Let's talk about preserving diecast joints

You don't. Moving parts will always wear away with use over time. Just like how everyone you know and love will eventually die, everything you own will eventually wear out and break. Embrace the inevitable.

>>6122437
But it happens to diecast faster than regular plastic. There has to be a way to stop it. Machinery use lubes and stuff to protect wear and tear so maybe there's something that'll work here too.

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>>6122424
>Buy a new figure
>Has Diecast feet
>Toe hinge is loose as fuck straight out of the box

>>6122424
Simple: don't buy figures with diecast joints. If everyone does it, they'll stop making them.

>>6122440
>But it happens to diecast faster than regular plastic

>>metal wearing down faster than cheap toy plastic

news to me

>>6122440
Yeah you can probably lube up the joints to reduce wear and tear.

>>6123225
We're talking about joints. If you don't understand why the diecast ones get loose faster than the plastic ones, you need to go back to school.

>>6122424
is this something they advertise for toys?? specifically just the joint being diecast is a weird thing to advertise... Even die cast toys still use plastic for joints a lot of times. Is this particularly something specific to the robot and mech toylines? What are the lines that proudly do this...

>>6123225
Most plastics are actually quite subject to expansion and contraction depending on factors like temperature, age. etc. I have had plastic toys get incredibly floppy, sure, but I've also had loose toys tighten back up over time or with application of heat/cold. Metal joints typically don't have much wiggle room. They just grate against each other, getting incrementally looser and more ground down with each movement, until they become loose for good. And I'm no scientist so I can't explain exactly WHY, but the typical joint tightening methods (ie, superglue, nail polish, pledge) don't seem to have any effect on diecast.

>>6123225
>it's metal so it must be better
That's not how anything works anon. For starters Die-casting is a mix of metals not just one element. zinc with small quantities of aluminum, copper and normally lead but due to this being for toys the lead has to be removed making a worse compound. As a solid piece it works fine however paints can be a challenge for it but when used as a joint or gear starts to suffer greatly as friction is hard on die cast parts and the weight of the mix metal can lead to strain issues plastic doesn't suffer. If lead and iron was allowed these issues would be as present but still as a mix compound it will always be weaker than traditional plastic. This is actually a big reason die-cast toys were phased out was the fact that it aged bad and in many cases had issues right out of the box when brand new (also shipping weight became a factor) so it was phased out even though ABS plastics (also know as engineering plastic) was more costly than die-cast to make and use it lasted better and was less prone to issues out of the box. It's a charming thing to have a toy with die-cast but like vac-chrome and rubber it's just asking for trouble down the road.

>>6123272
Diecast adds weight and some people like weighty figures, and metal=studiness in the most common of minds, chogokins are known for diecast.

Also don't be fooled by bandai's "hi metal r" line, fuck all metal in those vf1's apart from the feet (maybe?) and in the shoulders (which are prone to breaking, not as fast as plastic but it can easily be broken out of the box)

>>6123272
G1 transformers, Robotech and other toy lines had a lot of diecast for cost cutting measures. Also weighty figures sucker people for whatever reason.
Most that do it now are eastern collector lines where the volume is low and the people will put up with bad quality for the sake of the weight or shine.

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I pulled an infographic off of Futaba a while back that had some suggestions. I can't find it now, but I remember on tip was to remove/open the joint if you can, and use some stickum, or rubberized tape to line the inside part of the joint to add some friction.

Another tip was to put a piece of clear heat shrink tubing over the joint and heating it up, thus causing it to shrink, and hold the joint tightly.

>>6123280
It's simple really.
Diecast is brittle and has little give, wearing away faster.
Plastic is more pliable, hence being a more durable product that lasts longer.

Ideally, you don't use the same materials where two places meet, such as joints.

>>6123272
>>6123292
weight = expensive = quality to many retards
It's an oxymoron, since diecast is cheaper to produce, a cheaper material, and isn't all that durable.

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>>6123311
There's a bit more than that. You remember what you learn in chemistry class about metallic bonding? How there is "sea of electrons" bla bla? This bonding can occur(weakly) across two metallic surfaces and when they are shifted, relatively more material is lost. This causes metal-to-metal interfaces to have low wear-resistance.

In industrial use, there is always some plastic bushing, bearing assembly, lubrication etc. between such connections.

