G1 Skyhammer - GPS Feet, a Battle, and a Fix!

Superquad7 · 01-16-2011, 12:34 AM

Hopefully the images will be self-explanatory:

I hope you enjoy my little repair tutorial! If you have this figure and want to try this, just be careful! With a little, basic skill using a rotary tool, you can help Skyhammer and the Autobots win a victory at least against the War of GPS!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Valkysas

You realize of course, that the act of simply sanding that hole to be bigger could make the piece explode, right?

Yep, and that's why I sorta played with the idea of a losing war of GPS. GPS has won the war, but there are a handful of battles to be won. This is the least of these, of course. The best thing to do would be to take all of the parts that suffer from GPS and have them reproed. I know my custom Black Zarak won't have to worry about this, with my parts coming from Darkov.

My major concern with my Skyhammer was that the parts that make up the feet (all 6 of them) were waaaayyy too tight. I didn't want to transform the feet sometime in the future only to have them stick, then chip or crack apart. What I've done here at least alleviates that some for me.

At least this way, I felt that I was in control somewhat instead of being a helpless victim. Like you said, though, it provides no guarantees. It does help me relax a bit though

Quote:

Originally Posted by mx-01 archon

Also, that GPS symptoms quite often do not coincide with areas of stress. Sure, gold-plastic hinges are more likely to go than anything. But it's not uncommon to have found a part completely shattered throughout its entirety.

This is certainly true. My Skyhammer, as I've said, was VERY tight on these hinges. At least now the parts can transform some.

Also, I think it's important to note that everything I've described may sound more aggressive that I actually treated these parts. My Dremel was on a low setting, and I've certainly used my Dremel enough to know the difference on delicate work versus shredding plastic all to pieces.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gingerchris

I had my Skyhammer out a few months ago but I wasn't brave enough to try bending the gold joint parts. I certainly wouldn't be brave enough to unscrew them and start drilling bits out. I think the only way I would be is if I knew there were repro parts available in case disaster happened during the process.
Someone needs to take a 3D laser scanner to the gold parts to make molds of them safely.

The only real issue on Skyhammer here is that one of the feet is on a hinge, and there's a small amount of fudging around with the piece to get it disassembled. Aside from that, the disassembly is focused on the blue parts of the legs, which really have little issues themselves.

I really don't want to be misleading with this "fix". Nor do I want anyone to assume that I ripped apart a figure vigorously and started just drilling away with my Dremel. Notably, I've used rotary tools for quite a while and have built up my skill set some. The main thing for me is that I handled this thing with baby hands and was very careful. I've around $120 or so poured into this one figure, and I tend to handle my "collectibles" very delicately, as such. Shelling out for TFs (especially the "vintage" and the "Masterpiece" style TFs) isn't easy for me either, as I have limited expendable funds.

That being the case, that was part of my motivation. I didn't want to be transforming the feet and have one chip off just because of some unnecessary tension. Regardless of this fix, I'll still be handling these toys very gently

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nmbr1Ldr

Nice tutorial, something I had never considered doing. I am deathly afraid of this kind of thing as I know as soon as I try and attempt it, the gold will shatter. I had just resolved myself to never transform Skyhammer again. It is too bad you couldn't coat the gold pieces in clear coat or something to reinforce them, but of course that would only add to the problem as it would make them tighter. Looks like reproduction may be the way to go for me.

Yeah, reproduction parts would be the only way to win this war completely. That being said, both Skyhammer and Roadblock have quite a few gold parts that suffer from GPS, and that's just from US G1. I hope reproduction parts of these gold parts is something that I can get done at some point. Until then, this fix will work the best for me. Now, I'm not so afraid of these parts chipping off any time I transform Skyhammer.