'd probably have to drill into her arm/shoulder to remove the old broken joint parts and assemble a new one to replace it in their respectable hole.
Are these joints the same as Figma's in size and shape?
maybe you take apart the torso from the chest and you poke it out some how...
drill it out if you have a small drill bit and steady hands. basically drill in and yank it out. did hat for my revoltech eva 00 when the leg snapped from the torso. peg broke off from the joint
Minimise the damage first by removing all excess parts like removing her upper torso from her abdomen ball joint and the other hand, as well as her head...
I remember someone suggested heating a needle then melt a point into the broken ball... Then insert a screw with large hat so you can unplug the whole thing from the torso with ease...
all these problems with drosell made me rethink about getting one. :-(
I understand you. I just did a quick search and found non-DC members asking online what to do with broken joins and pictures of their one armed Drossels. I wonder how many of them, which can survive say 10 years of photo sessions and other stuff it should be able to handle.
NOOOO! YOU SHOULD GET HER! SHE'S THE BEST FIGMA OUT THERE UP TO DATE!
Just make sure you make her right arm loose before you play with it!
Or as my dad said, I should've lubed it before I moved it around. =3
There are pictures of a lost left arm as well.
Your dad seems to give good advices. You should listen to him ^^
Just remember to use the right kind of lube. Having engine oil leaking out is no good and avoid anything which will have chemical reactions with plastic. It's no good to lube to avoid damage and then the lube makes the plastic crack.
I might be naive, but it looks to me like there are screws in the torso. I would think that unscrewing those would do the trick. Maybe it's enough to loosen those and not removing them. That would certainly make it easier to put it together again afterwards.
Doing all sorts of tricks to get the stuck piece out will not solve how you get the new part into it's place, specially not if removing breaks the joint even more.
A quick search reveals that you aren't the only one breaking those joints. I wonder why they are all plastic. If I were designing those I would likely have made them out of steel or plastic coated steel (and then go out of business due to high production costs and no income from spare parts, LOL). I prefer products, which are designed to last forever. Naturally stuff like fireworks would fail badly, but stuff like figures shouldn't break ^^
Actually, there are no actual screws on drossel. It's just painted to look like screws. Some shoulder joints were just badly made. The molds weren't completely filled, so the joints had big gaps in them. I'm positive that drossel would pretty much last a long time if the plastic shoulder joints were made properly. Really no need for metal joints, as you said, it would just drive up the cost and no one wants that, right?
I suspect there is more to this than just badly produced joints. The number of broken joints indicate that the joint is a weak point, even on correctly made figures. If they were all made poorly, then there is something seriously wrong with the quality check on the factory ^^
If the torso is not screwed together, how do you add the new joint? I mean there is a room for the ball end on the inside and the ball has to be bigger than the access hole to that room or the arm will fall off all the time. How will the ball get through a hole, which is smaller than the ball?
Plug it in violently? XD
In addition to the badly made joints, drossel also suffers from stiff shoulder rotation. Combine that with a gap between the plastic that is connecting the two ball joints and you will have a broken arm. If the joints were made correctly, then they would certainly have a better chance of not breaking rather than an already weak joint. Drossel is the only figma I have seen with the problem of arms breaking off with regular use. I haven't seen any of the other figmas with this type of problem. The only incidents of limbs breaking off that I've ever seen were due to abuse (stuffing figures in a bag, purse, pocket, stepping on them, falling, pets chewing on them, flushing down the toilet, etc.) So I wouldn't call the joints "weak", more like "likely to break if abused".
As for inserting the new joint, I'm not totally sure but I think it's exactly as you say. The joint would have to be pushed in strongly into the socket. Otherwise GSC/MaxFac would maybe send a new torso with new joints already in place. Sorry for the long comment.
One of the hands on my Axel figure broke off once. Had the time of my life scraping the joint out of his wrist. Took me a whole day but it was okay since it was during a blackout rofl.
I scraped out the joint doing several weird things. Mostly scraped it out using a strong needle and small tweezers. Scraped off as much as I could at an angle and then yoinked it out after digging the needle in. I'm not even sure you wanna take that long doing such a thing but it worked for me... not that I ever wanna experience that again. So I feel your pain.
Use a small drill bit. Drill a hole into the joint.
Use a long thin screw and wind the screw into the drilled hole.
Pull the head of the screw and the joint will follow.
get a pin vise or something to hold a 1mm drill
then when you have it, drill in the center of that broken joint
then use your drill to pull out that joint, becareful not to drill through your drossel too deep, or pass from broken ball joint, since if you did, you might "literally" rip your drossel from torso to shoulder from inside (imagine a chainsaw to cut through ribs to spatula, or don't LOL)
once you manage to pull out that joint,
insert it to your drill again & drill the middle of other broken joint of the arm, make sure they match each other & peel it out from the arm
now you manage to have 2 part of the broken joint outside, and 2 of it match its drill zone, get yourself a 1mm wire or a paper clip, bend the wire & cut it, insert it to your joint drilled hole, then glue it
now you have your older joint much stronger than it was, dpend on your gluing skill, it might left a trail of breakage, or it might not
I'm going to drill at various angles into both ball joints and glue them together with Pratley steel.
When applying steel glue into the holes it's best to have the holes drilled right through so that the glue can penetrate into the holes, and should ooze through the other side. Carefully wipe away any excess and keep joints still till set.
Some stuff can be glued and some stuff is doomed to break again right away even if you glue it the right way. It depends on how it broke.
at least its easier to peel off after its been repaired, of course, only if the wire didn't break (its going to be much harder if it does)
I can't imagine the view of so much scars and broken pieces out of Drossel's armor... such... Figure Cruelty!
That's exactly what one of mine looks like, except, it's the left arm that's screwed up.
Though, none of my Drossels came with shoulder joints that appeared to be unfilled, like some of you have said. Mine looked like that because I tried rotating her shoulders while they were stuck in place, thus, "tearing" them.
To lube up the joints, has anybody tried a small amount of silicon oil? It "shouldn't" hurt the plastic, but might free up the joints so they don't break in the first place.