Side-Tracked: Recent Haul of KOs (164) - KO Generations Voyager Sandstorm

Gotten this at a small toy kiosk in Bedok area today... At only $5.90, the cheap-ness comes with a "price" - super simplifications... I bought the reverse colours version as I thought this suits Sandstorm's colour them of mainly orange better, personal preference...


Robot mode. Good for display as the size is identical to the original voyager (I compared it to my Generations Springer). But as mentioned, there are a lot of simplifications... There is no waist swivel, and many joints are replaced by ball joints. Many peg joints do not fit in the peg holes (too big or small)...


The head seemed squashed down and not as long as the original one (as seen on Youtube reviews). It is molded together with the nect and connector, so cannot turn the head. No light piping for such cheap KOs is normal.


The whole leg except for the orange part, is molded as one, so no knee movements at all and this slightly affects the vehicle modes, preventing a good flushed joint. Probably will do some operations for this (and the elbow joints) in the near... well, maybe far future...


Arms are ok except for the elbow joints. I suspect the KO-makers molded the ball joint accidentally to face the wrong direction, hence making the current ball joint redundant in transformation and no elbow swivel in robot mode. Should not be difficult to fix though, just cut out the socket and stick it back ACCURATELY at about 90 degrees turn.


Weapon is a very simplified one... 1 hollow piece...


Fortunately, the KO is still able to transform (though not perfectly pegged in) into the vehicle modes. Here is the armoured buggy mode, very nice with the big back wheels...



The VTOL aircraft mode is not too bad, though I still prefer Sandstorm to have blades (as a helicopter)... Probably I may get 1 of the old KO helicopter's blades and mod it to fit in... in the far future, hahahaha.... Overall, a decent KO for this price...

Update: KO Undersize AOE 1st Edition Optimus Prime

Could not resist the temptation of fixing up my KO Undersize AOE 1st Edition Optimus Prime... It actually feels like a slightly cheap KO in a good good box, and also needs some fixing, but I will still recommend it... if you have the time and resources to fix... I will only be mentioning some of the more major mods I did...

First on the list is the fixed head. I sliced off the head with a penknife (very very very tough as the neck gap to slide in the penknife is very small and the neck is solid plastic... Have to still fill up some gaps after removing the head... Then the head has a small home drilled to allow a small screw to secure from inside of the body to the head...


And now the head can twist... Hahaha... Closer look of the head... Oh, I also painted the head to resemble the movie colour scheme a bit closer...


Next I clean off the excess plastics inside the slot holes that will peg in the back and front of the truck cab using a penknife as well... Without doing so, the pegs will not go in flushed ...


Now the pegs can go in nicely...


Also did up some minor paint touch up, mostly the missing silver paint apps found on original version... Picture shows the sides of the front bumper is finally painted silver...


The truck cab's back is initially unpainted blue plastic, so I also used a silver paint pen to paint it silver... Looks much better to me, though I will probably not see this part when I display it in the Detolf cabinet...


And finally the sword... The sword has a long peg to allow connecting to.... somewhere... but there is no where in this KO that can do so... So I first slice off the peg to make it shorter and hence not so obvious...


... then drill a small hole at the buttock area which just nice is facing the ground in truck mode, so as to fit in the sword's peg in truck mode...


... and it worked nicely... Also painted both sides of the sword to have the red colour parts...


Finally ready to pose!!!


Now my OP can turn his head in different poses! Hahahaha....

Even holding the sword in both hands!!! Nice...



p.s. I gave up the shield-gun thing as I just find it ridiculous on the truck and literally destroys the truck mode. Also I figured it may also take some time to fix on the peg oversize issue, so in the end decided to keep it in a "safe" place... forever... hahahahaha....

Update: Kabaya Star Convoy

Got a short break and decide to assemble the little Kabaya Star Convoy figure... and it is indeed a "non-partformer"!

Here's Kabaya Star Convoy in bot mode... His legs can be separated unlike his original G1 toy...




His back is a little bare though.. read from a forum or blog somewhere that is is due to missing parts that are not included in this Kabaya version... I don't own the G1 toy so not know much about Star Convoy...


Close up look at Kabaya Star Convoy... Nice...


The legs have compartment that can place the little micro Hot Rodimus (non-transformable of course...) inside...


The micro Hot Rodimus can also be placed in the chest compartment, though the Star Convoy head will be a bit stuck and difficult to flip out if so..


And finally, the vehicle mode... The transformation and the vehicle proportion reminds me of the Brave Police's J-Decker...

