Hi. Same mod as the previous sideswipe and sunstreaker upgrade.
Used a section of styrene tube, cut, filed and inserted into the wrist.
The hand was pre-installed into the tube before fitting.

The 4 upgrades done so far were all pretty easy and are completely reversible, ie. Original hands can be reattached.

 

Prowl.

 

That looks great. It's pretty amazing how such a small change can greatly improve the look of the figure as a whole. And are those hands actually articulated? And, if so, what are they from?

 

Hi. Thanks for the feedback. This is something I've been toying with doing for some time on a number of figures and I'm really happy with the improvement they've made.
The hands are fully articulated and are hobby base mechanical hands (round), in 1/144 scale. I bought them online but directly from Hobby Link Japan, based in Japan.

The easy upgrades are done now. I have a few more planned soon that will be a bigger challenge.

 

So are you saying you basically used styrene tubing as the ball joint sockets?

 

That's right. Seems to work perfectly. It has enough rigidity to keep the ball joint stiff, but flexes just enough to allow mobility at the wrist. I used the tubing that has an inner diameter of 3.4mm. The ball joint is 3.5mm. Very snug fit.

 

thats sweet. I would love to see you take a pic of the tube and ball joint out of it. Cool work dude.

 

That's a good idea. Like it.

 

Thanks a lot. I'll definitely have to look into those. I've recently started looking for various-sized articulated hands for customs after realizing how much of a difference they make and haven't had too much luck yet.

 

Overclocker

very inventive and it looks great!

 

Awesome wish we still had those lil gundam wing figures here those work good too

 

Looks good

 

Thanks for all the comments.
I'm moving to the U.S. in just over a week but the plan is to get a few more upgrades done.
I have enough hands to upgrade Henkei Optimus, Henkei Jetfire, Henkei Ironhide and Henkei Ratchet.
Who shall I try next?

 

Gotta love those Hobby Base hands huh? Used plenty of them myself!

As for what other molds to use, they work pretty good on almost all of the CHUG figures, both the 1/144 scale hands & the 1/100 scale hands. Personally, I've found that some figures look better with the square fingers as opposed to the round fingers. Its just a matter of aesthetics & shape really, round finger hands seem to look better on Bots with a more rounded alt mode & the square fingered hands look good on Bots with a more angular alt mode. However, there are it seems, always exceptions to this as some look good with the opposite. For instance, Voyager class Brainstorm's hands fall into the 1/100 scale category & even tho he's a more rounded alt mode bot, he looks better with the square finger hands.

Also, your idea is good for the styrene tubing for the wrist socket but I've noticed that after a time, plastic against plastic will wear out & poor Prowl will be limp wristed! A good alternative that'll hold up for a looong time & also give you good firm poseability are aftermarket poly-vinyl ball & socket joints. You can get these from Hobby Link Japan, Hobby-Search etc...

As to your next Bots for the chopping block, why not give Sideswipe & Sunstreaker a shot?  

 

Hi Budokhan. Thanks for the tip. Can you post a link to the poly vinyl ball and sockets? I do have some ball joints from hobby base but I couldn't figure out a way to make them work with the mechanical hands because of the special connector that attaches the hand to the stock wrist ball joint. So, if you're talking about something different, it would be great to see what you mean. Also, I thought the styrene tube might offer a bit more flexibility across a range of wrist connectors than a socket type arrangement; which might be a bit more challenging to fit, ie. I don't think it would have worked with the voyager Megatron upgrade.

I've tried this approach with Bluestreak, Prowl, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker and Megatron (his was way more involved) so far. I'm thinking I'll try Optimus next.

Regarding the style of the hands; I probably will get hold of some square hands once I get my move out of the way. I'm curious to see how they change things up and it's interesting to hear about your experience of matching them with the figure aesthetic.

Finally, if you've done a few of these hand upgrades, I'm hoping you've crossed the bridge; any tips on how to improve the grip with weapons? I was thinking a rubber sleeve or similar to slide over the weapon post....

Thanks

 

Since I've been mulling over performing a similar mod for some time, I had the same question. I'd love to hear his thoughts.