The medic needs a medic! Fixing First-Aid's arms
Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2017 11:36 pm
So I got Unite Warriors Defensor a week ago, and it's a pretty nice set. Definitely scratched an itch. Oddly enough, I was looking forward to First Aid and Streetwise more than the quasi-exclusive Groove (as far as I was concerned, they're all exclusive... never saw the Protectobot wave in stores once). All was well and good at first...
But then I noticed that First Aid couldn't hold his foot gun.
Ack! Why his elbow hurt?
Well, I looked closer and noticed that the elbow joint was bowed out a bit. Not only could it not hold weight, but it also popped off at the elbow when rotating the arm laterally.
So, I clearly had a little project to do. The forearm already had holes drilled, so the best fix was to reinforce the joint with a metal pin. The first thing to do was to get a pin the right size. In this case, that pin was a nail.
The next thing to do was to get a drill bit of the same diameter, and - SUPER IMPORTANT - use the drill bit a size or two smaller.
The reason is that, when removing the flashed plastic from a drilled hole, you can widen the hole slightly. Using a drill bit that's a little smaller than the goal diameter leaves you a margin of error.
But anyway, the basic idea was still "drill hole, insert pin." And it worked. Then I just had to cut down a nail to the same width as the elbow and use a vise to put it back together.
Finally, reassembly! A working, ratcheting elbow!
I repeated the process the next day on the other elbow for no other reason than to satisfy a bit of OCD (that arm worked fine to begin with), and First Aid's all better. And none of it matters because he'll spend an indefinite amount of time combined with the rest of the Proctobots, but whatever. It's really bizarre because Off-Road's elbows work just fine. The plastic tolerances for First Aid's were just the perfect combination of too tight for the inner elbow (the red part) and too loose for the outer elbow (the white part). Not sure if it's widespread or just a bit of bad QC, but it was a relatively easy fix.
But then I noticed that First Aid couldn't hold his foot gun.
Ack! Why his elbow hurt?
Well, I looked closer and noticed that the elbow joint was bowed out a bit. Not only could it not hold weight, but it also popped off at the elbow when rotating the arm laterally.
So, I clearly had a little project to do. The forearm already had holes drilled, so the best fix was to reinforce the joint with a metal pin. The first thing to do was to get a pin the right size. In this case, that pin was a nail.
The next thing to do was to get a drill bit of the same diameter, and - SUPER IMPORTANT - use the drill bit a size or two smaller.
The reason is that, when removing the flashed plastic from a drilled hole, you can widen the hole slightly. Using a drill bit that's a little smaller than the goal diameter leaves you a margin of error.
But anyway, the basic idea was still "drill hole, insert pin." And it worked. Then I just had to cut down a nail to the same width as the elbow and use a vise to put it back together.
Finally, reassembly! A working, ratcheting elbow!
I repeated the process the next day on the other elbow for no other reason than to satisfy a bit of OCD (that arm worked fine to begin with), and First Aid's all better. And none of it matters because he'll spend an indefinite amount of time combined with the rest of the Proctobots, but whatever. It's really bizarre because Off-Road's elbows work just fine. The plastic tolerances for First Aid's were just the perfect combination of too tight for the inner elbow (the red part) and too loose for the outer elbow (the white part). Not sure if it's widespread or just a bit of bad QC, but it was a relatively easy fix.