My latest Projects

Myles_Falworth wrote:

Daryl,  Thanks for the tip!  I had not tried just twisting the knee.  It worked!  

I'm glad to hear it Myles! I for one don't want to have to learn how to put in rivets.

Tonight I went through one of my boxes of Joes. I keep two large boxes (from Cotswold) filled with the white coffin boxes for figures. They're mostly filled with Joes, and a couple with equipment. I'm trying to neaten up my study, and make more room on desktops for vehicles. I'm also preparing for the Kentuckiana Gi Joe and Toy Show in July. I was searching for 3 talkers that have either broken or pulled out strings. I'll be sending these off to Scott Wild, who has done talker repairs for me in the past. If you send him figures enough prior to a major show he'll be at, he will have your completed figures ready for pickup at the show. I did this two years ago and was very happy with his work. This year once again I have three figures which need professional help. So now I have three. I almost sent a very broken down Commander I have, but I found after some fiddling that all he really needed was a new speaker. So now all I have to do is reassemble that Commander, and he'll be ready to rejoin the Adventure Team. I'll have pics when he's done. The rest will have to wait for Kentuckiana. I'm really looking forward to the show.

I'm glad to hear that Scott Wilde has done good by you. He totally screwed me over.

He had my figure for at least a year, then sent me back a figure that wasn't mine,
and he would only say one phrase.

Cost me $40 or $50 dollars between repair parts (leg restring kit) talker repair and shipping.
So my AT commander is still in a state of disrepair.

So, like I said, I'm glad he is doing right by you.

Daryl, I'm sorry you had a bad experience. Question...Did you give him the figure at a show? I think that screws him up since so many do. He always tells me, when I contact him about Joes to repair, how he wishes everyone would mail them ahead of time rather than dropping them off.

My sending him my AT commander for repair had nothing to do with a show.

There were no shows happening when I sent it to him.

Well, I guess I'll find out if I was just lucky. I'm sending my figures today, and will let you know after the show how it went. (fingers crossed)

I got back from the Kentuckiana show on Monday. I picked up my three talkers from Scott, and they are in good shape. I'm happy with his work, and will likely give him more Joes to restring someday. He also does some vehicle repairs, so I may try that out too.

 Starting to catch up on my posts here.  I posted a few things on the old Trenches site, but didn't put here until now.  This is from 6/20/21:  Just placed a large (for me) order with Cotswold's. I'm stocking up on helmet clips, d-rings tent poles/stakes, and pilot mask plugs. Also picking up repros of hard to find comics like Jaws of Death, Attack at Vulture Falls, and the Atomic Man Training Center. I've decided that the 1975 AT stuff is just too hard to find, and way too pricey to pursue all of it in vintage. Reading Derryl DePriest's wonderful "The Collectible Gi Joe" clued me in the the rarity of these sets, which weren't in as much demand by 75. I also went through all of my belts last night, and counted the ones that need sliders. Unfortunately Cots doesn't carry tan colored sliders. But I'm picking up a few of the green ones and some of the white ones too. I want to get my belts in good enough shape that they are all useable, and then will outfit the Joes who need them. I also found only one intact holster in the 20 or so I had in my belts bag. My newest Green Beret got that one. Here's a quick pic of my two complete Green Berets. The one on the left is the newest member of the team. The new GB is the soldier with the ATV from my recent post on the Latest Finds page.

Post from 7/2/21: My newest project will be fairly small. I just won and received 7 Joe heads from Ebay. I have at least 5 or 6 Joes in storage that have various problems with their faces, or in the case of two PH Joes, they're both pinheads, and I hate pinheads! So both of those Joes will get newer noggins which work better with the various hats and helmets, and just look better. I'll try to match hair color, but failing that, at least the rivet color. I will probably end up with 7 heads which I'll sell probably on Ebay. I'll post some pics here with before and after for each figure so you can see the improvement. I'm looking forward to doing this, since it's easy, and will make a huge difference in my collection.

