Torso Transplant - The Casanova Q-Ring Method

Honestly reading through this I'm still kind of confused. Is there any way you could put up pics of the various stages? I'm having trouble imagining each step.

decent idea, but for me every part I deal with can be made into something, given a splash of paint or a bit of modding

From what a few have said, I may have created my own method of snapping a torso and pair of legs back together, while I was creating for my LOD Custom Droz. A few customizer friends told me that I absolutely HAD to share it with you all, because my method involved no body / torso cracking and no gluing, whatsoever.

The funny thing is, I never did a “torso crack” before, so I really didn’t know what to do, and therefore, just made up my own technique. What I wanted in the end was a Classic Droz torso with Hawk LOD 2000 legs. As you can see from the figure, my method is clean and looks as good as new, with no cracking or gluing involved, but what you can’t see is it is also fully articulate with a tight functioning pelvis.

WHAT DO YOU NEED? Well, the most important tool is TOENAIL CLIPPERS!

The two current methods of torso swapping usually include taking a screwdriver and prying open the pins, starting under the armpit and above the shoulder in the joint, then moving your way along the seams. Then reassembling everything and gluing. I attempted this for about 5 minutes in on Hawk and said, “SCREW THAT.”

I found “torso cracking” right off the bat wasn’t for me, when I saw the first stress mark on Hawk’s shoulder. I don’t have the patience. I like the guys from the movie Office Space, who take the fax machine out to a field and just totally destroy it when it doesn’t work how I want it to.

THE CASANOVA Q-RING TORSO TRANSPLANT METHOD
While this method may not be for the spendthrift cheapskate, it leaves a fully functional hip joint with complete articulation. The cost is, it takes two figures to make one, as one the remains of one figure will likely be unusuable.

STEP 1 – SECURE YOUR CLEAN TORSO – Wanting the Droz torso and the Hawk legs, I turned the Droz hips 90 degrees and snapped it, in half with my bare hands like a savage brute. (Much like you would break a branch to throw in a camp fire. If you dont have the strength, wrap it in a hand clothe and break it over the side of a table.)

The “Snapping Into a Slim Jim” method will leave you with a mint torso, but should leave you with legs with a broken O-ring. (Some people would maybe want to keep the plaid Droz pants for a future project, but glueing the legs to a torso sucks, because you lose articulation. Therefore, I say THROW THEM SUCKERS OUT!)

STEP 2 – SECURE YOUR CLEAN LEGS - Wanting just the legs of Hawk LOD 2000, I attempted a torso crack that sucked, and then I just cut off the torso with wire-clippers, so that the O-ring on the legs was clean, minty fresh and fully intact.

I was not going to bother to save the Hawk torso, as my goal was to just get Hawk’s legs. Theoretically, if you wanted to save the torso, you could attempt a legit torso crack with a screwdriver and later glue everything back together. However, if you are like me and hate cracking, then just destroy the torso to get to the legs you want and throw that bad boy in triz-zash.

STEP 3 – CREATE THE Q RING - The final step is to take toenail clippers and trim down the O-ring above the legs, so it the ring is less than half the size it was before. However, when trimming leave a tail where you do not cut down some of the original ring at all. While you are trimming down the O, you leave a tongue-shaped piece untouched, making it kind of now look like the capital letter “Q.”T his tail is essential to the articulation point of the hips.

WHat you are doing is creating a smaller O that can be forced into the hole underneath the torso.

STEP 4 – SNAP THE LEGS IN PLACE – Poke the tail in the hole in the bottom of the torso and snap the legs and torso together.

If it doesn’t snap together at first, you can soak the torso in hot water (like you would in a head or arm removal) to losen it up a little. If that doesn’t work, make the O-ring smaller with your toenail clipper. If you are still having some difficulty, you may want to slightly crack one side of the bottom of the torso’s seam near the hole, after soaking the torso in hot water.

In the end, it will work with a little tweaking, as it worked for me on my first try.

Hope it works out for you!

Someone complained I had too many posts up, then someone wanted to read it. These people are nuts.