Wednesday, March 17, 2010

How to Destroy Crimson Dynamo

Yes, I confess, I destroyed my Iron Man 2 comic Series 3.75" Crimson Dynamo.

How?

Well, as most of you might know, Dynamo comes with his lower legs attached backwards. (See right pic) This gave him some problems ranging from looking knocked kneed to, in my case, being unable to straighten his right leg. (His left leg was the standard knock knee when straightened.)

So of course I had read all the possible cures for this and decided to remedy the problem.  But I had never done any toy 'fixing' before, but I was eager to try it and confident it would work.

So I boiled some water and stuck dynamo in there.  True enough, his knee joints went soft.  But the water also started to turn red!  And then Crimson dynamo's feet were crimson no more (but brown instead.)

To add to my woes, the lower leg wouldn't come off and I was afraid of tearing the knee joint, so I just let him cool.  But he was never quite the same again and couldn't stand right because of his wobbly knees.  Then I remembered that I could still save the guy if I re-heated the knee joints and the upper and lower legs together a bit, then dunked him in cold water.

Success!  But more red paint came off.  And for some reason, Maroon (feet) Dynamo started to have loose hips.  Now he had tight knees, but still couldn't do a wide stance.  So how was I to take decent pics of him?  On hindsight I think I might've dunked him a little too deep in the hot water, but I figured then that I would use the super glue trick!  For the very first time!  What followed was complete disaster.


Yup, what  you see is the result of too powerful a super glue eating into the hips of Maroon Dynamo.  The more I moved the joint around to ensure it wouldn't be stuck (and instead be nice and tight), the more of Dynamo's ball-joints got sloughed off.  talk about armor eating liquids!

So the moral of the story?  Don't screw around with your toys if you don't know how!  Now when I think back to just over 24 hours ago, Maroo...er, Crimson Dynamo still looked fantastic in all his knock-kneed glory.

The upside?  There's plenty of him out there, so I can go get one more! (And Marvel Universe Cyclops now has an eye-beam accessory of his own.)

And I also managed to fix the loose grip on both my DC Universe Hawkgirl's and Wonder Woman's hands!  Yay!

7 comments:

  1. Sucks about the problems. The less than Crimson Dynamo still looks a good bit of kit though. Great work over at Articulated Discussion

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  2. Hmmmm... so are the hips tighter now, or still loose? Some superglues just leave behind a white residue, which looks more like what happened here. And you could always repaint the feet crimson!

    Stuff like this is disappointing, but the good thing is that you learn from it. It's easy to forget tricks when they go well, but when you have mishaps like this (or the Screw Shoulder Adora incident), you tend to be more careful about certain techniques!

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  3. @Prowl26 - Yeah CD is certainly a good-looking toy. And thanks! I love it when my reviews get read so much over at AD. :)

    @ Wes - Yeah, Windmill Punch Adora is probably the most memorable review on AD. And you're right, learning from screw ups is a great thing.

    The glue left behind a white residue mixed with red paint and perhaps even a bit of plastic. The stuff's so solid I couldn't even exacto knife it away. Heh.

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  4. Any idea on how to fix a figure with 2 right hands? Would snipping off the thumb and gluing it back on the pinky finger side turn it into a passable left? haha

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  5. @Roc - Hm. I wouldn't advise that. The easiest way would be to get a left hand...But somehow that seems like the toughest option as well--where would you find a spare left hand?

    Which figure cam with 2 right hands? Crimson Dynamo?

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  6. You don't fix a figure with two right hands -- you exchange it for a figure with proper appendages. (Unless you just happen to have a bunch of fodder hands around, but even then I'd probably return it.)

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  7. LOL, Wes. You've once again shown your infinite toy wisdom by pointing out the one solution that we've so obviously missed!

    Thanks!--that's why you're the original Wes. ;)

    Yeah, Roc, I hope you didn't throw that receipt away--bring it down and exchange it!

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