I just received my replacement Caliburst for my slugslinger. My previous one was missing the tabs that hold the legs.

I am amazed at how much this piece was selling for. One chap asked for $75, while the blue torso part is on ebay with a BIN of £20!! (Got mine for £16)

Anyway, mine arrived and I am not surprised the tabs break off. The rod that attaches the legs to the torso has some catches that click when you transform the legs. This leads to stress marks and breakage, I got mine a third of the way and gave up for fear of breaking the tabs.

Why oh why did they design it this way?!

 

Yeah, it's not a great design. Well, it is, just not executed very well. Last year I got a Triggerhappy from a carboot sale and Blowpipe had the same problem. The point connecting his legs to the hinge bar is all stressed and the previous owner looks like they gave up and just left the legs half-folded for gun mode.
It can be fixed though with a little careful work. The problem is the bumps going across the bar which catch the hips part so things lock into place. What you need to do is take a sharp knife and shave those raised lines down ever so slightly so they allow the hinge to work without breaking anything but leave enough so they still have some friction to lock in place. You should be able to shave those lines with the tip of the knife because it's almost impossible to pop the legs from the torso without breaking or badly stressing anything.
If you've got him in robot mode it's best to start shaving with the top notch on the bar so you can then fold the legs back easier to reach the middle notch if needed. You shouldn't need to shave the lower notch unless it's really tight when straightening the legs.

 

I briefly owned prototype of these TM nebulons. Surprisingly the ridges weren't present, so the hinge rotated smoothly without threat of stressing or breaking those hinge clasps. They had it right, but then took a step backward!

 

Could be something that occurred as a result of casting, either through error or necessity, then.

 

My Aimless is the same way. Surprisingly I noticed the stress marks as a kid (how in the hell did that happen????) and I've tried apllying pressure on the tabs as I rotate the legs up ever since. It helps, but I'm sure it'll break one of these days.

Speaking of Caliburst, you reminded me I need to attempt the impossible task of finding JUST the gun barrel portion. Have the robot but it's missing that piece. Sigh...

 

I would guess some kind of necessity, since it doesn't appear to be error. I pulled out my regular Misfire's Aimless and compared with my proto pics, and noticed the prototype is also missing the little dimples for those ridges to rest in (second picture below).

Prototype on the left, production version on the right


Prototype

 

Yeah, you really have to be careful with those targetmasters, there're so many parts which can be broken easily(I've seen plenty with the peg broken off when trying to pull from the hole)

Triggerhappy's targetmaster is extreme fragile, watch this video if you don't believe me, the surprise is at 5:45
YouTube - G1 Triggerhappy

 

Yeah, I recently got both Triggerhappy and Misfire, and after fiddling with Blowpipe and Aimless a few times and noting how they worked and how fragile they were, I put them in gun mode and decided that they were pretty much going to stay that way from now on. They're too expensive to risk breaking.

 

Locking ridges would appear to be a problem with G1 Hardhead too. I kept reading of people breaking his tech specs chest door off and when I got one for the first time last year I was really bricking myself trying to open his chest. Once open I realised there's actually a couple of locking ridges on the door either side of the hinge and that's what was holding it so tightly. Once I'd shaved those ridges down a little it opens and closes nicely with no problem.

 

Heh, I picked up a Hardhead in a cheap lot at a tag sale and that panel was pretty much snapped in half from the previous owner trying to open it.

 

Best thing to do is just knock the pin out with a small hammer and a nail, hammer it back in with the door closed, and then never try and open it again.  

 

Nah, you can actually see the locking ridges on the bottom on the door even when it's closed. Looking at it I reckon it's possible to get a thin sharp knife under there and shave down those ridges a little to get the door open to finish the job properly. Then you can open and close the door as often as you wish and enjoy the tech specs reel goodness.