Sixth Army Group

[heinrichss]

Stupid people, like myself, don't know where to find ball joints for the neck upgrades I have been seeing around a lot lately. So, I had a brilliant idea:puhlease : how about making my own ball joint? How hard could it be? Turns out it is very easy...well...sort of. So here is a tutorial to show how I did it. It looks messy in the end but it will be covered so the cosmetics do not really concern me too much.

If one of you more talented people out there could find a way to improve on this, I would love to hear about it.

Tools needed:
Strong glue (I use Liquid Nails and Loctite epoxy)
Needle nose pliers (or other comparable holding devices)
Scraps of sheet styrene (.80 thick)
a small ball (made mine out of Plumber's Epoxy)
a stick (used styrene rods)
Drill
Dremmel (with the facing bit)
A head (I used Lothar and Paul)
Hobby knife
Grill lighter
Rubber Band


First I drilled a hole about half way through the ball. The size depends on the size of the rod you are going to use.
Be sure to hold the ball with the pliers. Then chase the ball as it rolls off the table and onto the floor.



Next chase the ball, then put the rod in the hole using glue to hold it. The glue should have enough time to have a working cure by the time you finish the next steps.


Cut the neck from the figure along the jaw and about 1/4 inch under the back of the hairline on the neck.


Cut two pieces of sheet styrene to about twice the size of the ball. No certain shape is necessary.



Use the grill lighter to heat the center of the sheet styrene until it looks glossy. Then use the rod to press the ball into the styrene. Be careful not to overheat, the styrene could become very thin. You will need to make the first styrene mound more than half the diameter of the ball. Repeat the last step only make the mound a little less than half the diameter of the ball.


After you have the two sexy mounds done (no pun intended) you will need to drill a hole through the center of the larger mound. The hole will have to be large enough to accomodate the rod and part of the bottom of the ball.

The two mounds should look something like this:


With the rod inserted and the ball sticking slightly out of the bottom, glue the two halves together and wrap them with a rubber band.


After the glue dries, use the dremmel to shape the piece until it fits snuggly inside the base of the head. Not to small or it will just fall in the head and you will have to heat the head to get the damn thing out. It should look like this (a lolipop, where do you think I got hte idea;) ?) when everything is dremmeled to size.


Next insert the piece in the head and glue (preferably glue the inside of the head so the excess runs into the head where you won't see it). Yeah, I know, I know that now!!



Cut the rod to a little longer than the old neck that was attached, drill the same size hole in the base of the neck stump that you drilled in the ball, insert stick, then glue. Here you have it, a poorly devised way that a cheap man makes a neck joint.


Next step: Clean favorite Slayer shirt!


If you have any helpful suggestions, please let me know. But remember, I did this to avoid butchering one of my dolls for a ball joint and didn't want to spend 10$ at Wal-Mart for a toy that I would only be using one piece out of.

Thanks for looking.


Here are some pics of Lothar:



...and Paul and Lothar together. Notice the height difference. I also made both of them thinner.

[Sixth Vanguard]

Excellent post Heinrich, thanks for taking the time to put it all together

A little constructive criticism if you don't mind.
The neck looks great in the prone position, but the standing Lothar neck looks a bit long, and head to the side Paul pose looks really odd.

Another source for ball joints is a kids building toy called ZOOB. My brother has done some great figures (comic book type characters) with ZOOB in place of some of the joints. I'll see if I can find some pics.

Again, thanks Heinrich

[heinrichss]

Thanks. I don't mind making my own joints, I just need to tweek them a bit. These were the first two I did.

Thanks again, it was no problem doing it.