Custom Siege Pinpointer (or: babby's first dye job) [and other random customs]

[Warcry]

I got Siege Firebolt as a stocking stuffer last Christmas, and IMO he's probably the nicest of the three (two and a half?) traditional Targetmaster molds that the line brought us. There was just one problem: I don't have a single decent modern Hot Rod to put him with! I had him on a shelf with TR Hot Rod for a while, but then I remembered that TR Hot Rod's robot mode is a wierd-looking monkey, and he went back in a box in the basement. Firebolt went with him, and I sort of forgot I owned one for most of the last year.

Crosshairs' rocket-shotgun-hammer weapon is pretty cool, but since the original was such a fixture in my childhood playtime, he just didn't look right carrying around anything but a double-barrelled gun that was clearly a dude bent in half. I've seen a lot of people pair him up with Trenchfoot, but the colour layout just didn't work for me as Pinpointer. In gun mode, it's pretty much exactly the opposite of what it should be.

I'd been looking for a chance to try dying plastic for a while, and this felt like a nice little project I could tackle and not feel too bad if I ruined it. There were so many things that could go wrong -- screwing up the colour, melting or deforming the plastic, turning my entire countertop red...but it actually turned out perfectly, with minimal fuss and zero mess in under twenty minutes.





The colour layout in robot mode is still wrong (it should be red arms and torso with dark grey legs) but it's close enough, and I like the look a lot more than Trenchfoot's red torso with black limbs. In alt-mode the colours match the original pretty well, though. Crosshairs now has his gun-buddy, and Red Alert has inherited the ridiculauncher. And the gun is generic enough that I'm sort of tempted to pick up another Firebolt when the line hits clearance, do this again and use it for Spoilsport if and when they make a new Sureshot.

But most importantly, now that I know I can do this I'll hopefully be able to talk myself into taking on one of the bigger projects that I've been thinking of for a while now!

[Denyer]

Neat. Are you going to do bigger wheels as well?

https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/ ... s.1185806/
https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/ ... 0.1186320/
https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/ ... s.1185965/

Kind of tempted to pick him up myself with all of the customising people are doing plus not having either the Ironhide or Ratchet. Slightly more inclined to find an Ironhide and try to do a Tote though.

And it'll be a very minor hack, but am planning to paint the TR Nightbeat head into a replacement Lug for an original Hosehead, then get the Fans Hobby Athena (Minerva) to round out the Headmaster Juniors. Already got Siren (and an upgraded Nightbeat) sorted out, so it'll be a team of four rather than three...

[Warcry]

I don't think so. I get where those customizers are coming from, but to me that alt-mode is pretty much unsalvageable. Or at the very least, it would take a lot more than wheels to fix it...I know there's some 3P kits out there for Ratchet and Ironhide that hide the feet and arms a lot better in truck mode, and that'd be a good start. I have been tempted to paint the hubcaps on the existing wheels red to give an extra splash of colour to the robot mode, though.

I've always wondered if the TR heads could be made to fit the original bodies. It's great that they can, with so many orphaned 80s Headmaster bodies out there.

[Denyer]

The Juniors are close to deluxe size, anyway, so the proportions are okay. It works surprisingly well on the originals too, judging by Skullcruncher -- the original HM head was so oversized that the TR is more proportionate. In all cases the sockets are going to need a bit of padding though.

The oversized Wei Jiang TR KOs would be an option too.

[Clay]

Nicely done!

The one time I tried dying plastic, it technically worked but deformed the piece badly. Good to see someone else have some luck with it.

[Warcry]

It turned out better than I had any right to expect! But this week I've been trying and failing to turn a spare RTS Tracks (Actually, I think I may have gotten it from you years ago? I have a whole bin of spare 2010-era toys to experiment with) black. The whole "dyeing" thing feels really hit or miss...depends on the type of plastic, I guess? Pinpointer slurped up the pigment like nobody's business from tepid water in an old coffee cup, but an hour's worth of boiling water didn't change Tracks' blue one bit. I hear adding acetone to the mix helps the harder plastics pick up colour, but that sounds like something that could go wrong pretty easily.

[Clay]

Yeah, I was using some acetone to soften the pieces first. The plastic took the dye, but poofed up, for lack of a better term for physical distortion.

I haven't read about the process in years. I might should try again... having a small hotplate to use outside counts towards that.