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>>6122424
>>6122424
>>6122424

Here's a Metal Build's elbow joint. There is a layer of heavy plastic (ABS or POM I assume) sandwiched between the diecast parts. The similar construction is used on the hips and (I guess) the double-jointed knees. The shoulders are entirely plastic. Do they work? I change poses infrequently, but I guess they do a good enough job of keeping figures stable for weeks and months on end. I'm not planning on doing a stress test anytime soon though, someone else do that to their overpriced collectible.

Also, from the measley few SoCs I own, I noticed that they also use a kind of diecast ratchet. This is obviously a great deal better than the disastrous metal ball joints used on stuff like some early Super Robot Chogokin figs (those were trash, I'm still bitter over the money I spent on those only for the damn things to die the diecast death-flop).

So, I suppose the lesson is that diecast on the joints really only work if they're engineered well. Which ultimately means using plastic on all the spots that matter anyway. Top kek.

>>6123240
If they are hard chrome plates they'll wear less quickly, but die cast joints are garbage metal, cast with no tolerance control, and no finish. Metal on metal can be okay for moving system but it needs to be done right. The kind of joints they put in toys probably cost dollars to make and yet they're featured in high end figures.

>>6123467
>The kind of joints they put in toys probably cost dollars to make and yet they're featured in high end figures.
There is a market where 20 something boys pay $100s for used toys of their childhood. Expensive but cheap to make new products isn't surprising.

>>6123467
>If they are hard chrome plates they'll wear less quickly
...than the regular diecast used on toys but still way faster than plastic.

>>6123509
Nah. There's a reason they use harden steel plates in hard chrome for industrial machines, instead of plastic. Plastic will warp quickly than the Metal will wear.

>>6122474
>But by the time you end up doing all that you should be questioning why your life is so shitty and pointless and insignificant that you would waste your time trying to fix a fucking toy
Well, for one thing, regardless of what the item is, why should a person have to just accept that the item is broken? You likely paid money for it or somebody gifted it to you and thus they paid money for you to have it so if something is broken, doesn't it make sense to want it fixed and in good condition?
For another thing, some people are handier than others and already poses the tools necessary to do fixes like that for other reasons so if they already have them and know how to fix the figure, why should they not? Yeah, it would be a bit silly to go out and spend what is probably a large sum of money to get the tools needed for no other purpose than to fix a single toy unless you're particularly wealthy but still, if you know how to fix a figure and have the ability to do so, what is wrong with taking the time to fix it?
Not to mention, some people even enjoy fixing things.

>>6123290
> If lead and iron was allowed
>iron
uhhhh... since when was fucking IRON not allowed in kids toys? Iron is not poisonous. Hell, kids still regularly use solid blocks of the shit in school to learn about magnets.

>>6123540
Iron typically raises the melting temperatures of metal alloys so it's not used in diecast material. I don't think it contributes to wear resistance as well so I'm not really sure why the poster brought that up.

>>6122424
>Just how the fuck do you stop it from wearing out into oblivion?

You don't. Diecast, along with chrome and rubber, are marketing tricks to foot retards into thinking it's valuable, or premium, or any other number of words designed to make you think you're not getting a ticking time bomb of garbage.

>>6123526
You're wrong. Industrial machines ALL use metal, it doesn't mean shit. Industrial machines also very rarely rely on friction like toy joints do.

So if I have a figure with a loose diecast foot hinge what should I do to tighten it?

>>6123540
Irons not allowed for what it can do to zinc which is the major allow.
>>6123558
I'm guessing it's because icon casted diecast is pretty durable and holds out to wear better but the risk of zinc pest would be bad for dumb kids that would try and chew/eat the broken parts.

Also is anyone impressed with the radical diffrent levels of basic education here on /toy/? This was all middle school science class to me but look on this board you think most here are 12.

>>6123608
Replace it. That's all you can do really.

>>6123652
It's a pretty fuckin expensive figure lad.

Someone suggested Future, would that work on diecast too? I don't have any so idk

>>6123601
Many moving parts rely on friction for preloading. Are you retarded? It's a much more critical use case than holding up 0.05kg hollow plastic joints.

>>6123664
Anyone else have an answer that's not pointless spiteful meme bullshit?

>>6123667
Sorry but it's a very serious answer. Future is an acrylic varnish, it won't stick to metal well even if you prepared the surface and even if did have excellent grip on it the Metal would wear the varnish as soon as you started moving it.

If you can take the joint apart maybe you can put high grade electrical tape around it but it'll get destroyed quickly.

The only way is to maybe dump varnish into the joints to act as a weak glue so it'll hold poses, but there's no guarantee it'll hold.

