Repairs and renovations from my collection

Thought I'd share a few of the repairs I've done on figures in my small collection.

I bought this FRF for a nice price from a fellow UAMHQ member through Ebay a while ago.

The kit was in nice enough condition..



His major problem became apparent upon removal of his beret..





Frankly he looked like his flocked head had been held on a belt sander









I decided to strip the remnants of the flock and leave him as a PH.
Stripped and cleaned the head



Replacement hands



Primer..



layers of paint..









Coats of Matt Cote to seal and finish



Uniform washed lightly, sewn and pressed

Fantastic repair work Dread! he looks terrific!. Its always great too see a vam brought back to fighting fitness!

Fantastic save Dreadnought!

Excellent restoration, he looks great!!!

Nicely done. He has a nice vintage look now.

I love these fix up projects... that is one thing I haven't done so far, is to turn a flock head into a paint head... hrm...

Great job... looks great now!

Thanks very much all for your kind comments. Most of my collection are restores or saves of one kind or another.
Like many, I get a lot of fun out of rebuilding these classic toys from my childhood.

Here's another:

A very nice early PH I got recently, in need of a clean up. He's a nice example of a mix of parts as the limbs are different from regular VAM, they appear to be GI Joe ?







Usual wear and tear on the face and painted hair




He had original hands but a finger missing on this one..



Heavy split here



I started with the hand.



Drilled a tiny hole into the plastic to mount an armature.







Finger re-modelled in milliput.





Once dry I carved, shaped and sanded it using another hand as reference, polished the ragged edges on the rest of it too to smooth the surface a little





Cleaned the face and redid the brows.



Rivets repainted.



Mixed and matched the hair colour.





Mended hand repainted and sealed with Humbrol Matt Cote, as are all areas painted. Very important to seal the paint.







Glue up and clamped that heavy stress crack on leg haven't a clear pic of it, sorry.

Another outstanding re-build Dread! He looks fantastic and more importantly, ready for action! Great little tip that to re build the finger . Very clever stuff indeed! Looking forward too seeing more of these marvelous repairs

WOW! Great job Dread!

M1 Garand Jungle Rifle Rebuild- Got this wreck in a job-lot of stuff late last year and decided to have a shot at fixing it up over the Summer.



Barrel ends completely gone and someone's had a good 'ol chew on it.



Similar to my Arctic rifle fix, which I'll put up later, I very lightly filed it smooth at the snapped barrel end (with the wife's nail file..ssshhh) and fitted it into the vice.
The big problem with the Garand is the slim double barrel. I drilled a double receiver hole VERY slowly into the old rifle end.





That done, I needed suitable material to construct the barrel. Many do wonders with nails, which I've used in the past but I prefer strong but slender barbecue sticks.





Length was the next issue and I didn't have a full model for comparison. Fortunately, signalman on HQ has a great guide on varying weapon lengths with the intact Garand coming in at 7.25 inches. So I measured for that.



To replicate the sight I slipped a piece of electrical cable casing over the twin barrels and added a small piece of barbecue stick on the inside top, reasonably similar to the original mold.







Looks fairy passable?

Started adding some base coats of paint to fill in those pits and holes on the old parts.





Oops loose brush hair on the wet paint in this close up I did remove it and let the paint dry.



For the missing strap ring, I cut and twisted the looped end on a brass safety pin - bottom bit.



Back to the vice and drill a receiving hole for it.



Glue it into position. Paint it black when it's dry to match the barrel arrangement.





Final coats of black and matt stone to match the original.









A few coats of matt varnish and a black strap later and my 50th boy models it with a Jungle ensemble.





Heck, he even got out into the garden with it.  

WOW! Nice job repairing the rifle!
Great pics!

Wow! Outstanding rebuild Kev! I bet many folks would have wrote it off. but this proves that with a little creativity they can become as good as new!

now, i've an idea for my m1 garand...thanks

Nice work... really like the effort that goes into reviving a fallen figure and accessories... great stuff!!

Excellent work, great repair work

Hi Kev,

I'd missed the FRF fix in the thread - that was really cool . I really like the care and attention you give to the figures you bring back to full active service -I salute you !!

What do you do on the display front? - I have an Ikea Billy book case and the rest of the lads are in various plastic storage boxes in my home office

nicely displayed Gunner,

Fantastic stuff Steve! better than the downstairs loo!

Nice Steve. You have a far bigger outfit than me though.
Unfortunately my house is rather low on available display / storage area - I got a lot of hobbies !!

I have about 12 to 14 of my figures on the shelves in my home office- I'll post a pic later. Like you, I store the rest in plastic boxes wherever I can hide 'em.

Those Billy Bookcases are pretty smart. Might visit my local IKEA and avail myself of one or two of those.

Nice display GM!

Nice repair work, Dreadnought! Really has to give you a great feeling returning this equipment back to displayable condition!

Nice display Gunner! Nice that you don't have to clean the lavatory every time you want to take pics...  

I have to say my collection definitely resembles your second photo.

[b]Modifying damaged EE Grippers to take Hand Pegs.[/b]

Had a few damaged hands lying around ..



The one on the right is still fairly serviceable though I might put a peg and rivet in it and use it in a Hybrid bod. The left was fairly damaged and wouldn't go on an EE dynamic wrist anymore. I think it was melt damaged?
So I took a 40th wrist peg (beside it) and set about joining the two together.

First take off the damaged end with a very sharp blade.





Your hand should look something like so if you've cut the damaged end off cleanly. You can lightly sand it smoother if you prefer but its not really necessary.



Next the tricky stuff. Into the vice - safety first guys !!! Then take a selection of VERY small drill bits and fashion a receiving hole for the 40th peg.



After several shots with different sizes and plenty of care not to break the outer surface it'll look a bit like this.
I also found it helped to trim the peg end down slightly to aid fitting.



A dab of glue and firmly push hand and peg together and it looks good.



Here it is beside an original on the left. The older hand peg is longer than the 40th but that difference is invisible when the peg is in the the arm socket.

Nice repair!
You sure have a talent for fixing things up!

Couple more FN SLRs and a Garand up for re-barreling this past weekend.



Usual problem - barrels snapped clean off. The two SLR variants were even of the later 'flared' type to strengthen the barrel but still bust.



Drilled a couple of starter holes in the Garand - Difficult bit is keeping them straight, or the finished effect will be crooked.



For the SLRs, just drilled straight into the flared end to keep the feature and help seat the new rod nicely.



As some of you'll know, I'll deploy anything that looks usable so found these green rods that are used for staking small plants.

Fairly nice fit - bit of ABS rod / tubing over it for flash suppressor.

Top weapon is an intact piece for reference.







Tried it on the Garand, using a previous repair as a basic guide. The bolt is gone on this too so may refashion that.





Primer:



Began re-modelling the sight on this one with trusty 'ol milliput, a tricky little job.



In between filing and sanding it'll need re-priming.



Doesn't look much yet but getting there.



After I was happy with shape, I re-primed all three and gave them final coats of silver for Garand and black for the SLRs.














Also painted these two handguns up. Colt has a replaced trigger guard whilst the Lebel is a cheap, translucent looking repro mold from the Walmart Sea Adventurer - should have taken a previous shot but it looks much more solid now I think.

Nice repair work Kev!!!