Side-Tracked: Recent Haul of TFs (163) - Kabaya Star Convoy

Bought a Kabaya Star Convoy kit at CSC... Just because I thought I have space for a small Optimus Prime (or equivalent) figure on the display case... And best thing is (I heard) he is fully transformable (i.e. no parts-forming)!!!! Wonder how true it is... Did not get the other 2 figures (Darkwing and Dreadwind) as I already have the KO G1 Kabaya version...

Update: Star Cats Dino Combiner (SCDC) - #3

Decided to remove the horns on SCDC "Swoop"... and it is a right move, which takes about 5 minutes only... Used a penknife to slice around the "horns" and then used a pair of pliers to break them. The penknife is again used to slice clean the remainings of the "horns"...


And there he is!!! Horn-less SCDC "Swoop"!!!!


..Posing...


...Dino mode! Not very stable, but still able to stand...


... Fly away!!!! Now the dino head can be positioned properly in flying poses...


... And just for fun.... HellSwoop!!!!!!!! Hahahahaha.... Now I know why he has the big fist accessory... Hahahahahaha....



Till all are one!!!...

Update: Star Cats Dino Combiner (SCDC) - #2

SCDC "Swoop"... The most obvious feature is the pair of horn/shrek-ears/what-ever-you-call-them that is sticking out of the head... And I will cut them off one of these days, since they almost serve no purpose other than pegging "Swoop" 's arms in gestalt mode... Also the feet hints of wrong assembly... So do the wings...


Unscrew the lower legs (feet stay with the legs when swapping) to remove and swap them. Some forums have owners swap starting at different parts of the legs but this is my preference, which should also be simplest...


After the leg swapping, the feet will look normal with the straight side of the feet facing inside.


Next ,the outer part of both wings should be removed and swapped too... Remove the pin in whatever way you can. For me, I had to drill a small hole manually with a small twist drill bit at the top of the joint. With a small screwdriver to reach into the hole, I use the flat ends of the pliers to hammer out the pin slightly. Then I used the pliers to slowly wriggle and pull the pin out... Hard job... But worth it...


To check which side the out part of the wings belongs to, you can see that the wings will be aligned for the correct join... BEFORE I hammer in the pins, I try to remove the missiles which are rivet to the wings...


I swivel the missile to this position, and it will allow the missile to be pushed down a little more, making the other side to reveal the rivet pin which now has a small space to put what ever you want to go underneath and pry out. Alternatively, you can use perhaps a big nail-clipper or nail-removing-pincers to move into the gap and pull out the rivet-pins...


Because the missiles already fit into the holes quite snugly, the rivets are quite redundant... And also now the missiles can be fitted onto the beneath of the wings like G1-Swoop-style...


Now the wings can be folded G1-Swoop-style, with the missiles also fitted similarly. Looking good!!!!!... well, except for the horns... which I WILL cut them off one day...soon...


Dino mode!!!!



Also tighten up some loose joints... Major work will be the loose feet connectors... when free...

Update: Star Cats Dino Combiner (SCDC) - #1

"... destroy the Decepticons...."


Dino Combiner!!!!!


Detombed the SCDC today and combined it to test the rumour... and yes, it is true... IT IS EXTREMELY UNSTABLE!!!! hahahaha.... Very nice light pipings (see first picture), and yes, the actual thing looks much better physically than in the pictures... I actually gotten a running-change version where they fixed the feet-plug connector piece for "Snarl" to be able to attached properly to "Snarl", and also "Slag" to have correct horns (left and right horns are different). But certain issues remain, like overly tight/loose joints, especially the "Sludge" feet's connecting pin to the feet-plug connector is still SUPER LOOSE... and also a issue for "Grimlock", which will be mentioned below...


Here's "Grimlock" in dinosaur mode... Sharp points are super sharp, beware... Dino mode can be a bit unstable but still can stand after some fiddling with the poses and angles... Very very very nice details and sculpting... Will do some touch up painting, eg. the small dino arms intend to paint to silver, the faceplate.. etc...


The instructions show the hips-legs part transformed into a very ... awkward position... So many will resort to posing him with the hip-legs like picture below... But the joints are SUPER tight that it is almost impossible to rotate the parts... Some modding can be done...


Remove the screw for connecting this top-tigh part and you will see this. Using a small penknife to sliced off not more than a millimeter at the part circled in red dashed line in the picture... This will create clearance for swiveling... Remember to do this both for sides of the peg, and also for both legs...


You may also like to use a small file to sand off any burrs if not cut cleanly earlier or any fine-tuning. You can also lightly sand off the faces a bit so that they do not rub against each other so much when swiveling...


Very busy now, so may be quite some time before I fiddle around with the rest of the figures...