I own 4 combiners, superion, menasor, defensor and Bruticus. The first two are pretty solid and stand without assistance but the last two will not stand on their own. After couple of falls from the shelf, I have them leaning against the wall for now. Is there any truck to get them to stand straight. It seems like they have too much weight on the front than the back.
I'm surprised your Menasor is standing. He must be in the most static pose! Try putting him in an action pose and see how long he lasts!
Ratchet one leg back one click on each then lean them forward some what to straighten them out.it's the awesome ratchets they use, they should either have more teeth or designed it where the mechanism was rolled back a little inside the leg. What's funny is Takara fixed Hot Spot, but their Bruticus has the lean again.
Thats why I don't display me combiners combined. They can't stand worth a damn... Well that and I also don't have the tallest of display options.
i suggest getting steamshield's ratchet replacements from shapeways CW Hot Spot Onslaught Hip Ratchet Stoop Fix (27HCCLJ2F) by SteamShield
Since Defensor and Bruticus pretty much have the same hips and legging stuff, chances are you're doing the same thing improperly or incorrectly on both. Try to take a pic of your Defensor and Bruticus and post it here. Some here might be able to see exactly what the issue is. Check out some YT videos of either of them on how to set their hip/crotch properly. It may be as simple as an insecure/unlocked detent or something. Maybe the HFGs just needed to be repositioned slightly. fwiw, my UW-Bruticus has no issues standing and stuff... http://i.imgur.com/W2LmFLk.jpg
I only have the G2 Superion set and the only problem i had with them standing was when I had the legs on backwards, solved that and no issues. well combining the gun mode of powerglide an the gun from Silverbolt causes some issues mainly he can't hold it up in one hand.
I was moving around Victorion, Defensor, and Bruticus earlier this week and they kept on stooping forward. I'm going to have to buy three sets of these dumb things, aren't I.
Try using different Deluxes as legs. When I used Rook as a leg for Defensor, Defensor toppled forward, even with his arms at his sides. Defensor stood OK with different Deluxes as legs, even with both arms raised. Ultra Prime stook OK with Rook as a leg. It was just the combo of Rook and Hot Spot that didn't work so well. I did manage to get Defensor to stand with Rook as a leg by turning Rook around, so his roof faced Defensor's back. I don't know if that was because Rook as a whole needed rotating, or just his combiner peg. That is, just take the leg(s) off, rotate the combiner peg 90 deg, and reattach.
I made my own ball jointed feet for the combiners and one thing I noticed is that you need to put them in better poses. Sometimes that means not using the stock transformations. My Menasor is set up different, and I use a staggered stance for the Defensor, Victorion, & Bruticus. Superion stands fine for me. Even holding the injured Skydive, my Menasor is pretty sturdy.
All of my combiners stand and pose great (even one legged poses!) after I Future polished the crap out of their hips, knees, and ankles (on the PE feet). Highly recommended if you want to do more than just display them static.
Ratchet joints are great. Get your legs even, then move one leg one click forward and the other one click back. This works for me.
I have issues with the stock HFGs on my shelving because I don't like standing them in a ramrod-straight position. My shelf surfaces are fairly smooth, and the lack of ankle tilts on the HFGs mean there's not enough surface area touching the shelf when I use an "A" stance. Without sufficient friction, the feet gradually slide apart until the whole combiner wobbles and falls over from the momentum. Standing them as wide as possible in the first place also doesn't work (and looks stupid). The Perfect Effect feet offer some improvement. They get enough surface contact not to slide around on my shelves. The ball jointed ankles also allow me compensate for leaning due to issues with ratcheted hip joints without inventing unnatural poses for them. The drawback is that PE's ball joints are not very strong compared to the weight of the combined figures. I have to find the gestalt's exact center of balance, or the whole thing will slowly (sometimes over several days) pull a "Smooth Criminal" move and eventually tip over. I don't have a lot of spills exactly, but it's a lot further away from zero than I'd like.
I've got no idea what's going on, unless your particular figures have loose joints. I own Combiner Wars Bruticus myself, and I've managed to pose him with Classics Grimlock standing on one of his shoulders, without him falling over.