Mine shipped Tuesday from Indiana reportedly - however the tracking hasn't changed from "Label Created" all this time. Really hoping something will pop up on tracking as the price of this figure is getting outlandish.

 

What about starting a new 'knee swap' thread where people can post pictures of their ratchets, and people can swap them with each other? Person A has two left ratchets, person B has two right ratchets, mail them to each other.

I dunno... *shrug*

 

Wow, so much for my presumptive figure of the year, this figure is turning out to be quite the trainwreck, pun intended! My heart goes out to you guys but maybe it was a blessing in disguise for me to have missed out on this figure in the first run, only time will tell............

 

Ok I haven’t personally taken the knees apart but several ppl besides myself noticed the difference in the gear was that it was turned 180. Are we positive its not the plastic teeth on the leg panel that is the issue? Just hate for people to start swapping and it be a different issue

 

Knee issues? Get Glucosamine!!!

 

What exactly is the knee issue? I keep seeing mention of it but no photos or examples.

 

Its a problem in CAD or what ever program they used with mirroring parts. It is not a 180 degree rotation of the gear in the knee. The gear and the thigh with molded in teeth for the ratchet are both dicast. If people start swapping please have a good understanding of what is wrong, it is very easy to figure out once apart. Pages 237, 238

 

It triggers people's OCD. My copy for some reason turned out fine, but had I gotten one with the issue, it would certainly drive me bonkers to no end.

 

I have been driven said bonkers.

 

So basically I can sell my figure for 1500 bucks by putting a number of additional details on my listing:
1. US Seller!!!!
2. No knee misalignment!!!
3. QC32!!!

 

I'll be grateful just to get the figure  

 

Mines QC32 too lol

 

Well it sort of is.

The teeth on the metal inner thigh plates are not aligned between both legs. In fact, as far as i could tell, if you reversed the teeth on 1 of the plates ie gap where tooth / tooth where gap, then they would be identical.

If the teeth on the metal thigh plates were aligned you would only need 1 inner ratchet piece design for both knees - so the different aligning on the plates seems to be the original mistake.

When i 1st reported the issue way back on p202 i thought there would be only 1 inner ratchet piece design as i had 2 the same, meaning on everyones copy his left leg would never be able to be aligned with his right (which can straighten). It would always be out half a click (due to the difference being tooth where gap, gap where tooth, and this is the reason you cant just rotate the ratchet to fix).

Supporting all this is the fact that on the inner ratchet piece there is no markings like L/R.

@OverBleed , who had 2 copies then showed a while later that there are in fact 2 types of inner ratchet piece (he got 3 of 1 kind, and 1 of a different kind). Again, no markings on either.

Following this info, I suspect therefore that FT noticed their original mistake - the mis-mold / design error on the metal thigh plates at some point, and tried to rectify using 2 different ratchet pieces, however they bodged this by not marking them up, hence the factory did not get the rectification correct, leading to the issues people are finding. This to me seems the only logical explanation.

Edit - As per @OverBleed s post just above (which i have only just seen) If you dont have 2 types of inner ratchet piece - 1 for each leg, you cannot fix.

As it is mine stands just fine (stands stronger than most) and it doesnt really make his pose unatural, just not uniform, so i have mostly learned to just ignore it.

 

So my understanding is that some ppl got good copies and some didn't. Does anyone just stand the figure in static pose? I don't but thats just me I guess

 

This guy looks great just doing a static pose, no need for anything dynamic

 

So what's the knee issue clearly explained with pics please? Also is this thing already impossible to get?

 

When standing straight, the leg isn't 180 degrees straight, one degree off.

 

Like @OverBleed has said, we already know the issue and the solution.

@God Orion FansToys FT-44 Thomas (MP Astrotrain)

The issue is one that could 100% have been avoided in the design phase. The teeth that are cast into the plastic part are tilted slightly from where they ideally should be. If they were offset by half a tooth you would find both legs having the same slightly off bend and probably no-one would have noticed, but they're offset something different. Since one side of the joint is offset it requires two different parts to mesh with it, otherwise the legs will be offset from each other.

Solutions for the end user?

1. Get the correct part. That would normally be from FT but it sounds like the only reasonable way to do that at the moment is going to be to find someone who has the corresponding alternative. If your left leg isn't sitting correctly than you'll want to find someone who's right is wrong - provided, of course, you're both under the same expectations for how it should be sitting.

2. (Destructive) Remove the teeth from either the metal insert or the cast plastic. It becomes a friction joint but at least you can position it however you please.

3. (Destructive) I'll have to examine mine (again, still pending) but you could feasibly either trim down the bumps on the side metal piece or where it fits on the leg and then shim it so both sides can use the same part. You're looking at a fraction of a millimetre to twist it enough since they appear to be 18-teeth (ie 20° per tooth, and it will need to turn less than half of that). Personally I'd probably opt for the metal part to be modified since you'll want to replace it in the long term anyway.

 

He's available on the secondary market but the prices on him are bonkers.

 

Fiddled with mine a little more this morning. I really love the matte dark gray they used. I wish FT would stop using their metallic paints and make all their figures with nice matte colors like this.