Repairing Big Jim

[Neutron X]

I have been really surprised by how many BJ repairs I have discovered and how many others I have found. It seems there are repairs for just about all BJ issues. My favorite repair is now the new hip fix for broken hip ball joints. Many of my childhood Jims died due to this problem. Melts are still a huge problem but lite melts can be sanded and buffed out. Any thoughts on repairs?

[Starroid Raiders Dagon]

I tried to look for some a couple of years ago but I didnt have much luck finding any pics and tutorials.

[Neutron X]

I tried to look for some a couple of years ago but I didnt have much luck finding any pics and tutorials.

I found some great repair tricks on Italian Big Jim sites. I wish I wrote the name down to give proper credit to the creators. Some basic repairs I knew were swapping hands, heads, hips and feet. I learned to swap out the knees and shoulders making it easier to fix broken figures. I realized it was possible seeing some of the Cipsa fans repairs on their figures. I know some hard core fans will split the chest apart which I have been able to avoid doing so far.

For some reason Wolf Pack figures hands seem to be more fragile than the earlier BJ figures. It's like the 70s AA KFG Gijoe which has unstable plastic due to the color agent in the plastic. I had 3 Wolf Pack hands disintegrate on me so now I switch out the whole arm and not the hands if I need to. Dr. Steel's steel hand was fine then I moved it and it shattered at wrist. It could be these things are 50 years old and times up or they were stored with poor temperature controls.

[Starroid Raiders Dagon]

I am very surprised that any of the heads remained on for any of these figures that have been played with. The plastic "dumbbell" (for my lack of a better term) that attaches the head to neck, seems like a worse design choice than the plastic stem that attached the ball for the legs.

[Neutron X]

Another good point. The neck is weak for sure. As a kid all my figures broke at the hip ball joint. My last surviving BJ figure does have neck cracks and small chipping but still works. Rubber arms also seem to have melting issues with chest plastic, staining , and chews. This can be hard to see in auction pics. As a kid it did meet several of my basic needs. For me a cool toy must pose well and stand on it's own. Big Jim surpassed all that with looking good and Karate Chop action!

Broken neck BJ figures can be fixed with small eye screw screwed into rubber neck piece then heating head and putting it over the screw. People seem to glue heads on too.

[Neutron X]

I bought a lot in which many of the Big Jim heads were glued on. After carefully removing the heads and sanding the outside glue off. I decided it would be easier to leave a lot of the glue that was already inside neck alone. It was a solid rock mass that wasn't moving. I drilled down just enough for eyescrew to hold the head. Now head works perfectly and is firm. I prefer to put original dumbbell neck piece back in figures but it seemed likely to do more damage than good.
Neck repair
IMG_1568 (2) by edtime5, on Flickr
IMG_1571 (2) by edtime5, on Flickr