One of the most heartbreaking things, for a Nendoroid collector, is when the ball joint snaps inside the hole where it holds 2 parts together, specifically, the head to body area.
Pastel Ink, Moetan's Nendoroid, was made during a time when the ball joints, from Good Smile Company, were of a different plastic formula, thus, making it brittle, making the small and fragile plugs easy to crack and eventually snap at the small point that connects it to the "ball" section.
As you see here, the ball itself cracked and broke in half, with the plug still inside the head hole.
The other part of the joint was stuck in the body, but, there was enough of the ball to pull it out with tools.
These tools are what I commonly use to pry out broken joints inside figure. The pliers are used to pull out the piece, the pushpin is to create a hole in a small plug, or whatever is stuck, to help direct the screw which you use to screw into the broken piece to give you more area to pull.
The dental tool it to get into the tight areas and try to yank out the piece.
Because the broken joint had enough meat in the ball section, I was able to just use pliers to pull it out. Because I didn't want to break the plug inside the hole in the head, I twisted the joint out, much like unscrewing a screw.
The joint, that was stuck in the head, had the ball broken and it was not enough to grab onto with the pliers so I used the dental tool to "dig" under what little area I could to pop it out. While I was doing this, the ball part of the joint was so brittle that it broke as I was trying to lift it out. Luckily, the plug easily slipped out.
After getting enough of the plug out, I took the pliers and just pulled out the broken piece.
That broken joint was an easy fix. The first time the joint broke, there was no ball section to dig into. For this, what I had to do was push a push pin into the center of the broken plug, just enough to make a guiding hole for the screw, then use the screwdriver to screw in the screw into the plug itself. Once the scre is at a good point, where it is holding onto the broken plug, you use the pliers to pull out the screw that is grabbing onto the plug.
This method is really simple and fast and works with any broken joint/plug thing where there is no area to grab with the pliers.
The culprits! The two broken joints, on the left, were make with a brittle plastic not strong enough to withstand the movement it was meant to do while posing the character. As a replacement, I used a newer joint, on the far left, from the Hatsune Miku Support Version Nendoroid. The plastic is much more durable than the old formula, but, as you can see, the plugs, from the newer joints, have a head, which make connecting it slightly difficult.
For this, I popped the joint into the head first, twisting the joint gently until it fit into it's place. Then, I connected the two to the body, again with a slow gentle twisting motion, as to not forcefully breaking the joint.
And there you have it! Moetan is back to her cute self, but now with a stronger neck joint! ^_^
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