Trickiest Robot Repair?

[dratomic]

Since it's on my mind lately: What's the trickiest toy robot/astronaut/space ship/whatever repair you've ever attempted? Were you successful? Was there any sort of eureka moment that allowed it to come together?

Related question #1: What's the most expensive/valuable/rare/whatever toy you've worked on? I know a bunch of people on this forum have worked on members of the Gang of Five. What about a Diamond Planet or Jupiter robot? Were you nervous about opening up such expensive toys?

Related question #2: Was there any attemted repair that resulted in even more damage to the toy? (Though if this is the case, perhaps it might be too painful a topic of discussion...)

(Yeah, I'm a professional journalist... They say curiosity killed the cat. But the cat's still got to ask questions.)

[H.I. Gosses]

Space Explorer is a stinker, so is Missile robot, Tuliphead X-70 is difficult. The first Radicon is hard as you do not know what it is about.

Technically it is easy. I was succesful in all my repairs, but it often was a Phyrrus-victory. If you buy a car wreck at the junkyard

you can spend 3x the newprice in restoring it.If you spent of lot of time on restoring totally ruined cheap robots.. well you learn from it.

The most chilling experiences comes with robots that are glued or soldered.

The splitting of the Expenski robot is not an experience I cherish. (I finally used ultra sound)

Everybody is always concerned about breaking off tabs, but if you use a small round-nosed pair of plyers, they never do.

I worked on 4 of the gang of 6. Not on shooting and machineman. Also on Topolino and all the other $$$. Makes no difference.

The small and primitive robots and the plastics, are the hardest.

If you have the tools, the mechanisms, in general, pose no problems. Space explorer is difficult as you need to nearly 100% close

it, to check if everything is properly adjusted. And a broken mechanism in SE usually results in more than one defect.

Problems arise cosmetically. A rusted mechanized Robby can be restored to pristine condition. Any rust or damage in litho

is a lost cause.

Not everything that is injection-moulded, can be cast. Door robot hands >yes.

And a missing hand or face to a Sparky, I can fabricate, but a window for a Talking RB, no way.

Disasters:

I once had repaired a Pug Robby. It was reassembled and stood on the bench waiting for my utter contentment.

At the other end of the workshop, I drop a wrench. trying to catch it, I bumbed into a toolcart, which rolled towards a

steeltube, which keeled over, and hit something etc etc. After about 10 seconds of chain reaction, a measuring stand fell

in between Robby and the remote and launched R. towards the floor. Hmmm...

#2 I was supposed to repair a Golden Powder robot. The hygroscopic powder, baking Soda?, had tarnished the gloss varnish.

Before anything else I wanted to clean the affected area. So with a very small swap with distilled water,

I wiped of the whole face!!!!

That is the only robot I know,(NOW), of to have a water transfer for the deco. It was repaired with a PhotoShopped watertransfer

so it came out OK, but pfff..

[dratomic]

Wow. Henk -- you said you used ultrasound to split the plastic robot. I've heard of using ultrasound for other things, but this is new to me. Can you describe this a bit? What was the machine you used, how did you employ it, how does it split the toy (without destroying it)?

[H.I. Gosses]

I had a few small machines from a scrapyard that were used to clean jewellery.

They are nothing more than a vessel which you fill with soapy water,

(sold for plenty dolllaaarr as Special tarataratara fluid) and a piece of machinery that

vibrated with 40 000 to 100 000 Hz. stuck to the bottom. (So the water vibrates with that frequency too etc. )

With a BIG screwdriver you liberate the vibrator and attach it to a chisel-like contraption.

I.e. You make a small, (non pneumatic), pneumatic drill.

Lower frequencies travel in all directions, so the plastic might break anywhere. As the very high frequency is more

directional, it is more likely to tax the interface between plastic and glue.

And so it did. (Than God!)

[dratomic]

Ah. Such ingenuity. Nice solution; I'm glad to hear it had a happy ending for the toy...

[bartzenegger]

as henk said space explorer is a pain!!!! - alot interworkings with little space with perfect placement of gears. dux astroman looks to be very hard ( i have not had to work on mine.)

cragstan astronaunt was pretty tough also .

easiest- has to be lost in space remco_ -

good luck on your project - dont have one, so cant really help sorry.

[H.I. Gosses]

Come on John R. You must have goofed somewhere too.

Give us a juicy story, for one it will console Bart.

How about a gatepost and a Robby-mobile?

[SH MIKE]

I once found a Mr. Hustler loose. It had a problem walking. after taking it apart,

I was able to free a frozen gear and put it back together. When I put batteries in it,

It started to walk forward a few steps.

It then STOPPED ! ! !

It started moving it's shoulders in and out and then after awhile, it STOPPED again ! ! !

It then repeated these 2 separate actions.......

I was happy that I had "Fixed" a Horikawa with 2 different actions ! ! !

A year later, I found one in the box and it had the same problem I originally had with the first one ? ? ?

I read on the box that it had "Two Different Speeds" (with one continuous action)! ! !

Then I realized that I had "Fixed" a Robot that wasn't broken :(

I still have BOTH Robots doing different things!

[H.C.]

1) Hysterical Harry that would not shut its mouth completly after turning it off. It had teeth showing with a 1/4 gap and it was driving me banana's. I took it apart and milled over it for about a week. I was at the point of no return when I decided to break out my dremel tool and remove the "extra" plastic on the mouth actuator which I thought was causing the problem. Turns out that it was mounted upside down from the factory and the beveled edge was coming up short.

2) Not really a repair but a cleansing gone bad. During my pedawan days, I had a white Space Fighter that needed cleaning. I took it apart and dipped the pieces in my DIY cleaning "solution". Needless to say, all chrome was removed on the ear pieces and everthing else was etched beyond recognition. My Space Fighter had turned into a Space Freighter. <_<

[robothut]

I have been takeing apart and repairing robots sice I was 7 years old so I have had my share of problems. I will have to do some thinking to come up with the best stories for this topic, but I have never lost a robot on the table. These days if a robot comes to me that is so sick that I know it will die I just tell it to go away, find another doctor, I don't want to tarnish my record and have my malpractice insurance go up. ;)