Welp, fortunately I've never needed to lube any joints on figures since there usually to loose, lol. After hearing about the issues this guy has, I've now got some shock oil on the way... 

 

No, I haven't, sorry!.

Yeah, one drop of solvent in a joint can kill you.  
Mother of god...

 

Few more pictures and a question does anyone know or has anyone figured out if this is black mamba in disguise again? I'm sitting here with the oversized version of mpm 7 and this figure there are a lot of similarities in build.

 

I’ve also been wondering that!
The plastic material feels similar but everything else about the box design, paint and tolerances doesn’t feel BMB to ME at least.

 

There are a number of anecdotal reasons not to put WD-40 on your figures, the simplest being that it is not as effective as other materials that are specifically formulated for it the situation. It’s common sense to use the right tools and materials for the things you are doing; use your furniture polish on your furniture, your WD-40 on metal, etc. If you need your joints tightened on your toys, there is a product that literally has FIX LOOSE JOINTS in its name; with my years of experience and wisdom, I’d recommend using that to fix loose joints. If you are having the opposite problem, silicone is non-reactive and will work on everything. Go to your hobby shop, ask the oldhead behind the counter, purchase what they suggest.

That said, the variance in experiences people are having with WD-40 and action figures comes down to the type of plastic used and regional formulations. For example: a lot of people love those Gundam markers for panel-lining. It’s a great effect, looks great on everything, people want to use it on everything.
That is a fantastic way to make your ABS plastic toys and gunpla-style kits crumple like they got the Thanos-snap. It happens infrequently, primarily on areas that receive tension— so that would be all your joints, and any place internally that the ink seeps into that is holding parts together through friction or pressure. What it is doing is using a capillary action to travel through all the little, one molecule-sized whirls and micro-fissures in the ABS and helping them separate; imagine GPS, but the instantaneous, nuclear rabies-version. it’s not a problem on Bandai Gundam kits, because the marker specifically says it is for those exact kits, and Bandai is producing both products, with the express intent of using them in conjunction with each other.

It seems that in some cases, WD40 is doing the same thing. It is not full of the same solvents and activators as a Gundam marker, but it appears that it some formulations will perform the exact same capillary action on certain plastics and cause similar weaknesses. The damage may not be as instantaneous or as spectacular as I described with a Gundam marker, but it can be progressive and degenerative over time.

So, that’s what it comes down to: if the two materials are not specifically, explicitly formulated for each other, then you need to read your sheets every single time, even when you are feeling confident or you have done this sort of thing before. There are plenty of lubricants, like lithium, graphite, or shock oil, that are specifically non-reactive no matter what you put them on; but even so, do you research. I’ve seen people put lithium on dark plastic, graphite on white plastic, shock oil down prior to applying decals… I know I’m not the only one who feels like these toys are kind of expensive, so come on. Let’s treat them like they cost as much as our electric bill..

 

This is exactly why I ALWAYS go on the side of caution and just not use it.
And I go through the same check list for polish methods as well.
Lots of good info in your post though and I appreciate it!

I’m a simple banker so I don’t know hardly anything about specific chemistry of that stuff lol.

 

Just got my Bee from ShowZ today and I can report no damage so far. Joints are tight but ball joints move freely. Added silicone oil to the ball joints as a preventative measure.

All led units work with the only issue being on one I needed to have the batteries installed somewhat escew to make proper contact.

This figure is heavy. It feels at least 2x heavier than my Zeta BB. Feels much more premium even though I like and would prefer it to have the weathering that the Zeta BB has.

Figure is just slightly taller than Zeta BB but not too tall to look perfect with Freedom Leader Prime.

 

Bought the first silicone oil that I saw. No wt or cSt. Is this still good for the joints for my on transit CE-01? Thanks.

 

Your pictures make me want to pick up the zeta version. With its size it looks like it's the same exact size as blue circus bumblebee. Thank you for the pictures. On the other hand why in the bathroom? It would be horrible if some of that weathering wasn't weathering... Lol. Bumblebee has a mud flap and a skids lol

 

I managed to fix the lights, it was a trouble with the battery contact. Very impressive! It has two levels of lights.

 

Well if you want a Zeta Bee I have mine for sale. See the listing in my signature.

As to the bathroom for me it the place where I have the best even lighting for quick pictures. I do not store them in there.

 

Likely it is the lowest CST if it doesn't list it, so should be 100. The thinner the better  

 

Expecting mine today. Would I be able to find silicone oil at Walmart? What section should I look in?

 

Lmao, I had the same issue too

 

Teach me your ways oh great one

 

the weirdest thing is that I didn't found mine at a hardware store, but an art store. Apparently silicone oil is used to brighten oil paintings or something. If you want a seller that knows info, then hobby and toy stores are most definitely selling, too.

 

Consult your MSDS before handling any figure.

 

The contact surface of the inside of the circuit is very flat, you must "play" till the battery is touching that surface. It's a little bit tricky... I want to find some conductor to put it between of.

 

So what you have is silicone oil for pouring. Apparently it's used to create bubbles or "cells" in acrylic paint for art. I actually checked the Web site for the brand you bought, and the SDS indicates that it's like 90% silicone oil, and 10% undisclosed something or other?

I usually go with Super Lube silicone oil on Amazon. (You need to do a search for "super lube silicone oil", because Super Lube is a brand that makes a variety of lubricants that aren't silicone.) The SDS for it says it's 100% silicone oil, and it comes in 4 different viscosities (100, 350, 1k, and 5k cSt). 100 is thin and runny, 5k is a lot thicker. You'll probably want to pick up some microtip applicators to make applying it easier, or you could use a small paint brush or Q-Tips.

So my current theory regarding the window wing ball joints is that there's a combo of bad tolerances and paint overspray that are causing the joint to seize. It took me a while to realize it, but the ball peg is actually yellow plastic, not translucent -- but I couldn't tell because the one unbroken peg I have looks like solid black. The actual fix would be to pop the wing and sand off the black paint, but I just do not trust that peg to not break in the process, so I've been lubing it instead.

I've also been running into an issue where the side mirror keeps falling off, because it's die cast and not glued in. Not a big deal, but it's a small part that's easy to lose.

 

Alt mode pic with Toyworld.

Looks a bit too big for this truck. I think it would scale better with LS13 since that truck is bigger than Toyworld's.