Back to the Future

Wait a minute, Doc. Are you telling me you built a time machine...out of a DeLorean?

 

"I've got a bad feeling about this, Red."
From TF:UK#365 'Return to the Planet of Junk'

 

Together at last!
“Wait, do you hear that…?”
“Not agai…”
*WHOMP!* Welcome home, boys!

 

In the shadow of history… (and my kitchen!)

 

"Tracks, Grapple, Hoist. Heralds of...Unicron?"
From TF:UK#366 'Return to the Planet of Junk'

 

I normally don't like photos of Autobots, especially when they're winning, but these poses are just too damn good. Respect, sir.

 

Earthrise Scorponok is In Stock at BBTS @ 174.99

Transformers Earthrise Scorponok Figure from War for Cybertron

1

 

These two numbnuts.

 

Dang, I like how those two came out a lot. Thundercracker in his natural element. I can just picture Sunstreaker bitching about the sand, lol.

 

Do you sell them? It's the best gun I've seen for ER Prime, a better size than either the standard one or the one from the Centurion set, and it fits him better than the Matrix Workshop version (which I don't love the details on anyway).

 

they would paint the S backwards wouldn't they?

 

My hybrid Quintesson Judges - Earthrise faces and arms, Pit of Judgement bodies and stands

 

I too would buy one if you're selling

 

I'm sure this has been done to death (lI never looked into it) but I just got done trying and doing something I was curious about after my Earthrise copy arrived today.


S3 order (inaccurately coloured Klementia but he was unique so whatever) is on the left

TFTM order (accuratishly coloured highest level judge) is on the right

Swapping the parts is absurdly easy (or at least it was on my copies) because none of it was glued together. In case it hasn't been covered, you will need the following bits (both are common bits in security bit sets):

• CR-Y PZ0 (to remove the screw holding the face assembly to the egg base)

• CR-V PH1 (to remove the first 3 screws then the next 2 screws in the egg base)

Cheating on the face swap:

If you only want to move swap Earthrise faces with POJ faces and keep the existing face order, you can cheat and remove the single screw (using the CR-V PH1 bit) out of each face's backplate then swap them.

You can also cheat by just swapping out the entire rotational section of the egg body. The dark grey rotaional body looked good with the POG egg hat/top and POJ egg base (it looked like a heavy shadow behind the faces) but, it wasn't accurate and I didn't care for it in jail mode. The POJ rotational body with the Earthrise egg hat/top and egg base was too stark of a difference contrast wise for me.


Face order & face backplates:

It's easy to tell which end of the pin has the knurl because neither end of the pin is fully encased in plastic. The bore holes for the pins in the plastic posts of the egg body are larger than the bore holes for the pins in the face backplates, That combined with the open sections on the ends can make it difficult to know if your pin punch is true/level/plum/straight so, go slow and do not rush the process.

If you want to change the face order and/or swap the face backplates, you will need a 1/16" pin punch (I used an actual pin punch with a flat face, not a center punch). I don't know if it's common or not but, several of the pins on both copies came out with minimal pressure just from pushing on the pin punch with my hand. Some of them were more difficult to remove and insert but, I did all the pins with just hand pressure. I'm fairly certain is has to do with the bore diameter of the holes in the face backplates because pins that came out easy, went back in difficult on face location swaps even though the pins went back into the toy in the original locations and knurl direction. You need to exercise caution if you are forcibly trying to remove stubborn pins with hand pressure because, you pin can suddenly move out and strike your hand followed by the pin punch also hitting your hand and drama can/will ensue.

You might wind up with some stress marks on the POJ posts the pins slide through if the pins are stubborn. I didn't have any marks on the Earthrise posts and the marks on a POJ posts were in areas you will never see They were on the top of Rage's posts (it was a really difficult pin and I probably had a bad angle and hand placement) and are obscured with the egg hat/top on or the face flipped up for the prison mode. I might try heat later to try and fade them.


Tentacle swap:

If you want to swap the tentacles, you will need to disassemble the egg base. It was very easy to do so.

Swap the tentacles one at a time between the same locations. Don't try to match tentacle shapes between copies because, it will be rare if not impossible to do so. The green tentacles are a more rigid plastic and each toy is going to have been packaged differently and will have adapted to how the tentacles were sitting. It might be possible to hit them with heat so that everything goes back to how it was out of the mold but, I didn't bother trying because I'm not sure of the plastic composition (e.g. any source of chlorine including tap water will cause POM plastic to start photodegradation and that's a warning sign that the POM plastic has begun to degrade and become brittle) and, there's no telling what the intended shape was (other than boring and identical based on the box art)


Inside the egg base:

There are 3 plastic gears inside the egg base and 3 spring assemblies. Nothing is going to come flying out from pressure. The 3 plastic gears and a spring loaded button will fall out if you don't keep the toy level but, it's impossible to put it back together wrong.


Ramp swaps:

I didn't do any ramp swamps because the contrast would be far too stark in prison mode for me. It would require punching the pins out though and, I have a hunch they are in there really tight.


Shoutout to Hasbro/TakaraTomy (and/or the assembly crew):

Thank you for not filling this toy full of pins (yes it has a lot of pins but yall know exactly what I mean and even the stubborn pins were easy to remove) and glue. I haven't been able to take a Transformer apart with a screwdriver to tinker or part swap for decades. It was really cool to be able to so on the Quintesson Judge in order to create two very distinct toys (that will stand out from the 2 Quintesson Judges that I have in a Pile of Loot to sit under my new highest level movie judge above a pool of Sharkticons).


Final thought:

I would love to have an official redoc of this with the egg body in Unicron blue, Doubt's helmet in that hue between yellow and Constructicon green with the dark tealish-green accents, and so on. In other words, just make a S3 accurate deco/order . . .

 

It's moments like this when I wonder if it was worth it to cancel my $169.99 preorder at BBTS and switch it to Entertainment Earth to save $16.23 after sales tax. I figured everyone's shipments were getting pushed back into October but, I guess not lol. Oh well.

 

Nice! Are those Atari cartridges?