Weak plastic in Saberlion kit

[duck1969]

So, I had just recently purchased a Saberlion from an Amazon marketplace store, and this being a kit I had wanted for quite some time, I was rather excited to say the least, while I waited for the package to arrive from Japan. However once it had finally arrived, I ran into an issue with the kit; the plastic is too brittle. The first problem was fitting the jaw into place, as it required a bit of force and almost half an hour of working it into the peg just to get it to fit, and now it's too tight to even rotate. Most, if not all of the limbs are too tight to rotate as well, not to mention I can't seem to get the mane pieces to fit into their peg holes. The biggest issue however, was in trying to fit the feet onto the ball joints. Three out of four of the feet broke when fitting them in, no matter how gentle I was in coercing the pieces in place. So I guess my question is simply if anyone has had similar issues with zoids kits? And if so, if someone could give me some pointers on what to do to complete the kit without anything else breaking, or to get the plastic to soften up. The kit was new and unopened in box. Thank you in advance.

[LoveGame]

I have the kit still unbuilt, I'll be sure to be careful and report my findings. I just haven't built it yet because I was gonna make it into a custom for one of my buddies but he's in the Navy and is currently on his underway so I'll have to wait til he gets back.

[cougan]

Is this an HMM or BT kit, or an older one? Do you have a pic?

Bye Cougan

[Snowflake]

I never had that much trouble with my saberlions, though jaws in general do seem to give me fits in most zoids. if I'm not mistaken, teal plastic has its own red plastic syndrome, though it's less common. Really sorry to hear that, but at least it's gotta be one of the cheaper ones to replace

[Hanyoutai]

Saberlion is a teal cat from the late NJR era. It was never HMM or BT. I'm assuming theirs is official; motorized bootlegs were usually even more obvious than HMM with hideous colors.

Unfortunately I'm not sure if there's anything you can do for brittle plastic. Gluing is an option if you don't mind it not being able to pose very well. In this case, you could probably trim down ball joints and/or pegs (Hopefully without breaking too badly) so that they don't fracture the smaller parts that are supposed to fit over them.

[duck1969]

Thankfully it is cheap to replace, which I have elected to do. Wish I had looked into the kit more beforehand, and made myself aware of these problems. When I finally do replace it, and my Gun Tiger (which has a lot of the same issues, apparently) arrives, I'll likely end up sanding down the ball joints, as suggested. I'll likely be unable to pose it well too, so I may also simply resort to gluing as well.

[Snowflake]

If you sand down the joints, making them loose, couldn't you tighten them back up by applying thin layers of glossy paint or something? Then they'd be tight but they wouldn't be applying tons of pressure on the joint causing it to crack. I dunno I'm not a physicist

[Maethius]

Joints are tricky; I try to only modify the cups of a ball joint if possible, keeping the ball looking clean and sharp. You can tighten a joint by adding clear (I use Dulcote lacquer most often) But you do have to be very cautious to avoid cracking the joint or scraping the paint.

[LunarEchoes]

I had this same issue with my Saberlion, the teal pieces holding the ball joints on the ankles broke and had to be glued back on. It's a neat kit overall but mine has a very loose front paw due to the weak plastic

[Seale]

This also apply on zbuilders saberlion version. The teal plastic is brittle and can shatter while putting the feet.