My Joe's legs have dropped off... HELP !!!!!

I stripped him down to change his uniform and his legs dropped off.

It looks like they were held on with the little wooden dowel that's near his left hand in the picture.

Any ideas how to fix this ?? I assume that the cord originally went round a peg of some sort inside the body..but this is no longer there. I've tried several times to get the wooden dowel back in but no luck..and it doesn't seem a proper fix to me.

You are correct in assuming the elastic goes around a peg.

You should be able to open up Joe via screws in his upper back, then the two halves of his torso should come apart, and the legs and head will fall out.

My first instinctual solution is to glue a new peg (like the dowel) to where the old one used to be.


My better thought out, yet highly experimental and untested, solution is to get something like a washer, wide enough to fit in the bottom of Joe's torso, but with an opening not as wide as Joe's opening, with me so far? It sounds a little complex in my head.

Anyway, knot the elastic to your desired leg tightness, and thread it through the hole in the washer thing. Then, stick something like a dowel through it. The dowel should be long enough so that it can't pass through the washer opening.

If you need a diagram of my madness, I'll see what I can do, but it would have to be later tonight or tomorrow as I have work in 37 minutes.

Erm......yeah.....a diagram might be an idea

I think I know what you mean. I'm going to try to glue a replacement peg inside tomorrow.....if it doesn't work I will give your suggestion a try.

My goodness the poor fellow...
Hope you get things figured out...

Not sure if this link would help or not since yours is a talker..
http://kungfugrip.mysite.com/restringing_vintage_joe.htm

Working on talker unit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe5CLcGMT7E

Here is a rather convoluted diagram I whipped up in a couple minutes. Hope you can see past the confusion.

Ah that makes perfect sense...and is much better than the idea I had.

I shall give it a go tomorrow

Thanks Ian

As I said, this is a theoretical fix, and is untested, so be careful.

Cheers Jim ....the talkers legs fit in a different way, but hopefully AY has cracked it and my new fella will be back on his feet later today.

Nice diagram ( I like diagrams ).

Worked a treat and only took 2 minutes to do.

Thanks for the idea and diagram AY.

Nice work Chris

Fantastic! always great to see a trooper ready for action!

Alright, someone save this, because apparently it works a treat.


Are the legs tight enough? (That's why I suggested a knot in the elastic)

Legs are perfect Ian.

I used a fairly thick washer.. probably 16th of an inch thick.

I used a bolt and locking nut across the washer to hold the elastic.

Honestly..it was all done so quickly I almost wanted to strip it down and do it again.