So I think we've all been wowed by the Perceptor to Soundwave customs and I definitely want to try my hands at making one. The only issue comes from the neck joint. Here are some pics, if you don't know what I'm talking about: Cybertron Soundwave head Perceptor neck area. My first thought was to cut off the neck stump on Percy, then dremel a hole to plug Soundwave's head in and retain his neck articulation. Thoughts? I'd love any help on this. Would love to hear what Jin and everyone else did for theirs!
While I have not done a Perceptor to Soundwave conversion yet, I would assume that you would replace Perceptor's neck stub with a ball joint, with the complementary socket in Soundwave's head. This would provide much more articulation than just a simple swivel. Also, I think this is what Jin did with his. Though using a dremel to create a socket for Soundwave's plug may work, the ball joint may be the safer bet. Just my thoughts on this so take it with a grain of salt, but yes I agree that a second opinion would help a lot. That said, I'm quite interested in how this custom turns out.
Thanks man! I'm equally geeked to get started on it, just want to have it all mapped out before I start priming. As for creating a ball joint... how? I'm not entirely sure on how to do that, but would love to hear more about it, specifically for this style joint would be a huge help!
For the ball joint, you can either use one from a scrap transformers laying around (granted it would have to be small enough to fit in Soundwave's head) or use model kit option parts (such as a whole pack of ball joints and their sockets, you can find these on online retailers like HobbyLinkJapan). For installation and what exact ball joints to use, check out Jin's ball joint neck tutorial (it's extremely helpful and the reason why my Classics Rachet has an actual neck now) in the Tutorials and How Tos section. Hope this helps.
Looks great so far, glad to see that the neck mod went well. Looking forward to seeing this guy done.
Glad you found a solution, I just now saw this post. What I did, and I'm not sure if it was the norm or different from the rest is I used the neck post from Perceptor. I sawed off Soundwave's flush and then notched the bottom to accomodate the perceptor neck joint. Behind Soundwave's head is a gap under the light piping that I used as the slot to accept the Perceptor neck joint. I went this route because of the wires I had to run through the neck to light the visor, but I'm sure it could be accomplished other ways.
Thanks, Man! It was really simple. Worked perfectly. Now if I could just clear my entire schedule and paint for like a month straight, I could put a dent in my list of customs that are in various degrees of progress. One of these days...
Wow! That sounds amazing! Putting lights in that head sounds so cool! What I ended up doing was going with my original thought, drilling a small hole in Percy's neck area and trimming down Soundwave's neck peg to slide right into place. Worked like a charm.
http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radicons-customs/491113-classics-soundwave-laserbeak.html Hate to spam your thread, but here's my Soundwave. May be useful to you.
It never hurts to have more awesome pictures to look to for inspiration! Definitely NOT spam, That is truly stunning!
