The Energon Pub

I got Dark of the Moon Roadbuster and his arms are really loose, how do I tighten ball joints? Is there a way? and how do I tighten friction joints, the roof of Crankcase is really loose and floppy

Coats of clear nail polish (or any durable paint) should do the trick. Keep putting coats of it on until the ball joint is nice and tight.

Jesterhead wrote:Coats of clear nail polish (or any durable paint) should do the trick. Keep putting coats of it on until the ball joint is nice and tight.

It works except I couldn't find clear nail polish so my Roadbuster now has pink ball joints

sentinelprime1234 wrote:

Jesterhead wrote:Coats of clear nail polish (or any durable paint) should do the trick. Keep putting coats of it on until the ball joint is nice and tight.

It works except I couldn't find clear nail polish so my Roadbuster now has pink ball joints

Sounds FABULOUS!

There's no absolute fix to it that requires any handywork tools. Just coat the ball joint with clear nail polish, sturdy paint, or play doh. No just kidding about the play doh.

I haven't fixed a ball joint, what I usually do is just push my thumb on the ball joint really hard and it sometimes snaps in more. But this doesn't happen all the time. There were just a lucky few times this happened with me. Good luck.

Oh you already fixed it. Sorry, ignore my post.

I still have one thing to say.
Can my sister borrow your nail polish?

FWIW, super glue works if you can't get nail polish.

Take a small piece of paper towel, crumble it up and place it in the socket the ball goes into, then attach the ball joint and the paper towel should add more "mass" to the ball and make the joint more stiff

I prefer super glue, nail polish tends to come off easier.

I have for years ,like some of the others said used Super Glue ,it works great ,by the way .One time though clear tape placed just right worked .That is on my 20th anniversary Optimus Prime's leg where it connects to the body . One day it just came off ,and the glue would not work cause how it is not really a ball joint .Just thought that might help .But yeah use the glue .

I've only once resorted to use super glue to fix a transformer, that was with 2007 movie legends Ratchet. His upper thigh hinges were driving me mad due the fact that they were already losing their stiffness in less than 20 transformations.

-First i spread out his legs about 45° while in car mode so they pointed to the sides.

-Next i carefully applied glue to only one leg first(just to focus on only one leg during the next step) and inject the glue as close to the body/underside of roof between the legs where the hinge is.

-Let it sit for 3 to 10 seconds, the carefully twist the hinge into the desired
direction while even spreading the glue, give it very rest for while twist the hinge some more until you feel its tight enough.

Then repeat steps 2 and 3 for the second hinge. if done correctly the affected hinge should regain its former strength or become even stronger than it was if it supports a heavy part.

I don't know if this technique would works for balljoints if i apply glue, twist the limb around the ball, the quickly pull it off for a while then press it back on and test the sturdiness. so far i've been reluctant to use this on balljoints but if anyone has good advice for balljoints then i'd appreciate it...i have 2 versions of movie bumblebees that are starting to lose their strength in their balls.

HoundimusPrime wrote:Take a small piece of paper towel, crumble it up and place it in the socket the ball goes into, then attach the ball joint and the paper towel should add more "mass" to the ball and make the joint more stiff

Great advice. I just used this on a few of my issues. I knew about the super glue but was putting it off. I'm glad I did.

The best thing about this is that it's non-evasive and no permanent change to the figure.

The paper will wear with use but a sheet of notebook paper might give you 10 years of repair material. Depending on your collection size and use of course.

Thanks HoundimusPrime, that's the answer I've really been looking for.

Super glue is more permanent than nail polish, but that's not necessarily a good thing. If you mess up with super glue, you can really ruin your figure. There's an advantage to being able to remove the nail polish.

I've never tried the paper trick, though, so I'm going to try that. The nice thing about it is that you've got nothing to lose because you can't damage anything with a piece of paper.

Skyfire77 wrote:FWIW, super glue works if you can't get nail polish.

Just don't forget to let it dry before you put the joint back together.

GuyIncognito wrote:The nice thing about it is that you've got nothing to lose because you can't damage anything with a piece of paper.

You underestimate the power of the paper cut.


Personally, I've never had a problem with the glue trick, but up to you!

I don't handle my TF's too much as they're mostly for display, which makes clear nail polish perfect for me. My United FnR has super-loose hip joints right out of the box, but a few coats of nail varnish later, they're tight as can be.

I've always been apprehensive about super glue, especially the watery kind (cyanoacrylate aka CA). If it ever gets onto parts you don't want it to, good luck trying to remove it.

Mine aren't displayed in mind-blowing poses, so i prefer a bit of blu tak. Does the job for me

Sinnertwin wrote:Mine aren't displayed in mind-blowing poses, so i prefer a bit of blu tak. Does the job for me

That's exactly what I used for my United Laser Optimus before I heard of nail varnish! Works pretty well, too. The only thing is that it sometimes rotates out with the joint when you change poses and becomes visible.

SKYWARPED_128 wrote:

Sinnertwin wrote:Mine aren't displayed in mind-blowing poses, so i prefer a bit of blu tak. Does the job for me

That's exactly what I used for my United Laser Optimus before I heard of nail varnish! Works pretty well, too. The only thing is that it sometimes rotates out with the joint when you change poses and becomes visible.

Luckily for me, I'm boring when it comes to displays and just leave them in a standing/neutral position.
I don't know about nail polish... I've read enough to believe that it works, but knowing my luck it'll probably end up on the walls.