New purchase - Golgo13

Picked up two HT Golgo 13’s recently.  I opened one and put him on display.  
I do have a question.  I found it very difficult to remove his head.  Actually I wasn’t able to.  I has pulling and heard a slight crack.  I looked on the left hand side of the neck and it appeared the glue on the seam separated slightly.  I pushed the head back down on the neck and the seam closed.  There isn’t any permanent damage (head swivels just fine and stays in place) but it scared the crap out of me, he wasn’t cheap. I wanted to do a kit bash with the other one but I will need to remove the head.  Any suggestions?  Thx

Do you have a pic of what you did to the head you tried to remove? A closeup of what you’re working with could give us a better idea how to help you.

In case you did not do that already, make sure you heat up anything that is not detaching willingly enough on its own.

I do not have a pic, unfortunately. It was just a slight separation and when I snapped the head back in place it went back to normal. There wasn’t any damage, thank god.

What do you use to heat up the figure? Hair dryer?

Just took some pics. First one is the seam that separated, second one is the other seam that didn’t.

Is there a definite gap from the body to the neck, or is the neck part of the body? If it’s separate, they apparently glued it onto the ball joint — as GubernatorFan suggested, try heating the neck — I would recommend hot water, that might be able to get into the neck joint a bit better than just a hair dryer. The way it cracked like that makes me think the head is just cheap plastic, and not resin. Heating it may be your only option, but be careful — if it’s just cheap plastic, you run the risk of breaking it into pieces when you try to break the glue.

Are you wanting to swap the head for a different head? Or are you wanting to remove the head in order to use it on a different figure? Either way, if you haven’t already , it might be an idea to check how the base of the neck fits into the body — if it’s part of the body , or if it’s a separate piece. If it’s separate, then it could be removed from the base, and then replaced with another neck or head/neck combo,  but if it’s a part of the body, then removing the head from the neck would indeed be the only way to swap heads with that particular body.

If it’s just the outfit you want to use, then you could try to find an alternative body to use it on altogether. It’s hard to say without knowing what you are attempting to do with it, though.

There is a gap from the body to the neck but the head sculpt also seems like it’s a separate piece that sits on its own ball joint.. The head seems pretty solid but I’m new to this so I’m probably wrong. I’ll try the hot water when I open the other one.

The reason I’m trying to remove the head is to take off the current outfit and swap it with another one. The head is going to have to come off in order to remove the neck tie.

Thanks for all the fast responses! Much appreciated!

If there is a separation between the head and the neck, you should be able to heat it up and remove it from the neck. I’m assuming this is a fairly old figure for HT, and the glue they used at the time is starting to break down, which is why it started to crack when you pulled on the head. I would suggest continuing to pull off the head on the one that is already starting to break — if the neck is further damaged on that one, you can replace the body altogether — no reason to damage the other one if you don’t have to.

Thanks for explaining, Parabellum! I think you'll be able to achieve your goal one way or another, but yeah definitely seconding what Stryker said, in that I'd just use the current one you have out of the box already for the kitbash rather than risking 'breaking' the other one as well.

You guys are awesome! I’ll let you know how it turns out once I get everything set up. Again, all the info is much appreciated!

You're most welcome -- looking forward to seeing it!

From what you describe and taking that it is the hot toys golgo 13 (reason for the price hehe), it should be built on some variation of the TrueType body developped by hot toys (they alter and resculpt some parts from a figure to another but the general structure is the same)

I suggest to undress the figure to the max so you can really see all joints and check what body it is, but it should be something like this:



So as you said the neck piece is separated from both the head and the body. The little trick is that the head and neck are connected with a double ball peg, when the neck sits on the body on a single ball peg strongly inserted in the torso part.

Something like that:



As others said, I suggest you undress the figure (except for that problematic tie), tape the tie to the torso and soak the head in boiled water (I personally put a bowl of water 2mn in the micro wave at max power). You will have better chances removing the head from the neck than the neck from the body...

Hope this helps (even if quite late to the party lol)

Exactly! It seemed when I was pulling on the head that the ball joint that joins the head and neck was pulling through, hence the seam behind his ear separating. The hot water won’t ruin the paint?

Would another option be to cut the back of the tie and if I want to reuse it tape or sew it back together?

Yes, cutting the back of the tie is a far 'easier' option, and you can definitely tape it together again as the back of it will be hidden under the collar I presume. I use really thin pieces of double sided tape for this sort of thing quite often, though its effectiveness obviously depends on the type of fabric in question.

I've never had issues with hot water ruining paint, however I have had an instance where dunking in hot water removed a layer of 'varnish' off the top of some 1/6 gloved hands. But that was on an older Sideshow figure, so perhaps the paint/varnish application was a bit different.

I wouldn't recommend the hot water on rooted hair headsculpts, or on custom ones cause you can't know what paint and varnish was used... Otherwise I never had any paint loss when soaking any factory made figure in hot water (there are a few videos on youtube, including one in which a guy shows how to dye phicen bodies by soaking them for hours in hot pigment colored water)

Now as you pointed, the easiest way is still to cut the tie (or undo the bow if it's a complete tie, and not a fake with a strap) Just think of another outfit without any sweater or tight Tshirt, the head could be a problem to dress the figure up

It’s a factory head sculpt. So based on what everyone has recommended I should be good.

As you said the only issue is a t shirt or sweater. One of my ideas did involve a t shirt. Maybe if I cut the shirt up the back and apply some Velcro that should work. The tie is a full tie, I’ll see if I can untie it. As far as any other “outfits” I planned on doing they did have the use of the red tie (or something that would cover it). I’m pretty sure I can put on the shirt and pull the collar through under the tie with some tweezers. There is a lot of room between the tie and the neck to allow space for a collared shirt.

damn...i don't even know that figure exists! I need to get that!

I decided to add a weapon to him, a Sterling L34A1 MK V (clandestine, integrally suppressed sub machine gun) I think it fits his character well. I changed the sling to a single point and made the pose as if he is bringing the weapon to bare from a concealed carry. I still wanted the pistol on him so I put it in his waist line in an appendix carry position. The weapon looks crooked in the picture for some reason but it person it looks great. Sorry for the poor quality pics, I’m not a photographer, lol.

I'm neither an expert on this character or on that kind of weapon, but I think it looks great!

Thank you!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golgo_13

Thanks for the info -- seems a very intriguing character!