Enjoy your overpriced trash

>>6123678
Did you get anal raped by a die cast dildo at some point? The amount of assblastery you show in any thread that even mentions die-cast is staggering.

>>6123678
Man, did a diecast toy collector rape your mom or something?

Whatever. This is literally the only diecast figure I've ever had problems with (the other two from the exact same line with the exact same diecast in the exact same area don't have this issue).

It still holds some poses fine but it's very floppy which doesn't bode well since the legs also have diecast. The other foot is completely fine but it sucks to have one shitty foot being supported by only one good one.

If anyone else here has an answer that isn't saltier than the dead sea then go ahead.

>>6123694
I'm not fucking asking to be lied to, I'm asking for an answer that doesn't sound upset as fuck and biased as fuck.

If you don't have one then I seriously suggest you make way for someone else who does.

>>6123707
It's been discussed to death, there's no way to fix die cast. You guys are expecting some fairy tale answer when there is none.

>>6123713
It's time for you to move on. Close the tab, hide the thread, and go shitpost elsewhere.

I'd rather wait for someone else to answer this question thank you very much.

>>6123718

There is no fix. It's metal. It wears down from use, or it could've been messed up in the initial casting of the metal. You can try ordering a replacement part from the company that made it, but who knows if they even do that sort of thing, especially if it's an older figure.

>>6123725
I'd say this one is worn down from use since I messed with it a lot more than I did the aforementioned other two figures.

It's a pretty old figure (it's a SOC if anyone was wondering) so I highly doubt a replacement is possible.

>>6123659
>It's a pretty fuckin expensive figure lad.
I meant the part but no amount of bitching and poor buying purchases on your hand will magically make all laws of physics and matter change to your whining.
Future shine is inexpensive enough you should just have some on you for the sake of it that said, no, it won't help because the metal won't responded lie you want to the polish. Might even freeze/brittle the joint where it's dirty metal and the zinc and aluminum in them.
Seriously your fuck. Take this as a lesion the next time you want to spend this much money on expensive toys.

>>6123697
in fairness the anon isn't taking facts all that well. He can't fix his issues short of replacement of the joint.

>>6123734
Would you like to explain to me where the hell I can magically obtain an Evangelion foot then?

Like shit, I know to avoid diecast if possible but there weren't any better options in this case and the diecast mostly works pretty well. It's just the retarded decision to make the foot hinge diecast that fucks it up. The rest of the joints on the figure are all plastic.

I will try getting ahold of Future to try my luck but I guess I'm stuck with a permanent display piece if it doesn't work.

>>6123740
Learn how to 3d model and get a replacement 3d printed in nylon from shapeways.

>>6123748
And now we're just entering unrealistic and impractical tier.

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>>6123740
> I know to avoid diecast if possible
no you don't or you wouldn't be in this mess. Evangelion has troves of merc, you got sucker from hype is my guess and now you're stuck with it.

>It's just the retarded decision to make the foot hinge diecast that fucks it up
not when there is a buyer, cheaper for a lot of reasons on their end and looking at the market no one is wising up but parents. So the adult market is just stuck with this shit because everyone buys poorly made crap for high cost because how else will you get your fetish god idol?
>I guess I'm stuck with a permanent display piece if it doesn't work.
Pretty much, again, be prepared the Future might make it worse but you are already to the point the joint is unusable so no worse for wear.

>>6123750
It's not, there are guys in the custom thread who've done that for their custom figures. I don't see why you can't do it for your figure.

>>6123772
You're the one crying about the fact that people bought a figure that contains a partial amount of diecast, dumbass.

>>6123773
It seems a little extreme, plus I may as well buy the figure all over again if I'm going to invest in a 3D printer and the software and whatnot.

>>6123775
>he said something i don't like so it must be bait
It gives me a good number of accesories, lots of options, doesn't follow some shitty gimmicky Khara trash design and looks good. I'd say it's quite alright other than this one design issue which I'm criticizing quite openly right now.

So unless you have any more shit to spout I'll be waiting for another less easily triggered person to respond

>>6123782
Shapeways is a store that does 3D printing for you. For your stuff it'll probably be like 10 bucks plus shipping as long as you get it right on the first try.

>>6123787
>as long as you get it right on the first try.
That's the issue you see...
Plus, the loose hinge in question is pinned on in a really odd manner (it uses a hollow metal tube rather than your standard pin) so I'm not sure if I can even dismantle the parts to replace it with the 3D printed plastic.

