Repairing figma Kagami (again)

It took me a total of about five days of testing, experimenting, success and failure before I had completed fixing Kagami’s broken arm joint. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was attempting a tricky pose with both her arms in the air (which I strongly advice you never, ever try at home) and I forced her right arm just that little bit too much. Figmas are like delicate flowers and must be treated like delicate flowers – just a piece of advice for any figma owners out there.

Before I get into the picture intensive method of how I mended her arm, I will give a brief summary of the failed attempts:

1. Using my brothers Warhammer plastic glue: Not strong enough.
2. Using only superglue: the glue is great for small breakages in areas that aren’t moved too much, e.g. the twintail I mended a while back, but when I placed the arm joint back into the upper arm socket it broke immediately.
3. Using only Elmer’s ultimate glue: At first it seemed to have worked, but I think it was a combination of the glue peeling off too easily and not waiting long enough for it to dry rock hard (which it eventually does) that lead to the fail.
4. Using both glues but using too much and glueing it in the wrong place: Well, I think you get the idea. Firstly, I went overboard with the glue and the upper arm piece wouldn’t fit properly on the joint. So I ended up sanding it down with a file but sanded away too much so it broke. I also glued the white cylinder piece on a bad place so it meant her arm was constantly stuck outwards and couldn’t move close to her body

Here are the photos & process from the successful attempt of mending Kagami’s arm joint. (I have a bunch of photos from the failed attempts as well but decided not to bore you with those.)

Here are the three parts of the arm. The breakage is in the shoulder joint. I have removed the lower half of arm as well in order to remove the small cylinder shaped piece still stuck in the upper arm piece.

I stuck the small screwdriver through the opposite end of upper arm piece to push out the little cylinder you can see above.

Next step was gluing the cylinder onto the shoulder ball joint.

TIP: protect the surrounding area of the breakage before mending it. I used soft black electrical tape. Its sticky and flexible but peels off clean. If you don’t do this, there is a high risk of spilling glue inside the joint and on other parts of the figma.

My favourite superglue! I used this to repair Kagami’s twintail. It’s magic but extremely strong. Sometimes the fumes got so strong I had to step out of the room for a while . TIP: When using superglue, make sure you are working in a well ventilated area ^^.

Layer one – the superglue. Used this for the initial attachment of cylindar piece to the ball joint. TIP: Be scrupulous about where you glue this bit on the ball joint. Make sure it’s in a place that allows the arm to move back close to the body, as this is likely where you will keep it the most.

Layer two – Elmer’s Ultimate Glue.

I used a paintbrush to apply the glue all around the joint. It was quite liquidy though, so I had to be careful it didn’t drip down into the socket joint.

Several hours later, the glue has dried. As you can see, it expands – this was very important to keep in mind. (NOTE: I think this photo might have been from one of the failed attempts, so probably shouldn’t apply quite so much glue. Just a thin layer will do!)

Used a metal file I found in Dad’s toolbox to shave down a tiny bit of the glue.

Moment of truth: fitting the upper arm back onto the joint.

Then I gently placed the lower arm back in.

I moved her joint around a little and found that it worked very well! Articulation has only decreased by about 20%, which may seem like a lot but in the end I never really need to move her arms around an awful lot anyway.

And if you are wondering about the eyepatch, that will be explained in my next post!

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