Just dropped off at my door via DHL. Amazon Japan is pretty fast.

 

Nice pic! Knees all working fine?

 

Yeah I’d try that, don’t want to risk buggering it up because the rest of the figure is hindering your access

 

Seems on topic:
What kind of glue do people recommend for breakages such as the one shown?
What brands?
I’ve used crazy glue and a liquid weld (not instant) in the past and they’re about as useful as well, (can’t think of anything clever), they’re just not useful.
What do people recommend?

 

Unfortunately BOTH my lower knee ratchets were not clicking outside of the box. I’m getting MP-41 déjà vu all over again where both shoulder ratchets failed.

I’m wondering what are the long term repercussions of the lower knee joint remaining a friction joint. It doesn’t affect transformation and (so far) doesn’t affect poses. To be honest, if I was one of the very first reviewers I wouldn’t even know whether the lower knee joints were suppose to ratchet. Currently both just slide up and down smoothly with a normal amount of friction tightness.

 

EDIT: I've taken the knees apart again, and updated what I think could help preserve the housing, I've added this fix at the bottom of this post.

Great fix! I was going to suggest similar, but you've already done the work. Also, adding tiny pins like the Japanese Twitter user from earlier would definitely work too.

Having this in hand, and seeing how everything works, its clear, that stupid little blue ratchet piece is absolutely the offender. Regardless of how tight that ratchet is, or how snug the white channel is, because it's a separate part from the lower leg is the problem. I can't see any reason why it's separate as well, and seems to be a pretty poor decision and bonehead move on TT's part. The ratchet compresses inside the knee, so that small part should have no reason to move, and therefor no reason to be separate.

So, for those of who you have intact knees, here's some preventative maintenance I have done. Now, this could be completely avoided if you're just careful, and understand one specific point:

The most important thing to understand is, the tab, indicated by the green arrow, MUST slide into the channel, indicated by the red arrow, to allow the lower knee to bend!


It should look like this.


BUT, the tabs on both my legs were a very snug fit...like they barely slid it, and I could feel resistance.

Likewise, the tab can be slightly misaligned. This is due to the tiny bit of play in the ratchets, but also the play in little tabs on the small blue piece. (Another reason this part should not be separate, because then there'd be no play there!

If you tried to bend the lower joint, with the upper joint fully bent, but the tab not properly aligned, as shown above, you will damage the ratchet housing!

So, I took apart the lower leg, and trimmed down that sliding tab some. I first trimmed the "front" edge (red arrow), the edge that goes inside the channel first, into a point. This way, if it was a little higher or lower, it could guide into the channel. I also sanded down the upper and inside edges some, the edges indicated the green arrows.



Lastly, I noticed during disassembly, that the ratchet part, visible below, was kinda tight on the shaft indicated by green arrow, and didn't slide up and down as easily as it probably should.



So, just to be safe, I pulled out that small ratchet piece and spring, put some hobby lube on the shaft, put the spring and ratchet back on, and put a little lube on the ratchet too. Don't know how necessary this was, but better safe than sorry.



Finally, put everything back together, and I can now freely swing both joints back and forth with a smooth, buttery motion. I no longer get the stop with a little resistance before the second joint kicks in, and the tab slides right in and out of the channel flawlessly!

Edit, new info below:

After, carefully, handling mine for a few days I noticed the lower knee joint start to have a little more play in it. I also wanted to check another point of concern from my first assembly above.

I've gone into more detail in this post here (also, I just highly recommend reading through that whole thread anyway):
Minor/Repaint: - MP-44 Knee Fix

But to summarize:

You can see damage was starting to occur on mine, despite being very careful and making sure everything was properly lined up:


But here is what I really wanted to look at again. See how the inner ratchet and the blue tabbed piece are staying on the shaft? That's with the spring underneath. That just should not happen. Both ratcheting parts should not have that much grip on the shaft. And that's even after I greased them! That spring underneath is strong, and big.
If that offending ratchet part is snug enough to hold that spring down, there's a good chance that it's too snug to rotate properly. Even if the channel was properly lined up, and free, there's a good chance there could just be too much resistance on the shaft to allow it to rotate in the first place.


So I trimmed down the edges of it. I also filed down the inside of the blue tab piece until it slid on with no resistance and did not hold the spring down.


THIS right here, up to this point, is what I recommend everyone doing whether you want to try gluing the parts or not: File/trim that shaft, file down the inner wall of the blue tab part, and grease up both the shaft and the inner wall!



I also ended up adding pins to mine, and a little glue to hold the pieces together. But at the very least, file that shaft, file the inside wall of the blue tab part (possibly even the opposing ratchet as well), and grease it all up!

I think adding some oil/lube to the rail would probably be a decent option as well, if you don't want to, or don't feel the need to trim/sand the rail on the blue piece. And you're right, it would definitely be the quickest option. I think adding it the ratchet is probably a good idea as well, it certainly can't hurt!

 

Jeez thats a great picture!

 

After transforming him to robot mode, for some reason I feel a bit underwhelmed. He definitely looks like the character portrayed on screen but for some reason this release doesn’t give me the same feeling as MP-36 did. I guess what I’m saying is it doesn’t blow me away.

 

Absolute champion work there, sir!

 

Yeah, it's pretty loose for me too.
It falls of easily if I try to bend it at the joint.

 

So I did end up getting Optimus V3 before Bluestreak+ after all. Now, the new question is, do I get Bumblebee V2 or Bluestreak+ next? I'm gonna go with Bumblebee. Come on Big Bad! I'm very happy to have Optimus, but I really want Bluestreak here as well... I'm dreading the wait on Smokescreen+ already. Maybe around this time next year I'll get him?   Oh well, Optimus will have to do for now I suppose.  

I'll probably get a better chance to look him over tomorrow night, but talk about excitement! Of course, I was pretty lukewarm about a third MP Optimus from the get-go, but things like that have a tendency to change after you get the item in question in-hand! Although, all these breakage issues are worrying me a bit too... Guess I'll find out tomorrow.

 

Mine arrived in Cincinnati and got through customs. Then it went to Reagan Airport where it is “on hold”. What does that mean?

 

I"m back and I can't read through x amount of pages since I left last week. Got this guy in today and that was fast! Amazon JP rocks! Was supposed to get it tomorrow, but DHL came through. Japan to CA, USA in 2 days wow!

I quoted your post because I felt the same way. I don't know if it's the feel of the plastic vs Megs, or there was so much expectation on this guy. I will say he does look great, but moves and poses kinda wonkily, but once he's there he does look really good. I have a few minor chips on my copy as I"m sure the rest of you do too. Can't wait to get this guy in front of my lens.

Anything I missed/need to get caught up on?

What's the overall feel of this guy for those that picked him up?

 

This black screws holding in the swivel posts are in there tight. I need to be able to get that unscrewed to knock the pin out. I have some jewelers screwdrivers that are the right size, but there's not a lot of leverage to work on that screw.

 

This is the ultimate toy.

 

My mate in CA just gave me a fix if your insignia is scuffed.

He cut a red sticky label to shape of the shoulder piece that matches the gloss, and then applied a cartoon reprolabel on top of that.

He didn’t send pics but I’ll ask him to send some of the process.

He said you can’t even tell the difference

 

Good stuff!