and I gave away my only left over G1.... it was Inferno, for f*ck sake!! Well one thing for sure 2 Grapple's commin' up I think I might need to go KO on the Inferno
i think this works out rather nice. i might try something similar but with the current head. and i totally agree with you - "diaclones gave the best head."
Thanks for all the positive comments, guys! I'll try to attach a step-by-step with some pictures of what I've done (or simulated, since I didn't take pics during the process) sometime real soon. I've got 2 other projects on the go this week, plus some overdue taxes to file, so maybe next week. zmog
Hey there! So I got myself a Grapple and have already started my own version of this mod. Before continuing on, did you ever get around to doing some of the how-to (post production) steps with yours? I'm mostly interested in seeing better pics of the crane mount from the top as well as how you attached the hinge, at the very least. Thanks again for sharing what you've done--it looks fantastic.
sconded, since I'll be finally getting Inferno to team up with Grapple next week, so the really need this upgrade (and my Grapple mod doesn't cut it!)
Damn... it's been so long, I'm going to have to look at the figure and remember how I did everything all over again. zmog
Any pointers would be great. Like I said, if you can get some close-up shots of where the black hinge is attached as well as the top of the crane (I think I figured out what you did there) or just as many close-up shots to everything you did, that'd probably help a bunch. I have a pic attachment of some of the cuts and disassembled bits I've done so far (the hinge is getting some floor polish because it runs too loose). The two major cuts are illustrated. I don't know what to do with the "teeth" on that bottom piece. Originally designed to lock the whole thing in place on the G1 toy, I don't know if I want to keep some of it and do something similar, or if it won't work anyway and chop them off. Hope to see some posts soon, but no major rush. Thanks for responding!
NICE. Hasbro and Takara should have done it like that originally. You made a monkey out of them. One suggestion to make it PERFECTLY accurate, he needs to have spring-loaded fists that shoot off, get lost under the couch, and get thrown away by someones mom.
Okay guys, I'm going to give this a shot, though I've left it so long, I may have forgotten a few little things. Also, it's not perfect. There are still some things I wanted to fix, but it's all a bit fuzzy right now... maybe you guys will be able to come up with some better ideas, since this was the first approach First off, THE HEAD... I just removed the "box" that G1 Grapple's head is encased in, and levered the head out. It takes some force because the head is glued, but it's not that hard. I sort of chiselled a small screwdriver under and pried it up. The head itself is glued together as well (no screws), but this is fine. I used a hobby knife to "drill" a small hole in the bottom of the head, doing frequent fitting checks with the neck ball joint on the RTS Grapple body. When it was just the right size, I put a tiny bit of cloth tape around the neck ball joint and "popped" the G1 head over it. The tape inside keeps it from rattling around, and if you get the fit right, it's really solid. and fits perfectly with the spring-loaded head reveal. I may have had to remove a tiny bit of plastic from around the base of the ball joint, but I don't remember that. Next, the HINGE-ARM that connects the crane to the body: As you can see, I've still got pretty much the entire original hinge-arm attached to the crane "turret". Because it doesn't line up as perfectly as planned, the arm folds up at an outward angle sticking out of the back. Not bad, but not ideal. Fortunately since the crane itself is slightly off centre, it doesn't collide with this hinge-arm. If you tried to do this with Inferno, the ladder WILL get in the way, so I've got to find a different solution for that one. You also might notice that I've added some cloth tape in the joints of this arm, which creates more resistance and tightens them up quite firmly. As of yet, the whole turret/collar is held on the shoulders by tension (it doesn't "clip on" like it does on G1 Grapple) ... at some point I'm going to add a peg or something to anchor it. Next is the connection of the turret assembly to the BACK-PLATE. You will need to punch the pin and remove that last panel of the back plate, leaving just the panel that is attached directly to the body. As it turns out, this pin is perfectly sized to thread through the connection point at the base of the G1 hinge-arm. What you want to do is cut a channel in the middle of that back plate large enough for the end of the hinge arm... like this: Still following? *Note that where the back plate is attached to Grapple's body got sort of cracked and abused. That's due to a dumb mistake on my part, and doesn't have anything to do with this mod. Heh. I might recommend making the new gap for the hinge-arm to connect as tight as possible, almost restrictive. Maybe you might want to use a knife or file to notch tiny little teeth into the hinge-arm joint there, so you get a ratcheting effect on this joint. When I carved that gap, I made it too spacious, and now it turns far too freely (no resistance), which leads to the turret assembly falling off the shoulders more easily (which is why I need to make a peg connector for it now) Here's another angle, where you can see where I've cut away space for the connection. The pin itself may look like it's not firmly in place with the ends poking out, but it's actually rock solid. Now here's a fun part... THE TURRET. G1 Grapple has a sort of "casing" around his turret, unlike G1 Inferno. When I attempted to remove this for the first time, I accidentally cracked it in two. This turned out to be a sort of blessing, because the screw point that fastens it to the top of the turret has a small "collar" that is exactly the right size for the mushroom-joint ring on RTS Grapple's crane! It pops over top of this ring very snugly, and holds it neatly in place. Then you can replace the screw in the top, which anchors the RTS crane solidly to the G1 turret. It's very secure. So now you can see how that whole casing just sits around Grapple's new head (which can still look side to side). Because I'd already broken the "casing" that goes around the turret, but I liked the way it looked, I cut away any extraneous plastic, and placed the panels back on the sides of the turret for purely aesthetic reasons. For the moment they're held in place with Blue Tack, but once everything is finalized, I'll probably glue them. The parts of the turret that sit on either side of Grapple's head have been cut and shaped a bit so they fit the contours of the lightbars on the top of Grapple's shoulders. This is just aesthetic too... you might just want to cut them off entirely if you find they get in the way of his face too much. Last part for now... the CRANE ITSELF . This mod allows the crane to fold up on Grapple's back, or rotate forward over his head if you want. It requires a small amount of cutting, but it's worth it. First you want to take the screw out of the black hinge mount that holds the crane. You'll see that the crane has a yellow rotating joint-hinge that has a slope on one side. Rotate this joint so that the slope faces forward rather than back. Then cut/sand away the excess at the back of the black mount that prevents the crane from tilting all the way back. Once you reverse the yellow joint, and cut away this bit of black plastic, the crane can tilt all the way back, then swing around to lay flat against Grapple's back (see the 2nd picture in the tutorial). Whew... I have no idea if any of that makes sense to anyone, but there it is. If anyone needs clarification on any points, please don't hesitate to ask! zmog
