Restoration 3 - KO Combiner Wars Combaticon / Bruticus - Slots for Gestalt Chest Plate Tabs

This KO CW Onslaught uses CW Hotspot's mold for the shoulder piece, so there are no slots for the gestalt chest plate's tabs to fit in, causing the shoulder pieces to move together when you rotate the gestalt arms... So, could not resist the temptation to restore this part, and did this in about 2 hours (!!!) ... Hahahaha... Yah, took so long to cut 2 slots as I was also watching my variety show while doing this restoration... I initially thought I can just drill 2 holes at each end of a slot and use a penknife to cut out the slot, but the plastic prove too hard, so I end up having to disassemble the shoulder piece and cut the slot... Picture below shows 1 slot done...


Picture below shows the tabbing in the chest plate as in the original mold design... Works well!


Not much difference in appearance, but stability of shoulder pieces are achieved... I still prefer the arms of Onslaught to be hidden in gestalt mode...


Back view of Bruticus to show my arrangement of Onslaught's arms...


And finally the side view...

Restoration 2 - KO Combiner Wars Combaticon / Bruticus - Other Restoration and Paint Touch Up

Did a few touch up here and there for my KO CW Combaticons / Bruticus. Some touch ups include: (1) Swindle's wheel-rims are painted silver, face also painted with metallic black.



And just realised this KO Swindle's gun is the newer version that has tabs to allow the gun to tab at around the shoulder area!!!



(2) Vortex head, arms, missiles and torso are painted over to reduce the number of colours, as the previous scheme is too colourful...


(3) Onslaught's wheel-rims and Bruticus head are also painted silver.



(4) Brawl - cut a small piece of 1.5/2mm ABS and paste inside the gestalt foot hole, which the gestalt foot connector will not be able to go as inner as before. This will make Brawl same height as Swindle in leg mode.


(5) KO PE hands and feet are also painted. I first sprayed a layer of "aluminium" colour, but the surface looks too dull. Even after I spray silver over, the shiny appearance is unable to be achieved. To make things worse, the KO PE hand-feet plastic does not allow the spray paint to adhere well to it.


Some other miscellaneous restorations like tightening of some looser joints are also done with various degree of success... And now my KO CW Bruticus looks like this... nice...



Short video clip of the KOs...

Restoration - KO Combiner Wars Combaticons : Onslaught Knee Joints, Vortex Waist Retainer

The KO Combiner Wars Onslaught came with the knee linkages assembled wrongly, hence I decided to try restoring it. First, I unscrew and open up the lower leg. Take note not to loose the combiner port piece that has a spring. As seen in the picture, the triangular protruding knob of the last link should be placed facing the back of leg... I knock out the pin with a small screw driver and the flat side of a pair of small wire-cutters to disassemble the link...


Reverse the link (with the triangular protruding knob facing the back of leg - see picture) and assemble link back...


The correctly assembled linkage (top leg in pitcure), compared to the wrong assembly (lower leg in picture)...


The KO CW Onslaught has a new screw post molded to allow the 2 pieces of the lower leg to be tighter, but this screw post will block the linkage from locking in robot mode. So I cut it off with a pair of wire-cutters, and trim nicely with a pen-knife...


The proper locked-in knee joint should look like this...


A comparison of the restored knee joint with the mis-assembled one...


Now Onslaught has restored legs. This knee configuration makes Onslaught shorter a little bit, but allows a better swing of the knee rotation.


Next is KO CW Vortex. The waist is not able to stay in position in robot mode. Hence I added a key (circled in yellow as seen in picture below) on the central position. The key is done using tissue paper and super-glue mixed. then trimming is done to ensure a smooth "clicking" of the waist..


Just a very very small part of the key is seen in robot mode, so this does not affect the aesthetics of Vortex's robot mode...


The added key also not hindering in helicopter mode...



As with other KOs, I have to tighten some of the joints for a better and smoother handling and transformation. Next will probably be gluing up the feet ( hence no more gun mode ) and painting up some parts...

KO Combiner Wars Brawl - Robot Mode Alternate Comfiguration

The weird abdominal part ( or lack of ) of Combiner Wars Brawl has been a issue with many TF fans... For me, I prefer to transform this figure with this ab configuration, which I felt at least he has a proper abdominal part...


A closer look... The slanted sides of the crotch piece and the combiner peg matched quite nicely...

