Retoring a vintage Castle Grayskull

[simensays]

[Geuse]

Very nice work. I'm curious about the spring you mentioned in the jaw bridge. I'm fixing up mine as well and glued it together some months ago and wasn't aware of that there was supposed to be a spring inside. I assume it should've been inserted in one of the pegs? Also all evidence of a spring was long gone.

[simensays]

I've bought a couple of Castle Grayskull more to restore, and just opened the Jaw Bridge to repair it - I might have been a bit to hopeful in my assumption that there was ever a spring in there... It's an easy fit and install, if one is to bother to pry the jaw bridge apart, which does add a logical functionality to the locking mechanism. The prying open the two parts making the jaw bridge however is a tedious one though. Still, not too difficult if you go slow. I did the second one in a few minutes. I'll post some pics of the process.

Also, here is a link to the Wooden Floors I designed: download.
It's a PDF, A4 format (covers one floor).

[simensays]

This Jaw Bridge had a broken tab/pin, but luckily I received part of the remaining broken bits. It would need some major strengthening though, as simply gluing it back on would not be sufficient.

I pried the main parts open, using an X-acto knife, working slowly along the seams.








Here is the spring I mounted, to make the lock spring operated and lock by itself.



First, I glued the small piece with the pin back into place, with a tiny bit of superglue, just to keep it in the correct location for further strengthening and repair. Then, I used a two comp epoxy, and coated the inside repair area with a healthy layer, overlapping the repair joint quite a bit, to make a sturdy "weld" for the parts. When that had cure, I still needed a way to build up the area where the missing bits where. I used epoxy putty, which would give me a hard and secure finished result, filling up all the volume of the broken off part - and allowing me to shape and mold the structured wooden grains in the front at the same time. The putty only has a few minutes working time before curing, so I had to work quickly, but if needed can be cut/sanded later.

[simensays]

After complete curing, I then went over the seams to fill any small gaps with a little superglue (epoxy for bigger gaps if any), set to dry and sanded for a smooth seamless finished result.




Then some Tamiya Fine Surface Primer was sprayed, and the Jaw Bridge is stronger than new, and ready for paint.

[chrisbryan]

This is amazing!!! Great work! I am planning on repainting my grayskull soon........

Chris

[passiondesigns]

Clap clap clap, beautiful work!

[simensays]

I was asked to make a version of my FootLocker stands for the figures with the big claw feet, Like Buzz-Off, Whiplash and variants of Clawful - so I did. Here is the ClawLocker.
The Original FootLocker can easily be modified to fit these figures already, simply by cutting away the heel cap, only leaving a small peg of it - as seen on the ClawLocker below. The optimal stance angle for preserving the internal leg rubber is maintained, which is very important to me, and probably should be for anyone collecting vintage loose figures, which is lacking in all the other MOTU stand I've seen popping up.






I guess I'll have to make one for the Teela & Evil-Lyn figures as well now...

[simensays]

Finally got around to making the Simensays Ladylocker...

[stprime]

awesome paint.

[CybertOOn]

These stands are great for the ladies! They also work on vintage Princess of Power figures.

[capitrueno]

Hi!

Congrats on the great restoring. I got a complete Castle Grayskull a few weeks ago (I'd been waiting over 30 years for it). I'm trying to fix it as faithful to the original as possible. However, I think the 3D models for the cardboard parts. Did you finally make them?

BTW, I plan to order some of your amazing stands.

[simensays]

I have not had the time to design the 3D version of the various card inserts for the CG yet, but it is on my list! Unfortunately, Shapeways, whom I use for printing all my 3D designs, have gotten a new CEO - whom I think should get canned - as their services has only gotten worse, more expensive, their website has gotten less intuitive to use - and their new logo straight up sucks. Pretty sad stuff really, and all tough I can live with most of the new downgrades - the old pricing was already very high, now it's gotten higher. I do not add any markup to my series of figure stand on Shapeways, but I think prices are no longer competitive. After using Shapeways since the early beginning, I might look elsewhere for my future projects. That said, models added to their site prior to the update, like the Footlockers haven't gotten a price bump - and Shapeways print quality is top of the notch (especially for laser sintered nylon (material called Processed Versatile Plastic on SW) which I find superior for applications like this, over most other available materials), hands down - just getting too greedy, and having to cover all the stupid changes they've made to their corporate identity mentioned earlier.

Sorry for the rant - I'm a happy camper again now!

I did make some replacement wing pegs for my broken WindRaider wings, that will arrive shortly, so I'll post some pics of the installation.

[simensays]

Since there is little to no chance of finding a Wonder Bread He-Man here in Europe, I set out to make a custom one to have in my collection. I did this a couple of years ago, along with a cardback with a Savage He-Man illustration as part of the 8 back. I've yet to print them, and these are just some 3D renderings I made - but I've had the print files ready for ages, so will get a set made, so I can finish this project.

[Atolm]

that card back is so brilliant mate!

[simensays]

After making the print files, I made some 3D models of the card. Then the ball was rolling, so I designed a blister and a mini comic - playing with the same theme of Savage He-man beeing heavily inspired by Conan. These are just 3D renderings, but now I have all the print files ready for printing, so I can make this project real.

[oICEMANo]

This thread is full of amazing stuff!! Love the restoration (what about your well of souls??)

The foot stands are great as well... I would want them in clear plastic

[simensays]

Got some awesome custom designed Origins parts today from France. I am blown away how good the sculpt of the Conan head/sword/necklace is! I bought a Savage He-Man head also (same head without the crown/head band). I found these on Instagram, from a designer named @bujubu (Mega Customx on facebook). He makes a lot of very cool custom sculpts and accessories - way better than anything I've seen so far, and he's also a super nice guy to deal with.

[simensays]

On a trip to IKEA I picked up a couple of deep frames that I thought would be ideal to display a couple of my vintage figures in. The frame is called SANNAHED and measures 25x25cm/12x12". In order to position the figures inside the frame I needed a mount that could hold the figures. I designed some small brackets/mounts that keep the figures spaced out a little from the backboard, held in place with a thin metal wire, looped around the gap in the waist of the figures. I cut some white cardboard for backboards, entered and punched two holes for the mount and attached the figure with the wire, before mounting it inside the frame.











The plan is to choose my fav 9 or 16 vintage figures and display them in a 3x3/4x4 grid on a single wall, naturally more would be pretty cool, but I simply don't have enough available wallspace at the moment.