Figma repair

Do you remember some time ago the Drossel broken joints post? Well, it was about time to go to maintenance labs and repair Drossel joints.

First thing I had to buy a new ball shape joints, available at Hobby Search site for 430 yens and in various colors: freshness (skin color), white and dark grey. For the time of the buying, they only had freshness color, but it was ok, you will see the final result later.


If you remember well, Drossel had the broken ball joint still attached to her, so I needed to take it out first to place the new joints.

Reading some sites, people suggest first drill broken joints to take them apart. I instead used a wood screw to pull out the broken joint. You have to be very careful if you plan to use this method, because if you screw too deeply you may broke your figma chest as well (due of the screwing).

Drossel cooperated a lot during repairing session.

Here you can see the inner ball joint Drossel had.

Second phase of repairing, the new joints needed some room to fit in. For this I used a drill to make the hole. I used the smallest drill bit enough for the new joints (3mm).

Notice also that the drilling traspased all Drossel's body (be carefull to do this part too or your figma wont love you anymore).

Time to put the new joints and test if the drilling was OK. Original Drossel shoulder joints were white color and this ones don't look good on her...

So I painted them black to match the rest of joints and here is the final result of the repairing. What do you think?

8 comments

xraiko said...

Now that's a happy Drossel! XD Black shoulder joints really suit her too.

Persocom said...

Nice repair job! I think the black joints look better than the original white ones.

Eddy said...

Great fix and really the black joints suit her better, Nice to see Drossel live and well.

Nopy said...

I used the same method to remove a broken joint from one of my nendoroids. I think it works better than drilling out the attached piece.

Unknown said...

good job. i've been looking for replacement joints since one of my L head joints broke. thanks for the link

bluedrakon said...

Nice to see she is back up and operational. I have a Musha Gundam that needs some TLC as well on the arm joint.

Fisch said...

Definitely bookmarking this page of yours.

I have a Drossel as well, the hobby store back then said it was a late arrival, and that the Drossel is from the first release. At that time, there was some sort of "Drossel fever" kind of thing on figure.fm, and a lot of people ordering Drossel like crazy. But most noticeable report is the fact that the first release is either defected or simply poorly manufactured, as posted on your previous post, so that concerns me. And it is, defected, at the very same joint as yours.
At first, I think that the paint on the inner part of the figure was still not dry enough when the joint was inserted, making the shoulders rather stiff. I almost thought it's permanent, but then I have revopliers from revoltech, and it actually works better than trying to move it directly by hand.
I don't pose Drossel that much, but the stiff joints seem to never loosen up, to the point where I just know that it's almost time for the joints to break.

So basically, as repairs will have to be done sooner or later, I have to know something; was it hard when you pull out or put in the joint? I see that the joint is different, how much different is the movement range compared to the original joint?

Sorry if I wrote too much, any reply is truly appreciated.

Anonymous said...

This was very, very helpful man, I just managed to take off the ball from the shoulder, all thanks to you

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