Wow. Yes, it's and old figure, but it's hard to believe what a mess this thing is.
For a couple of years now I've watched it rot away on my shelf, hatching plans to fix it. Even bought the DC vest to use as a replacement, but somehow ended up waiting until the point of no return, before doing anything about it...
I guess I kept putting it off, because I was certain it would just completely fall apart if I touched it.
There was visible rubber warping/rot and even paint bleed and leather rot going on...
And I live in an invironment that is mostly not too humid or too warm even during summer months.
Every other HT figure I own seems to have accepted these invironmental climate condisions except for this one.
(well... and Hellboy. The rubber on the rock-arm elbow has ripped apart. But all leathers (known issue) are fine, no rot there.
These two were released around the same time (if I remember correctly), so there must-of been some bad materials out there or HT tried new ways to "improve" their process).
But I mean, I own figures older than this (Rambo III, burgerface T-800), with no issues what so ever. So why's this so bad???
Anyhow, I finally pulled this thing of the shelf to take a good look at it.
There was (serious) visible warping already in the chest area and more warp/rot on the back of the vest. Under the harness and the arms the rubber was beyond repair and completely flat with no sign of the surface texture the suit has.
The whole body was literally dripping with oil? Maybe they used some (oil) to get the rubber vest on and it just eats the rubber from inside? Dunno?
Every single part seem to have welded together. The paint on the shoulderpads has cracked and melted/fused to the body. Even the "non-smiley" pins paint has cracked?
"Leather" straps weakened and breaking off when carefully openeded and even some fused with the plastics/paints? A real mess...
So, it seemed clear that I wouldn't be able to pull the vest off without making serious damage.
I remembered reading something about the "loctite flex gel" fix and moved onward to try it, because there's just no way it could get any worse.
And let me tell you it works. Seriously.
It even seemed to pull some of the warp out and slightly restore the rubber to it's original form??? Which was a huge surprise given how bad it looked.
(Sadly didn't think to take any photos, because I was sure it was a gonner after this).
The glue obviously hardens the surface and deepens the color of the vest. And if you use too much it'll stain in white, but you can always paint over it.
But the thing is I cant get it inside the vest without some serious breakage, so I'm unsure if the problem will persist.
At the moment however it looks fine.
So if anyone's still conserned with the rubber rot I seriously engourage you to try it.
It obviously wont bring it back from the dead, but will atleast slow it down.
My only gripe is that I didn't try it sooner, when the vest still could-of been salvaged...
[Can't seem to post any pics of the final state, something to do with photobucket(?), I guess, but I might try to put dem up later if there's interest.]
But because of the pose I've had it in (the same one since the day I bought it) the damage is quite severe and I guess I wont be changing that pose ever again.
Maybe at some point I might go back and try the DC vest on, but as it is for a 13" figure, it seems to need a-lot-of-work.
The form is different and compared to HT the sculpt and measurements seem quite poor from the chest and stomach area. Atleast poorer than I'd like it to be...
But ya, there are folks that have pulled it off quite nicely.
What sorta baffeless me is that there seems to be money to be made here for someone with a 3D printer offering replacement armour and nobody has jumped on it?
Wouldn't even mind Hot Toys revisiting this thing... of-course it would be atleast 250USD at this point, but I might still bite.