The Energon Pub

I just got Takara USA edition Masterpiece Starscream in the mail today. Cleaned off the weathering, made it look gorgeous. First time I transform it, the wing snaps off at the double hinge!!!!!! Now I am not rough with my transformers, I have MP Skywarp, and have transformed it dozens and dozens of times. I do not know if this is fixable, and without the hinge, I cannot see how the wing will stay attached in robot mode. Help!

I suppose I have no choice, tomorrow I will have to try to make two new wing hinge parts out of aluminium, the other hinge is cracked. Has this happened to anyone else's? Is it a problem unique to the White Starscream?

Nah man, it seems you just got a bad one.

Dread_Wing wrote:I suppose I have no choice, tomorrow I will have to try to make two new wing hinge parts out of aluminium, the other hinge is cracked. Has this happened to anyone else's? Is it a problem unique to the White Starscream?

The wing busting all the way off? No, not a normal occurrence, but it has happened once or twice with the green Takara original.

The stress marks on the hinge? Yes, quite common. But with care, those stresses shouldn't turn into fractures.

Now, you said you removed the weathering...I'm assuming you used chemicals to do just that. Others have as well and found that it damaged the figure even more. My guess is it's a combination of the chemicals and stressed plastic.

Was just rubbing alcohol, I have used it to strip transformers many times with no issues. I will keep informed on whether I can make replacement parts or not. (Fingers crossed)

I've not heard of the hinges breaking before so I haven't been particularly careful with my G1 colour SS but there's no evidence of breakage. I wouldn't think rubbing alc is harsh enough to effect it but if the plastic was stressed there perhaps it got inside and damaged it.

The only reason it would be stressed was if the munt in the factory made a mess out of putting in both pins, as I said it snapped the first time I tried to transform it.

Is there a guide here somewhere on how to remove pins? I have done it before and it is always a bit hairy, if I new a more fool-proof way to do it it would help this repair job a lot.

Ouch, I have that figure, it's one of the highlights of my collection. I love it (of course Starscream is my favorite Decepticon) and no joke, if mine had broken I (at the age of 32) would have cried...

I hope you are able to mend it.

Dread_Wing wrote:The only reason it would be stressed was if the munt in the factory made a mess out of putting in both pins, as I said it snapped the first time I tried to transform it.

Is there a guide here somewhere on how to remove pins? I have done it before and it is always a bit hairy, if I new a more fool-proof way to do it it would help this repair job a lot.

Best removal method is to use just the very end of the tip of a soldering iron to warm up the pin and plastic around it just enough to break the bond between them, then using a hammer and something thin enough with a pointed tip, you can easily push the pin out of the hinge.

Just repeat the process to put the pin back in if it's being difficult.

Got the pins out, thank you. (I only bought the soldering iron yesterday) I am going to try to fabricate the damaged parts in aluminium. Going to be a nightmare of a job.

Dread_Wing wrote:Got the pins out, thank you. (I only bought the soldering iron yesterday) I am going to try to fabricate the damaged parts in aluminium. Going to be a nightmare of a job.

Glad it worked for you, though be careful with the aluminum, I'm not even the least bit sure how it'll handle the soldering iron, if it's required to reinsert the pin.

One recommendation I have: If the pin goes in, but doesn't want to stay, you can put a small drop of super glue at one end of it, and that should make it stick in there quite well, perhaps even permanently.

I am hoping to loosen the hinge a bit to try to prevent the same thing happening again (to the white plastic on the other side of the black hinge). The black tab seems enough to support the wing in robot mode even with the hinge snapped off, so a loose hinge should not be a big issue.

Thanks for the advice, it will take a while to make the replacements methinks.

Pardon my ignorance but, Takara USA had weathering paint apps? I have the Hasbro ver, thought all the while that the Takara USA had the weathering effect removed.

It does, they are just a bit more subdued than on the US version.

Dread_Wing wrote:The only reason it would be stressed was if the munt in the factory made a mess out of putting in both pins, as I said it snapped the first time I tried to transform it.

Is there a guide here somewhere on how to remove pins? I have done it before and it is always a bit hairy, if I new a more fool-proof way to do it it would help this repair job a lot.

oops, I forgot you said it was the first time. That's shocking. Even the harshest cleaning chemical shouldn't have done that.

Please let us know how the repairs go!

Victory is mine! We made aluminium sockets and inserted them into the ends of the broken part, using the hollows in the plastic to run a nice big tab into the plastic to glue to. Starscream is back in one piece again!

What a nightmare of a job. When Thundercracker is released the first thing I am going to do it take out the pins on those hinges and loosen the hinges to stop this happening again.