Fear the Crab

Armed with a small screwdriver and a packet of O-rings, I set about fixing my childhood. Lo, were it so easy to really do that, but yes I meant my old toy collection. There’s only one screw in the back of each figure, so once that is out the body comes apart pretty easily.

Opened up

The old O-ring is on the left, and while dismantling the figure it snapped apart like paper. The new O-ring is a 9/16″ inner diameter with a 3/4″ outer. I read somewhere that a 3/8″ O-ring was okay, but when I saw those they seemed too small and likely make the connection too tight. The O-ring hooks through the waist to the legs, and loops around the large peg on the back of the torso. This is what allows the figure to twist and bend in all kinds of action-y poses, so I felt that if the new O-ring was too small that it’d pull the toy too hard together.

Through the waist and secure the legs

Loop the other end of the O-ring to the torso

Reattaching the body was a lot trickier than I imagined. The new O-ring is less flexible and would love nothing more than to pop back to a perfect circle, rather than smush itself into a small space. And since the arms and head are loose, it’s a careful tension act of fingers holding parts together while allowing enough room to fit all the extremities.

But in the end, I think it was worth the trouble. The screw easily fit the torso back together and my old-school action figures were ready to do some new-school action.

Yo Joe!

I did notice that one of the figures I have really does need a smaller O-ring. The swivel-arm Scarlett from 1983 seems to have a shorter torso, and thus the O-rings I bought are too large. The repairs on the rest of my collection went well, for those that needed it.