The Energon Pub

Hello,

This is my very first post at Seibertron.com Ive always loved visiting the site and looking at everyone's customs. Its spurred me to try my hand at it myself!

If I may ask, where can I get some of the ball-joints, sockets and other movable digits you folks use on your customs? Points of articulation, I guess is what Im asking for.

The only hobby store near me is a Hobby Town USA and while they carry brass rod, styrene sheet and glues, anything more genre-specific is beyond the range or products they carry. So I am wondering if there is an on-line shop to get such articulation joints from?

Im going to scratch-build based on the scale of the Masterpiece line. I have Optimus Prime and will be scaling my scratch-build off of his height. I dont want to get to gung-ho in posting my grandiose plans, for fear that should I not be able to complete the project and I might look like one of those guys who talks a lot, but doesn't follow through.

Im an artist by trade, I illustrate for the gaming industry. But I also make a lot of physical objects too. I do blacksmithing, leahter working, costuming and even prototyping (lightly). So my plate is always rather full and it takes me months to see the completion of any of my just-for-fun projects

I built my own thermo-forming machine and have been making costume armour on it. I have built a smaller version for the standard styrene sheets sold at hobby stores and will be using that here and there on this TF scratch-build. So hopefully I can end up with something I will be very proud of.

I imagine I will be posting several questions and picking everyone's brains over the coming months I hope that is okay. The community here seems very nice.

Kindest regards,

the only online shop that i have found selling ball joints is here...

http://www.hlj.com/index.html

they sell all sorts, the flexible pipe is particularly good for fingers, i know they ship to the usa, but i havnt tried here in the uk yet, i peronally scavenge ball joints from other toys for the most part (lego bionicle is great for large ball joints) or scratch build them from threaded (usually steel) beads (for the ball) and epoxy putty for the sockets...

hope that helps...

That is brilliant, using the Lego technic line for some of the joints! And thank you for the link to Hobby Japan! That helps immensely!!

EDIT: Another couple of questions. Ive spent the last couple of hours looking at the different joint types. Ball joints, T-joints, H-joints and the like. Im starting to get an idea of what I want to use. SIZE however, is foreign to me.

How do I know what size to choose? Does it matter? Should I use large-sized ball joints on a large mech model? Or will a small one do just as well?

Sizes commonly listed are 3mm through 6mm. Is that size of the ball itself? OR the ball plus shank?

Any pros and cons to metal versus plastic/acrylic? Ive been hearing good things about Yellow Sub's acrylic ball joints. But what about the metal ones used in RC models? Are they too heavy to use in a plastic model? I imagine the metal versions would last almost forever on a simple light-weight model/toy.

Again, I am so very gracious for the help being offered to me. Thank you ever so kindly!

Bionicle ball joints all the way. I made my first scratch build with nothing but bionicle parts. I no longer have it/them anymore and no pics either. Try an erector set too.