Repairing joints with springs and elastic

Apologies this is not in the tutorial section as I wouldn’t recommend anyone attempt it and I have no idea what I’m doing the following will be a log of my adventures as I attempt to use various ball joint doll articulation techniques on a very broken enterbay nba body I have been given.

So upon buying some hands for another nba body I have coming, the seller mentioned I could have any wrist or foot pegs I wanted, because the body was broken... I couldn’t resist! As some of you know the enterbay nba shoulders are exceedingly stiff and the strength of the mechanism sometimes exceeeds the strength of the plastic peg holding in the joint. As you’ll see the previous owner had already attempted repairs, and this initial post will show you what I’m starting with.

If anyone can recommend a glue that works well on this type of plastic by the way I’m all ears! and if anyone has tried sugru on an action figure please also let me know how that went...



My starting point. one shoulder and elbow snapped, and one leg.



The previous owner had replaced the shoulder peg but fused the mechanism in the process



The socket - as I disassembled this for cleaning part of it disintegrated.



Legs broken off at the hip - joint is exceedingly stiff also.


So about the techniques I have two options. Both involve drilling out a straight channel through the limbs and cutting slots at the joints to allow mobility, then the broken parts will be reattached and tensioned with either elastic as in resin bjd, or springs and swivels like in porcelain bjd. Bits that need reinforcement or cosmetic repair I will try to mix a colour matching sugru as it is flexible and quite forgiving...

I have made more progress than this, stay tuned for more photos when I get some light.

Well, you are braver than I to tackle this sort of thing!  I'm certainly intrigued to see your mods on this, as I wouldn't even have the faintest clue where to start.

ETA: Wish I could advise on the glue... but I have not really used glue on one of these types of bodies myself before. I know some people use superglue to tighten loose joints, but not sure if that would work for your purposes.

Wow, that will be an uphill battle, but I do hope you prevail. Coincidentally, I had a "black" Soldier Story body (I think), which ended up breaking at the place where the upper arm meets the shoulder (a favorite breaking point). I tried to glue around the broken peg so that it retains mobility, but the superglue I was using was weak enough to allow it to break again and again. I have moved on to Gorilla superglue, which I'm told is the strongest, but haven't had the heart to try the repair again. Maybe I'll come back to it one day.

Thanks! I’ll have to scour oscf.net to see what kind of glues. I have tried slow zap and moment crystal without much success but I think the surface for adhesion is just too small and I need to sculpt a new piece entirely or use sugru or something to hold large bits of it together.

I could also ask Enterbay for a new arm I guess ‍�Could you replace the shoulder joint on yours entirely, GubernatorFan?

@skywalkersaga I’ve tinkered with building dolls before but this is new territory. I tell myself it was totally broken anyway so I can hardly make it worse!!

tinyumbrellas wrote:Could you replace the shoulder joint on yours entirely, GubernatorFan?

I suppose if I had an intact entire arm that went all the way up there, probably.

Maybe a sculpted joint with a screw for the peg? Hard to imagine the mechanism as it should be. I imagined for this one that I might use stop motion armature in the joint - just a steel ball pinched between two brackets. Still might if the springs or elastic don’t work...

I have no clue what glue to use, I usually go for super glue but for pieces that move it might be too brittle as it isn't too capable of flexing. Something I can suggest is getting some lego technic ball joints and adapting them to the sockets, they would allow for movement.

Also is that the glue or did the previous owner use a soldering iron or something to make the holes on the arm and shoulder joint? looks like melted plastic.

It’s glue but I think they also drilled out the peg and put a bolt in there! My method will be even more destructive but arguably more functional as it will restore vertical movement of the shoulder in the socket