And yeah, the type of plastic makes a big difference, too. To speak of alternators (because that's when I was reading about this), the plastic used for the inconspicuous joints and hands (the pieces that never have factory paint) seems to take the dye, whereas the car body panels are more resistant. The tricky part is that you can't identify the different types of plastic by sight, but just by function in the figure. And experimenting, of course.

[Warcry]

Yeah, that's common from what I read. Some people say you shouldn't leave the plastic in acetone for more than 30 seconds to a minute at a time, rinsing and cooling in between if you're going to do multiple sessions. And you need to be really careful with the heat. I've even seen some folks who skip the heat entirely and just dip in diluted acetone and dye until it takes. Seems like everyone who does it has their own method. I guess I'll have to find one out my own, because obviously I'll wind up trying it.

I think you can tell some plastic types by the feel and texture, but from what I've read even that's not a totally reliable indicator. Only trial and error will let your figure out what's what. SCIENCE!

[Warcry]

Update: probably ruined an RTS Tracks trying different techniques to dye it with little success! Learned a lot, though.

These guys were a lot more successful!



My Quake has looked naked since I stole his main cannon and gave it to Legends G2 Megatron to use as a shoulder railgun. And Toys'R'Us has Battlemasters on clearance for about 1/3 of retail price, so I grabbed half a dozen (and I would have bought more if they'd had more than the first wave to choose from) to experiment with!

Heater is made from another Firebolt, and was pretty quick and easy even though I used two different dyes for different parts. His legs and gun barrels wouldn't quite go all the way to black, and they've got the tiniest bit of purple hue to them in person, but not so much that you'd notice if you weren't looking for it.

Tiptop was a bit more of a challenge. His limbs soaked up the purple in about three minutes in tepid water in a coffee cup. The harder plastic of his torso took a lot more convincing -- a couple hours in a pot on the stovetop, to be specific. A lot of that was me figuring out the exact right temperature to set it to, though. Once I got the heat just right, he soaked up the colour decently fast too. Whether due to the sustained heat or the small amount of acetone I used, I got a bit of the "poofing" that Clay mentioned. Not enough that anything is wrecked, but his ball joints are super tight now and his gun handle is just a tiny bit more than 5mm. Quake's hands are super thin at the front and actually started to crack when I tried to get him to hold the gun.

The blast effects probably surprised me the most...because I didn't melt them! But they took the colour well and it's nice to have some variety.

Overall, I'll call it a successful experiment! Now to figure out what to make with a couple Lionizers...

[Denyer]

Neat. Re: Lionizers, ActionMaster partners presumably?

[Warcry]

Maybe Catgut? Maybe take one apart and spraypaint a Steeljaw? It's mostly black, which makes it hard to do much with dyes...can only change the head and tail that way, really. Though that'd be more than they bothered to do with Dazzlestrike...

It's really too bad there's been so little diversity and creativity with the Battlemasters. There's a ton of cool Actionmaster partners to choose from but what we actually got was just so boring. I was hoping for Razor-Sharp or Needler or Top-Heavy ot Fistfight, not five reuses of the two humanoid molds from the first wave and a clunky minotaur. I don't have the pterodactyl axe but that one at least looks creative.

Rong is cool but I always forget he exists.

[Warcry]

Maybe Catgut? Maybe take one apart and spraypaint a Steeljaw? It's mostly black, which makes it hard to do much with dyes...can only change the head and tail that way, really.

Turns out I can't even do that...boiled the bugger in dye for an hour and nothing happened at all. Oh well. Might be time to break out the paintbrushes again.

These guys were more successful.



Hadn't really had any characters in mind, really. Just wanted to make some pretty colours. The purple one is more or less Hairsplitter, in the end. I still think that the Targetmasters are too bulky (and Spinister is too slender) for that pairing to REALLY work, but the colours do look sharp with him at least.

The blue one actually turned out to have exactly the same colours as the gun that came with the old Generations Scourge toy (which didn't transform but was based on his original Targetmaster). And it looks really good with Scourge's colours. So in spite of not having the original's colours, I think this'll work nicely as a Fracas.



Also, that Scourge is 10 years old now. How in the world...?

Altogether, I've wound up with a pretty nice array of gun-buddies.