Transformers KO Combiner Wars Combaticons ( Part 2 ) - Bruticus & KO Perfect Effect Hands / Feet

I also bought a set of the KO Perfect Effect hands and feet set at SGD12.20 from Taobao, but sadly, 1 of the feet has a missing cannon barrel... And the quality is way below acceptable standard ( meaning I have to do a lot of restoration work ), e.g. loose hand pegs, overly tight finger joints, mis-assembled parts, etc etc... I am now afraid the material used may not be able to let spray paint stick onto well... sigh, should have spent a little more money and bought the KO silver version ( twice the price )...



Combaticons, merge to form Deva.. opps, sorry... Bruticus!!!


Gorilla arms. This is what most TF fans may have felt for this line of Combiner Wars gestalts. Indeed the arms are too long, and partly ( I felt ) is because the thighs are not designed to be shorted, hence the long arms. I saw online some tried not to pull out the thighs for the arms, but this might affect the elbow joint... I tried to bend back the hip joint and then swing forward the individual robot's knee joints, to create a shorter arm effect, which looks quite ok from the front. Strangely, Swindle seems to be about 1~2 mm taller than Brawl in limb (leg) mode, hence Bruticus is quite difficult to pose for symmetrical poses. Not sure why but since it does not affect much, I can live with it.



Comparison with the G1 counterpart ( also made by the same company 孩之星 ) Baldigus version... Both looks good!!!!

Side-Tracked: Recent Haul of KOs (208) - Transformers KO Combiner Wars Combaticons ( Part 1 ) - Packaging and Individual Transformation

Finally gotten my KO Combiner Wars Combaticons in a recent Taobao haul!!!! I had long wanted to buy them but was not able to somehow over the 2 years. Hence I was extremely delighted to know that this set is to be KO-ed and in original size. Costs about SGD43.60 ...

This company 孩之星 used to make KO G1 combiners, and they make very solid KOs initially. Subsequently their KO G1 combiners gets more and more simplified, so much that the individual limbs TFs look more like bricks. I believe this company also made other lines of TFs but cannot confirm.

Back to this set of KOs, the plastic quality feels a bit light, but from some online pictures seen, they seem to be roughly the same weight as their legal counterpart. I don't own the original CW set, so I don't know if there is any simplifications, and I can only believe in the words of the forum-ers that there isn't any. Generally the joints are not super loose, most are tight enough to move and stay in place, but don't expect the same tightness you get from the MFT ones. And to my surprise, there are spring ratcheting joints too!!! I check out the online pictures and find the colours are very very close for almost all the parts. In fact, some painted parts (e.g. front bumper of Swindle's vehicle mode, Bruticus's head, etc ) in the legal counterpart are now replaced by plastic of the correct colour, i.e. not painted. All the 4 hand-foot parts are also different in design.

1 thing to note is that the main part of Onslaught's robot arms are actually from Hot Spot's mold, and hence are missing the 2 slot-holes to fit in the tabs on Bruticus's chestplate. Also, for each knee joint, 1 piece is assembled wrongly ( the side with a little knurb should be facing behind, not front ), and this causes Onslaught not able to form the knees properly in robot mode.





Hilarious and entertaining as usual...

Side-Tracked: Recent Haul of KOs (207) - MFT Mech Fans Toys Laserwave / OS KO Iron Factory Bridge Watcher / Shockwave

Nicer than the old Ku Biab Bao KBB 酷变宝 Waveblaster, in my opinion, as it is much bulkier and looks more like a "Shockwave". Wanted to paint the eye to yellow but could not pry the "brain" (purple translucent plastic) off...

Side-Tracked: Recent Haul of TFs (206) - Titans Return Cosmos

A surprise purchase! I went to TRU a few days ago to get a present for my little niece, and was browsing at the Transformers section when I suddenly saw this hanging on the rack!!! Titans Return Cosmos! I had been wanting to get this from Taobao long long ago but failed, so I was very very happy to see this and quickly took this fella down... and to add to my joy, this fella shows (SGD)$7.98 only when scanned at the payment counter!!!! Nice buy!!! Hahahaha....


Detombed!!! This Cosmos looks more "stylo" than the G1 form, which I can accept... The G1 form is a little too... weird... cute no doubt, but weird... hahaha...


Dun really like the vertical fin but hey, it is what it is...


"And here's the comparison with G1 Cosmos because he's pre~c~i~o~u~sss !!! Cosmos pre~c~i~o~u~sss.... wooooooooooP!" ... hahahaha