The Energon Pub

So I recently bought Beast Hunters Lazerback (or Razorback as I immediately rechristened him, as Lazerback is a silly name) and I thought he was a neat little toy. Nice articulation, cool sculpt and great colours (and a really menacing beast mode). Unfortunately, one of his arms started getting loose- the shoulder balljoint to be exact. So I tried the patented superglue technique to tighten it up.

Now, I'm not sure if this is a one-off case or if the plastic quality has been taking a sharp dive recently (which would be odd as his plastic certainly feels good) but rather than forming a buffering layer and tightening the joint, the glue bond has been stronger than the plastic and has been shearing off layers of the ball joint, thus practically ruining his shoulder. Added superglue has only made it worse. Now it barely sits in the (clogged with glue and plastic shavings) arm socket and the ball is more of an egg.

What's going on here? Is this normal? I've had no problems using superglue to tighten joints before. Can I fix it? I have some Revoltech joints, could I replace it with that?

The choice of super glue was a bit of a bad idea, as that's pretty strong stuff. Trust me, I know as I used nail glue, rendering joints immobile. A safer option would be clear nail polish, multiple layers, on both the ball and socket. It's easy to get and cheap too. Just ignore the ladies looking at you funny

Yeah, I'd recommend clear nail polish instead of glue. Not much you can do about it now, but a good lesson for the future. Fortunately you can probably replace him without much difficulty.

Any modeling clear coat you can brush on (Testor's, Tamiya, etc) will also work, as most of these are made specifically to be safe on plastic. I prefer this as nail polish can be a huge crapshoot, quality wise, but it does cost more ($2-$4 a bottle vs. next to nothing)

Well, the ball was completely slagged- large amounts of plastic had been shaved off by the glue proving to be stronger than the poopy polymer- and no amount of gloss varnish or kitchen paper was going to solve that.

So I hacked the useless stump off, drilled some holes in the arm and shoulder, and gave him a Revoltech joint instead. Good as new!

Still, this is possibly the soonest after purchase I've ever had to perform drastic surgery on a Transformer- I seriously hope this was a one-off QC issue and that Hasbro's plastic isn't seriously that crap now. I've used the superglue treatment on everything from Superlink Brawl to Movie Stockade, and it's always worked up till now. This does not bode well...