Hey Joeheads! I mostly finished a project tonight. It's for the blonde foreign-headed talker at post from 12/24/20 above. I had his voice box fixed by Scott Wilde. He turned out to be a talking Action Pilot! So I found an orange flight suit for him, but will fish out an older one with the tabs on the waist to honor this older Joe. He is waiting on boots which are currently on their way to my storehouse. I fixed the right arm tonight. I found that a "placeholder" upper arm I put on before shipping him to Scott, matches the rivet color very well. Also, the part just under the shoulder piece detached very easily due to a crack in the replacement shoulder part. However this allowed me to "plug" the rest of the original arm right into place. So now I have an all-vintage repair, which looks identical to the original broken part, and is holding in place nicely. His voice works, and he is now ready for re-outfitting, and to report for duty in the local US Air Force Joe unit. Located in my study. I will post photos of him tonight. Aim High!!!!

Now on to the next minor project. I repaired a Fighter Pilot helmet today. I had all the piece from a lot I purchased a long time ago. Today I got brave enough, and put a couple of spots of epoxy on the contact spots where it separated, and then held it together for about a minute. Here are the results. I think the visor scratch is from abrading against the helmet when the visor opens and shuts. It's also hard to pull it down, but easy to put back up. Hope I did it right!

Good to see all the effort you are putting into restoring older Joes to return them to service! I fixed a few of mine that I found years back, but didn't proceed to go into following this side hobby of fixing older Joes. I spent my efforts buying and outfitting newer Joes mainly since I discovered that Cotswold Joes were essentially the same as the original Joes made by Hasbro, plus Cots had all the various headsculps both painted and flocked available.

I buy a lot from Cotswold. So far it has mainly been diving suits, and the odd piece of Elite Brigade clothing, but mostly restring kits and Geyperman action hands. I do like the "Jake" headsculpt though, and will likely buy a Jake figure sometime in the not distant future. For now, I still have plenty of Joes needing work. It's the result of buying a couple of large lots with figures I thought I would sell, to finance my collection - but which I instead decided to fix up and keep.

This Adventure Team Commander was a stand alone purchase from Ebay in February of 2019. He was originally dressed an olive sweater, an old patched and faded Action Man overcoat, and some modern pants. He had two broken arms, and upon further inspection, also had a broken off peg in the chest section which normally secures the legs to the body. The legs were instead held on by a modified paper clip. Other than these major flaws, the body is in decent shape. He came with tall black boots, so he needed new short black boots. He also did not have a shoulder holster and pistol, and needed to have his voice fixed as the string does not function. The flocking was in decent shape. The eyebrows have some minor rubs, however I decided not to repaint. I eventually decided to continue the restoration. I purchased a talker torso and neck post for $18.77 from Ebay which was delivered on Nov 25, 2019.

I added the upper arms to the box on 6/16/21, and also discovered that the talking mechanism still works! The speaker was old and deteriorated. Swapping the speaker from the torso purchased with the neck post brought a good voice back! Tonight, I did the swap-out. Fortunately it wasn't too difficult to fish the chain though the string loop, and then out of the chest, and then to put it through the hole on the new chest, and reattach the bead chain and AT dog tag. Everything else was simple, except that the feet were really stuck in the old boots (Fighting Yank?) which were too small for Joe's big feet. I finally got the feet out using a pair of needle-nosed pliers. So the figure also had a very dirty face. I washed it tonight, and he is drying in a hand-stand position to keep water out of the chest cavity. Later tonight, or tomorrow morning, I will post an "after" photo set, showing this figure finally dressed in his AT finery. For now, there are a few shots of the original figure as he was presented in the Ebay ad for you to look at.

Always great to see the process of old figures being returned to their former state!

Here is the AT Commander, finally reassembled, talking, and uniformed for his commanding role in the Adventure Team!

I'm glad to see your AT Commander in great shape!
I wish mine was in that shape.

But the way Scott Wilde completely screwed me over,
I will NEVER send him another talker for repair.

Daryl

TNshooter wrote:

I will NEVER send him another talker for repair.

I don't know if this is the case with Joe "talkers" but I have found a few others, including a Max Steel supposed vocalist that was now silent and I think much of the problem is that kids just couldn't resist putting their men in water.

Myles_Falworth wrote:

Here is the AT Commander, finally reassembled, talking, and uniformed for his commanding role in the Adventure Team!

