Quick and EASY fix for Kobra Khan's elbows

**FakeEyes22** · April 5, 2012, 01:24am

UPDATE 9/25/12: The yellow Snake Man from the 2-pack(smooth skin) has these same little restrictive nubs since he's got exactly the same arm pieces. Not too bad, but this fix applies to him as well.

Dragon Blaster Skeletor uses the same arms with the nubs, but it doesn't restrict his movement at all. In fact, on him it seems to do what I assume is the intended job of locking the elbows in the bent position. No idea why, but it could be because the limb plastic is slightly softer. It works out well since Skelly's arms are painted blue. A carefully trimmed nub would remain hidden in the joint, but getting all cutty-stabby around a limb covered in paint is potentially risky.
Glad he works fine and that can be avoided.

END OF UPDATE, MOVE ALONG.

So, Kobra Khan's elbows are tight. Really tight. They're at least tough to bend all the way without stressing the plastic on his forearm. I couldn't get one arm 100% straight. I had a hunch, so I went ahead and disassembled the arm of KK and a Merman to figure it out.

This is why:

See that little nub on Khan's disk? Mattel's been using that sometimes lately, as I've noticed on a few DCUC figures. I imagine it's suppose to keep the elbow's tighter or lock them into place, but I'm not entirely sure if it helps. Somewhat recent figures Snout Spout, Demo-Man and Leech also use the original He-Man biceps with this same alteration, but each of those figures has a newly sculpted set of forearms that work very well since they take this bump into consideration. Khan's old Whiplash arms don't.

I fixed this first arm easily enough after disassembling it, even if pegging the forearm back on can sometimes be a pain. Here he is with one elbow made better.

While starting on the next arm, I realized this fix is incredibly easy to do in like 5 minutes without even taking any parts off at all. I've shown the photo of the disassembled arm so you can get a clear look at the nub. The nub is your enemy.

Step 1) Heat that arm up. Toss a mug of water in the microwave until it's hot but not boiling. Or use a hair dryer. Depending on your home, your tap water may get hot enough on it's own for this.

Step 2) The arm is really soft now. Just bend the elbow backwards while it's still warm, and it will bend far enough to expose Evil Nub.

Step 3) Attack Evil Nub! Just slice it off. Or even just the top of it, don't overdo it and dig into the disk. Use a knife, nail clippers, whatever you're comfortable using without scratching the outer surface of the arm. No need to make it a pretty cut, once the arm is cool the elbow won't bend back this far and you'll never see the evidence of your crime.

Steo 4) There is no step 4. That's it. Just heat, bend, cut. Now his arms move with the same effort, stress and range as any other figure in your collection. i think mine moves slightly more, even.

Step 5) Enjoy your Kobra Khan even more. He's awesome!

And if you really want to go nuts, you can go ahead and remove the forearm and cut and sand the bump down that way until it's a beautiful hidden gem, but it's not necessary.

**oICEMANo** · April 5, 2012, 06:31am

Cool thanks for this... but how is the tightness after the op? His elbows aren't loose or anything are they?

**Eternian Poet** · April 5, 2012, 09:52am

Awesome work! Thanks for sharing this! Very useful!

**FakeEyes22** · April 5, 2012, 10:46am

Originally Posted by oICEMANo

Cool thanks for this... but how is the tightness after the op? His elbows aren't loose or anything are they?

Not loose at all on mine, but If you want to play it safe, slice off only some of the bump, try it out, then slice more until you like how it moves.

**Replikor** · April 5, 2012, 04:30pm

Thanks VERY much for this quick fix.

...still think its sad that "we the fans" have to fix all these errors ourselves...

**vancak** · April 5, 2012, 06:25pm

Wow, that's awesome! Thanks for the great (and funny) tutorial!

**masterenglish** · April 5, 2012, 07:46pm

I did notice the more constricted movement on the elbow. Nice job.

**Give In...** · April 5, 2012, 08:47pm

Thanks dude. Did mine with nail clippers. Took about 30seconds each arm.

**kylun flac** · April 5, 2012, 09:17pm

Thank you for this thoroughly & fun how to fix thread.

I'm going to do this.

**darkmoon766** · April 5, 2012, 09:55pm

Thank you sir. Maybe you should be an intern at mattel. After all they can't afford anymore engineers on the line. One at a time don't you know.

**Count Judas** · April 6, 2012, 04:50am

Thanks!! I fixed this problem which bugged the hell out of me since I opened him.
I reached Step 5: "Enjoy your Kobra Khan even more. He's awesome!"

**vid.tracey** · April 6, 2012, 10:46am

Was concerned about this myself, will do this fix myself later.

**Tyke** · April 6, 2012, 03:09pm

Well written! Loved the humorous photos, too....very entertaining read. And I don't even collect MOTUC.

**Lordmylar06** · April 7, 2012, 02:42pm

Great fix suggestion. Easy enough for anyone to do, even if they don't customize!

**Son of Keldor** · April 8, 2012, 11:25pm

awesome tutorial - informative and funny.

=)

**Zodach** · April 18, 2012, 01:31pm

FakeEyes22 - thank you so much for posting this and doing the grunt work! I will be fixing my Kobra Khan later this week and I'm really glad you found a way to do this without removing the elbow pin. I really, really hate having to put those joints back together. I posted your picture and description over at the ask Matty thread on the Matty forums so hopefully Scott can have his design team look at it and avoid having this problem again going forward.

**FakeEyes22** · September 26, 2012, 12:11am

Bump for update regarding Snake Men.

Thread: Quick and EASY fix for Kobra Khan's elbows

Thread Tools

Search Thread

Display

Quick and EASY fix for Kobra Khan's elbows

Posting Permissions