ROTF Megatron Right Arm Mod: My first major mod attempt.

Hey guys,

I usually do paint apps on my TF's. Some minor mods I've done are adding more articulation to ROTF Starscream's elbows and ROTF Jolt's head. But mostly I enjoy doing paint apps.

For ROTF Megatron, I really like this figure. Aside from two out of 3 issues I have with the mold (minimal left to right head movement and undersized left arm), I went ahead and took care of the third "lack of a right elbow" issue.

I've gone through the Radicons forums and researched all the different ways people have done the elbow mod. You guys have LOTS of great ideas and have been very helpful in inspiring me to take this step into the Radicon world. I may consider beefing up the left arm later on.

Ball/Socket Joint:

I decided to use the ball joint/socket from Universe Silverstreak to accomplish the task.

The ball joint comes from the pelvis of the universe fig. The socket joint is the upper thigh which I cut from the rest of the leg.

Surgery:

Unfortunately I didn't have a camera to take pics of the process, because I decided to do this at work. I had to use a band saw to slice the right arm apart at the upper arm "V-Shape" geometry.

Ball Joint Stage:
For the upper arm I measured the diameter of the neck/stem of the ball joint and found the corresponding drill bit size to create the hole to place it in. I simply centered the drill bit to the newly cut surface of the upper arm and drilled in about 1/8" depth until it reached the hollow section inside the arm.

The ball joint itself was cut from Silverstreak's pelvis in a way that it has a square "anchor plate" at the base of the neck to [mechanically] lock it inside the hollow space in Meg's upper arm. That way it cannot be pulled out of the arm in any way. No adhesive tools necessary! Just unscrew the upper arms and pry open the two halves enough to slide the joint in. Rescrew it nice and tight and walah!

Socket Joint Stage:
I shaved off as much material as I could in Meg's forearm to situate the socket joint inline with the barrel. Specifically I cut away the plastic down until the back of the trigger for the cannon was exposed. Luckily, I cut the outer shell plastic perfectly enough to be flush with the back of the exposed trigger.

For the socket joint itself, I had to minimize the size of it for two reasons: 1. increase range of movement, and 2. fit onto modified area of cannon. I simply used a cutting wheel and a dremel, and an exacto to trim.

Using ABS Weld-On fluid, I melted the socket joint to the cannon and let it sit for a few hours.

ABS Weld-On doesn't work on some plastics, but luckily (again) it worked for both the plastics used for the cannon and the socket joint.

The only thing left to do is a custom paint for him!

All in all, an easy modification with the right tools! Here are the results:

Attached Thumbnails

         

         

great work i love it

You could just paint the socket area black for now as that goes good with Megatron's colors.

Nicely done. I may need to do that myself.

Originally Posted by Metal Chaos He's now nothing but a mere twisted shell of his former self, wrapped around a warped and chaotic spark that is withering yet thriving in a sea of despair and agony, his mind long eroded from the many thoughts of revenge for his undoing.

That is probably the cleanest and easiest looking elbow mods I've seen yet. Awesome.

Hey thanks for the responses everyone! Right now I'm looking into adding 2 additional "middle" fingers to his left hand. I'm going to do this by molding the finger in silicone rubber and casting it at work. Once I beef up the left arm I'll start on his paint job.

I may start a new thread for my repaint of ROTF Prime. Masking him up was a pain in the @ss for chroming the gray plastic, but was worth it.

I'm also going to learn how to solder LEDs. I've got HA BB and ROTF Prime in my sights for LED work.