Unfortunately the lack of variety in Siege and the fact that the new Earthrise Battlemasters all turn into pieces of floor means I'm probably going to call it a day on the Battlemaster dyeing for now. Hopefully a new gun mold or two shows up in the next line, whatever that is.

[Warcry]

I figure I might as well use this thread to dump the other random customs I've done too, not just Targetmasters!

I actually did Jet Powerdasher here a while ago, but the paint took a dog's age to dry and cure (like, probably a month) so I just plain forgot to take any pictures to share.



I'm reluctant to transform the thing, because I'm pretty sure that silver isn't going to stand up to any rough wear at all. But I definitely like how it looks a lot more than how the bare grey of the stock toy did.

Grapple here is just a minor touchup, but he looks SO much better with his head sprayed black.





I get why the cartoon changed it -- since they have the same colour layout otherwise, Grapple kind of looks like an Inferno that faded in the wash. But in toy form, going with the orange head just makes him look like a big ol' block of cheddar. The added splash of contrast makes a huge difference for me.

[Denyer]

Love the targetmasters. I kind of like orange Grapple though, at least in this design.

Very much a fan of simple tweaks -- having had the foot come off the 3P Athena version of Minerva, I was more open to rubbing off the white paint on the chest plate so she's more like the original design, coloured the antennae and added the G2 MP Bumblebee gun rather than the blasters she came with. Might also paint the headmaster arms.

https://i.imgur.com/B8nTAAn.jpg

[Warcry]

Comparing with stock photos, I'd say both of the changes you did make for small but noticeable improvements. Are the Headmaster arms the sides of her head in robot mode? I think a dash of paint there would make for another small but noticeable improvement. I'm actually pretty surprised the antennae didn't come painted.

[Denyer]

Yeah, its a standard sort of headmaster design. Thought that pure black like the original might be a bit overpowering due to the chunkiness but it works and won't get displayed separately anyway. Fits with the original headmaster supposedly just being the square face bit in the middle.


https://i.imgur.com/UbTeoyE.jpg

[Clay]

Had a go at using the peroxide+sunshine in a glass jar method to de-discolor some yellowed plastic from my titan Metroplex. Works pretty well, but it's not fast: https://imgur.com/a/BiNRHpo

I kept track of how long it was left out, so here's the data. The hydrogen peroxide I used was the consumer grade 3% concentration that's freely available without a special license. Apparently with a higher concentration or enough exposure, it'll make the plastic brittle, but I didn't experience that all with the concentration and exposure time I used.


BEGIN
8.17
first two pics @ 330pm showing base yellowing, left until sundown (~8pm, 4.5 hours total)
only tried to de-yellow the forearm pieces. I left the shoulder as a control

8.18
left from noon until sundown (~8pm, 12.5 hours total)
pic @ 10:30pm

8.19
left from noon until 7pm (19.5 hours total)
pic @ 1030

8.20
changed peroxide
left from 1pm until 7:30pm (~26 hours total)
pic @ 730

All in all, it seems to restore the original color to 100% with enough time. The tricky part is to weigh the plastic down so that the discolored part faces the sun. Probably with another solid afternoon and correct positioning, I could get that piece completely restored, but I'm not too worried. For one thing, the shoulder pieces are actually too big to fit inside the glass jar I have...

Also, you're probably gonna lose any stickers that are on the pieces, so plan for that. Not sure what it'll do to custom paint yet, but this is quite promising.

[StoneCold Skywarp]

I kept track of how long it was left out, so here's the data. The hydrogen peroxide I used was the consumer grade 3% concentration that's freely available without a special license. Apparently with a higher concentration or enough exposure, it'll make the plastic brittle, but I didn't experience that all with the concentration and exposure time I used.

Those results are super impressive for consumer grade peroxide! There may be hope for my Overlord yet

Have you noticed any difference in the plastic to the touch?

Would the bleaching process affect plastics of other colours? I've only seen it done to whiten yellowed plastic but, for example, if parts couldn't be separated would it make black plastic lighter in appearance?

[Denyer]

Effective (also, crikey that's bad yellowing). I must find/replace the bottle I'd got and have a go at the Getaway, Air Raid, etc. that are in tubs. If we have any more good weather. Seen some great videos of people doing this with huge tubs and old console/computer shells.

Shall we make this a general customs thread?

[StoneCold Skywarp]

Separate posts for all customs! Spread the love!