Your Commander looks nice and clean and ready to pass out assignments! Good job.

LeStryge wrote:

I don't know if this is the case with Joe "talkers" but I have found a few others, including a Max Steel supposed vocalist that was now silent and I think much of the problem is that kids just couldn't resist putting their men in water.

My AT Commander spoke all phrases, but slowly. The figure I got back was not the same one,
and it only spoke one phrase. The string on the one I sent had clear color spots on the string,
the one I got back the string was so worn you couldn't see the colors on the string.

I have a Max Steele talking figure, and he talks fine.

If you want to hear "Going Turbo!"

TNshooter wrote:

I have a Max Steele talking figure, and he talks fine.
If you want to hear "Going Turbo!"

Is he the one with the light-up biceps when you bend his elbow?
That's the one I found and his biceps still light up but he doesn't say anything, despite there being holes in his chest.
There apparently was one that went "Wheeeee.." or somesuch when you threw him up or zoomed him around.
See here right down the bottom:
https://one-sixth.blogspot.com/search?q=max+steel

I don't see Max Steele at the bottom of the page, but I do have a knockoff
of him and MAM on bodies that have light up arms. But as I recall they have
weapon firing sounds. The were sold at a dollar store.

The one I have, which I need to dig to find him, says three phrases.
The one I remember was "Going Turbo!". I don't remember the two other
phrases. I will have to find him to see what else he says.

This AT Commander is the second one I will add to my permanent collection. He is the first talker I have successfully repaired by myself, and he was played with hard back in the day. So he has become one of my favorite Joes, even though he is far from perfect. I will make other upgrades to him, to get his voice louder. I may also eventually replace some of the shoulder parts to better match his other rivets. All I know for sure is I like this figure, and so he got my best AT Commander uniform. Very proud of this Gi Joe.

TNshooter wrote:

I don't see Max Steele at the bottom of the page, but I do have a knockoff
of him and MAM on bodies that have light up arms. But as I recall they have
weapon firing sounds. The were sold at a dollar store.

Below are the redacted bits from that article I was referring to.
My bloke is the one with the light-up arm, but although he has a back button (NOT on his chest!) and those frontal little holes for the voice to be heard, I haven't as yet been able to get him to utter anything, ...not even "Going Turbo"!

The talker-torso can be identified by the speaker holes in the chest, an activating button on the front (the "third nipple" on the right pec), and a three-position slide switch on the left side of the body.
There's also a battery door on the back, secured by a screw. The bit of cloth ribbon is intended to make it easier to remove the button batteries, and normally would be tucked inside out of sight. The torso is otherwise the same size and shape as the standard one, and this doesn't limit the articulation in any way.

The slide switch has three positions, off, button activation, and motion activation. The first position is self-explanatory. In the second, a sound clip is activated when the chest button is pushed. As I recall, Max's vocabulary (at least in the versions I have) is pretty limited. He will alternately say "Going Turbo!" or let out a "yeeee-HAAAA!" worthy of the Dukes of Hazzard.

The motion activation is more interesting. This kicks in the voice chip when the figure is moved drastically. I think this figure was originally built around the concept of tornado surfing, believe it or not, and came with something like an aerial snow-board. The child could swoop and flip Max through the air, and he'd shout and whoop enthusiastically in response.
AND
The left arm is a less articulated arm from a Super Action body. The torso has a battery compartment, and the right arm is a special part. Moving the elbow activates a led light feature visible in a clear window in the bicep. Because of the lever that activates the feature, that elbow loses its ability to rotate.

This is one of my latest projects.  He's an old Joe with slotted shoulders, beefy hands and baby feet.  His arms are broken just below the shoulder joint, and he has badly cracked calves, but most other parts are not too bad.  He was a soldier, so a soldier he will remain.  If he cleans up well, he may become my West Point cadet, but I think more likely he will be outfitted in olive fatigues with combat jacket, rifle and helmet.  We'll see.  First I need to find good replacement parts for the arms. I got this one in the mail on 8/18/21. I haven't worked on him at all yet. I haven't found motivation to do so. I hope to work on him soon, and get him restored. I already know I'm going to replace the ball joints. I have another old Joe in much worse shape who will donate them.