It's amazing Hasbro was too lazy to do this themselves. That's a nice Ratchet.

 

So how can I get you to do this to mine??

 

...aside from the gun, what else did you sacrifice from the deluxe mold?

 

Well the most important part was the joint to which deluxe Ratchet's head and arms are attached to. I did some heavy cutting and reshaping of that part to fit inside of the hood of voyager Ratchet.

Once I cut it down to the right size and shape, I fastened it to the back of the "engine compartment" via two screws. I then melted/fused the joint to the inside surface of the headlights/grill part. To separate the front end from the car I cut a trace line directly under the front cage so you can't even tell there is a parting line. You can tell where the cuts are in the transformation pics.

Better I take some pics of it if you are interested in doing this yourself. If so, I will have to take him apart and take some pics so you can see it better... I'll try and get to it this weekend if you want.

 

I do!   If you can do a step-by-step sorta thing, we can resource a tutorial from it  

 

very nice man, i wanna see more of that gun on his hand!

 

OK, pics to come of the mods, but unfortunately the pics weren't taken during the modding process. I did disassemble him so you can see the finished mods better.

 

Update: I took the pics and just have to upload them online. Should be either tonight or tomorrow!

Also, I am having a good friend and local AZ Radicon paint him up for me, so we all can look forward to pics of the finished figure!

 

AZ... would that fellow radicon be autobotX23??

 

Pics of Chest Modification

I hope these pics make things self explanatory... if not I'll be around to help with any questions you may have.  

View of ball joint neck & black housing cut-away; required for proper clearance of front end rotation function:


Head on view of installed part:


Angled view of rear showing screws anchoring piece from deluxe Ratchet:


View showing hinge functionality; required to angle grill up and down for both modes:


View showing both bend and rotation:


View showing position of front end for bot mode:


To connect the headlight/grill plastic part of vgr Ratchet to the swivel/hinge part from Dlx Ratchet, I used a bonding agent called ABS Weld-On which melts and fuses the two plastics together. Luckily it worked perfectly with the plastics used for these parts. The bond is hella strong!

 

Side Front Wheel Panels Modification

Granted, all the mods I did required a lot of dremeling with a cutting wheel and a grinder, but I'm pretty satisfied with the results... considering the surfaces that got shaved off are all "inward" facing.

First, I had to figure out a way to separate the side panels from the shoulder joint. That was an extremely difficult thing to devise because the side panels WERE the shoulder joints!!! ARRRGH! Then I realized that the side panels that pop out from the engine area are comprised of two parts:

1. Wheel Mounts
2. Front Side Panels

So, I figured I'll just attach his arms to the Wheel Mounts and free up the side panels so they can flip out in similar fashion as CG Ratchet:

Inside view of side panel:


Inside view of both panels:


Front view of side panels flared out:

 

Sacrifice #2: Classics/Universe Galvatron.

Redesigning the shoulder joints for Ratchet was a big pain in my bu- er... noggin. The best solution I had was using ball joints that could fit in between the wheel mounts and the wheel itself.

I drilled out a hole further in of the shoulder housing, slightly overlapping the original opening for the joint. I left little knobs in place just enough to allow the arms to snap back into the original position for alt mode, and snap into the new position for bot mode.

I shaved down the translucent orange plastic hinges of the ball joints down to get the clearance to fit in the tight space, and secured it to the wheel mounts using a screw from the Fallen.

I inserted a second screw to maintain the height of the wheel mount since the negative space was originally filled with the now removed plastic from the side panels.

I also felt inclined to do away with the blocky look of his shoulders, so looking at the CG renders of him, I cut away a huge opening into his shoulders and found that the remaining screw hole left behind would serve best as a mounting position for the flood lights!

I snipped up an extra rollbar cage to fit perfectly inside the shoulder opening and wallah!!! Enjoy the pics...

Front view of upper arm with new joint assembly:


View of ball joint inside shoulder opening:


View of the flood lights installed inside the shoulder (I may have to take a better picture...):


View of the new socket opening and screws installed:


Rear view of both shoulders installed and completed:

 

Deluxe gun in a Voyager's hand

So this was a pretty easy way to get his weirdly designed hand to wield a weapon...

I made a clearance for a screw in the gun, and drilled a hole into his hand to where the gun can be placed with the screw:



The gun is easily removable, as the hole I drilled doesn't quite grip the threads of the screw entirely - but snug enough that it doesn't flop about or fall out.

 

Again I ask, how do I get you to do this to mine?!??

 

some of the coolest mod work I've seen in a long time. brilliantly executed!

 

Hey bro, I sent you another pm.

Thank you for checking out this thread and thank you so much for the compliment!

 

You deserve the compliment - the figure's going on three years old & this is the best mod work yet...

Compare:
vs

 

nice hands and weapon

 

Hey all, just wanted to give you an update that Autobotx23 has been meticulously working on painting up my modded Ratchet figure for the past few weeks, and hopefully we will see pics of his work shortly!!!

Thanks Autobotx23 for all your hard work and assistance.    

Savio.