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>>6123782
>You're the one crying about the fact that people bought a figure that contains a partial amount of diecast, dumbass.
I'm just sharing the stupid of it all. Look how nuts the toy market is where people will part with hundreds of dollars for something that will break in a few years. It's like watching a train wreak and commenting on it. It cost me nothing to post here and share those thoughts, how much are you out anon?

>>6123800
>muh buyer's remorse maymay
You don't get it, do you? I didn't buy the figure because of the diecast, I bought it because it was the only fucking decent option on the market and it actually had some cool features. I didn't really give a shit about the diecast at all until this retarded piece in particular started causing me problems.

Stop trying to project your shitty reasoning on others and start either actually fucking contributing or leaving.

>>6123793
That's a spring pin, pretty standard pin for toy joints, especially Japanese action figures. You can probably just push it out with a hex head wrench or something. I don't know how your thing is assembled but if you want to fix it you're going to have to replace the entire joint.

I guess you can also try a bigger spring pin, you can buy different sizes on sites like fastenal or Mr metric.

As much as I hate to, I have to agree with the "about to have a stroke he's so bootyblasted" anon. There's just not a real way to fix the problem. Die cast wears down and you can't fix it like you can a plastic joint.
I have a couple of ideas you might try, but I need to see the joint. Take a couple of clear pix and post them, and I'll see if what I'm thinking might work.

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>>6123805
Wasn't aware that there was a name for it. The more you know I guess.

Trying a larger spring pin could be something worth giving a shot but there's the very worrying factor of fucking up the toy in the process.

>>6123807
Here you go.

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Side view

>>6123804
Only one projecting here is you friend.
> I bought it because it was the only fucking decent option on the market and it actually had some cool features.
why are you telling me that? I don't care what you do with your money, I'm pretty sure since I started replying to you I've just told you that the problem isn't fixable short of replacement and like all the other anons pointed out why diecast is so bad and the suckers out their that keep buying it.

>I didn't really give a shit about the diecast
you should have because it never ages well with toys.

>either actually fucking contributing
Hey we all have, you got both a detailed breakdown of Diecast, how it's made, what's in it and why it has issue. You were given answer that Future shine won't work (to which you claim to ignore and do anyway) we told you short of a replacement joint (which might have to be diecast) it can't be fix. But you are hitting the point you just hate all those answers and just lash out like it's going to get you a better solution.

>>6123819
>very worrying factor of fucking up the toy in the process.
fucking up how? SoC stuff doesn't age well anyway, more so if you will be playing with them.

>>6123826
I honestly find it strange that their seems to be a point where the more the toy cost the worse it gets for the price. like some of these toys that cost the 80$ tag for something that is say 7 inchs? That thing shouldn't be using the same paints and plastics that a $10 has in it and it certainly shouldn't be using cheap shit like vacuum chrome and diecast. For that cost a steel joint or a polypropene/strong polymer of some kind, I'm pretty sure the cost people are paying they will pay that extra $1 in lost profits. Unless I'm missing some stupid cult following that is out their for diecast/metal in their toys.

>>6123830
>people only buy diecast toys because they have diecast in them"
But they do. The TF community has shown a serious lack of sense where they want their expensive "Masterpiece" Transfomers made with that with rubber and chrome also.
>in having the foot become completely unusable
That's a risk yes, honestly due to the size and what it would take to disassemble you are running that risk. You might want to just accept it's a wobble leg. Unless others play with your toys you'll be the only one that knows.

>>6123842
Not all diecast is used on joints though.

Die cast can be used to balance a top heavy figure. Die cast can be used on armatures and internal framework to provide rigidity. Just because some idiots use it in load bearing joints, doesn't mean its automatically a shit material. POM in between diecast parts can make for beautifully silky joints that don't disintegrate overtime and yet provides a heft to balance the figure.

I will fully admit that die cast JOINTS, specially die cast on die cast joints are stupid, but don't go around disdaining the material on the whole when you don't even know its full list of pros and just parade around it like its the third reich.

>>6123830
>forces his retarded "people only buy diecast toys because they have diecast in them" view on others
I'm not forcing that on anybody. You can see in the thread though that a lot of us have experienced communities where they want that crap even though it's bad for the toy. Also that's not projecting that's just a statement on the market, if collectors didn't like it we would have seen it leave the market like it did in the action figure toy market in stores.

>>6123661
>Many moving parts rely on friction for preloading.
>Are you retarded
Nice projecting.