Loose Alien feet , now cured !

I know it's a little after the fact , but has anyone come up with a "cure" for the common problem of the loose ( i.e crap ) ankle joints on particular Hot Toys Alien Warrior figures ? I recently got mine out of storage to put on display and the fact that the feet on 3 of them ( "Aliens" Warrior , "AvP:R" Warrior and "Predalien" ) CONTINUALLY fall off , is driving me nuts ! Previously , I'd used a piece of rubber from a rubber glove on the joint to cause sufficient friction to help remedy this problem and short term this works o.k ( sort of ) . But , I've decided now that surgery is the only option . I'm considered using the ankle pegs from a Predator figure and wondered whether anyone has tried this . Thoughts ?

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

Burn it and throw it in the trash. Worst figure in the history of figures ever!

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

Agree. Trash them now and buy Enterbay Michael Jordan and put the Alien head on him.

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

Well dont do what there saying , i bought epoxy and bonded the feet and painted it.Not the best thing to do but not only will he not fall and brake again and again its a great background figure.There terrible figures but i do like them , Aliens are a must in a predator / alien collection.If you have a broken knee you can do the same but u will lose posing his legs, but unless you are 5 yrs old most of us pose them and leave them.
I will post a pic later if you want to see the out come .

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

Super glue on ball or in socket will tighten it up or replace the ball and socket altogether. Put ball and socket together then drop tiny drops of latex around the top might tighten it up too. I have had two Aliens from Aliens and thats what I did. Good luck.

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

Well , I'm going ahead with the plan of using the Predator ball joints . So far I've drilled out the legs at the ankle and used Milliput to fill the cavity . I've done the same to the feet . I'll give it a few hours to dry before I drill new holes for the joints .


And Evilface and King Darkness , thanks for the very helpful tips and advice , but I'm not in the habit of burning/throwing away figures that have cost me HUNDREDS of pounds . So you'll forgive me if I don't take your (obviously) expert opinions seriously .

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

Well , I've got the ball joints fitted and it's looking pretty good . Unfortunately , drilling out the holes in the feet didn't go quite so well , as I overdid it and the holes were a little too large . Not a problem though , I just re-did the Milliput and I'll re-drill the holes tommorrow .

It does raise the question though , why didn't Hot Toys just use THESE joints in the first place ?

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

Great idea, I look forward to see how this turns out and thanks for the tips.

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

Its not going to matter , without a stand and it falls you will have a broken knee with milliput locking that leg in place for good

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

zuckuss77 said:

Its not going to matter , without a stand and it falls you will have a broken knee with milliput locking that leg in place for good

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Hopefully , with the new ankles ( and supported by the tail !) falling shouldn't be as big a problem as before . I'm more than familiar with the fragile knee syndrome as well , as I've actually had two warriors and knees crumbled on both of them . The current one is the result of combining the best of the two ! None of my other xeno's have suffered from this , in fact the first AvP version is as sturdy as hell ! To be honest though , even the broken knees aren't the end of the world as although a bit "work intensive " , a repair is possible .

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

thundergod said:

Hopefully , with the new ankles ( and supported by the tail !) falling shouldn't be as big a problem as before . I'm more than familiar with the fragile knee syndrome as well , as I've actually had two warriors and knees crumbled on both of them . The current one is the result of combining the best of the two ! None of my other xeno's have suffered from this , in fact the first AvP version is as sturdy as hell ! To be honest though , even the broken knees aren't the end of the world as although a bit "work intensive " , a repair is possible .

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I personally am happy to see the positive waves flowing!

I have been just living with my falling apart ankles (after both knees buckled requiring intensive surgery, I kind of look at the ankles like "eh...I ain't moving it, theyll be fine").

Look forward to seeing how this turns out.

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

thundergod said:

Hopefully , with the new ankles ( and supported by the tail !) falling shouldn't be as big a problem as before . I'm more than familiar with the fragile knee syndrome as well , as I've actually had two warriors and knees crumbled on both of them . The current one is the result of combining the best of the two ! None of my other xeno's have suffered from this , in fact the first AvP version is as sturdy as hell ! To be honest though , even the broken knees aren't the end of the world as although a bit "work intensive " , a repair is possible .

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Good outlook, i am glad you are posting this

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

Well , the "major" work is done and the ankle joints are in place . They're not perfect , I would have preferred to have the ball joints deeper set in the lower legs , but I didn't want to risk having to actually have the joint in the thinner ( and therefor weaker ) part of the leg . But , the joints are nice and firm and he now stands a LOT better than before . I need to do a little cosmetic work , I'll add a little "sleeve" made from a black rubber glove to disguise the joint and touch it up with a spot or two of paint . And then Bob's your Dad's brother ! ( Don't worry it's a British thing ! )

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

I put heat shrink tubing on the ball joint. It seemed to work good onthe 2 figs I tried.

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

scarbrs said:

I put heat shrink tubing on the ball joint. It seemed to work good onthe 2 figs I tried.

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That sounds like a better idea , I may try that out myself !

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

I don't have one of these, but they're a ball and socket, from reading the thread. If that's so, simply pop the feet off, put a little bit of blu-tac into the socket before putting the feet on. It's non-reactive and maintains its stickiness... well, forever. I've done it to a couple of my figures feet. My IM Mk IV had such loose ankles it couldn't stand unaided. Now, no problemo. It works fantastically well.

Re: Loose Alien feet , any cure ?

The acual joints are now nice and firm, ( I added some latex masking fluid to the holes/pegs to add some friction ) so now it's simply a job of disguising the ball joints themselves . I'm very happy with the way it's turned out , so now I'm eyeing up my AvP:R warrior with an eye to performing surgery on him as well !

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMekATnLPmM[/ame]

Great job mate!

Here's a better shot of the Alien modelling his new ankles .


( And gary23 , thanks a bunch . I'll have that bloody tune in my head all day now ! )