Among other things: Stormtrooper busted

So my blog has been dominated by Transformers lately. I know this gripping saga has everyone on the edge of their seat so I'll just say it: yes, all 6 of the TFC Toys "Hercules" project has been released and I got mine at the end of this past week. And "toy-surgery" was a success.

Before I get to that, I also wanted to breifly update that despite having pre-ordered what was said to be a "limited edition," I not only did not get my Sideshow Collectibles "Premium Format Stormtrooper" until 3 weeks after its release date, when I did get it, I discovered that an edition size STILL hadn't been set. That means, the pieces being released are NOT numbered. That didn't so much bother me as this:

The leg on my specimen had broken clean off at the knee. If it had been the other knee, I would consider attempting to repair it. After all, the figure is covered in a body-suit and a repair job could be easily hidden. However this happens to be the leg that has the large metal post that plugs into the base. I'm afraid that having been previously broken, it wouldn't support itself once I set up the display.

Anyhow, it sounds like SSC is swamped with a backlog of customer service issues. I do appreciate at least that a human sent me a message to reassure me that they would handle my complaint in 5-7 days. Not sure if that meant "business days" but Friday rolled around and that afternoon I also got an email about them closing up shop early for the day to do department training, whatever that means. In the meantime, I can only wait.

Anyway, back to the TFC toy-surgery... I'm the kind of fellow who spend an insane amount of money on the likes of toy robots action figures. But I don't do so lightly. So when I'm forced to do DIY projects on it, a lot of my money is at stake. So finding that TFC packaged a replacement hip assembly inside made me both thrilled and nervous at the same time.

Thrilled because I love that TFC figured out a solution to their grinding gears problem that was making their figures literally self-destruct internally and saw fit to provide a fix and then absorb the cost of new parts into the price of their product line. But nervous because... well, the only way to install the new hip on the Heavy Labor figure was to do this:

Yes, that is about $100 worth of action figure disassembled into at least 11 (not counting the individual parts that could come apartment within those; or the screws that held him together) components to get at the waist and hip joint. That was the hard part. Provided you don't mix up the screws and placement, reassembling turned out to be fairly simple.

And lastly, an update on Structure's engine block.

Yes, we can now confirm that all 4 limbs on Hercules share a common port. However - never ever swap legs and arms. I've found that while Heavy Labor's leg connectors have been steadily wearing out, DrCrank's shoulder connectors seem to be a tougher ABS type plastic and have retained their original size and are therefore slightly larger. That's my Public Service Announcement to all fans:

Despite appearances, Hercules's arm and leg connectors are NOT the same size.