This is a BRILLIANT method for making a ball joint! I've been looking for something like this for a long time.

Great video! I’m just building my very first ever custom action figure and this, save my life! The force is strong with you my friend! Thank you so much!!!

Great tip and great sculpt

Thanks for showing us how this works. A Brit guy I was watching did the same thing with Black Series figures. However, he never showed if the head can be removed or not. Since I have an expensive Mezco figure with interchangeable heads, I was too scared to do it in case the head gets stuck permanently. But glad to see it works and the head can be popped out. Thank you for sharing this very informative video!

Wow! I’ve been doing custom figures for years now and I’ve never thought of that. Simple yet so affective. Thank you so much for this video. Made my job that much more easier. 👍🏼

Excellent solution sir! Thank you 👏🏾😁

I do the same thing with my figures too. Its a good quick fix!

One thing I do is hit the areas where the hot glue touches the inside of the head with super thin CA glue and let it wick in giving the hot glue a stronger bond so there is less chance of it separating if you take the head off more than a few times. Use a scalpel or plastic tooth pick/ glue loop to drop the glue so you don't get any CA on your paint job, it will ruin it!

The Petroleum Jelly aka Vaseline w/ Shea Butter hurdle earned you my sub. I actually ordered a few containers of that type years ago and... now, at least one may see some use. 😆 Thanks for the the Tutorial! 👍

Cool tip! Thank you for making this video.

I tried this and had to cut a bigger, rounder opening to have the head be able to swivel 'safely' and because I still want to be able to take off the head from time to time. But it's a great tip. Thank you.

I've resisted buying a hot glue gun since I started doing customs even though I know it would come in handy for some stuff, but this just put it over the top, it would solve so many issues on head swaps.

a good substitute for glue would be uv resin

Great tutorial - I like that you showed us the failed attempt to put it back on too. Thanks. What body did you say that was? I like it a lot - might keep an eye out for one.

Great guide. I did this technique before but with just hot glue. Applying Vaseline first is a great idea though. I’ll try that next time I do this hah. The way you were cutting though gave me some anxiety cause that’s exactly how I accidentally sliced the side of my finger >.< I would suggest laying it on a flat surface while cutting instead of holding it with one hand and cutting with the other like in your vid lol.

so helpful

you can also use epoxy putty

Why is there an opening/hole in the ball joint? Is it for easier insertion?

Would air dry clay work just as well as hot glue?

IIIII ain't got no boddyy....(Two things you need: a head and a body)

Do you think plastic seran wrap would be a good substitute if we don't have Vaseline?

Does supper glue work or must it be hot glue?

Hey David! Just happened to stumble onto this video my dumb luck through KZfaq's search engine. Half the time when you're looking for stuff like this it just doesn't show up when you do the search. One thing I was curious about and I wanted to see if you can give any suggestions, is how do you REDUCE the ball joint if that's the way that I want to go. One of the things that I want to do is do a couple custom 3/4 Han Solo's for my collection. Back in January I came down with covid.. caught it from an idiot that we know.. and I was stuck in the hospital for a week and a half because I actually had allergic reaction to the virus. As one of the lucky one or two percenters that actually kind of reaction to it like a bee sting. I end up getting Guillain-Barre from it and still recovering. We're starting me on this journey was the same idiot that got me sick, and I keep calling her an idiot not to be mean or name calling anyone, but when you know you're sick, especially what's going on right now come on you don't go around people and possibly get them infected. You stay put and get over it before being around anyone. She just came over because she wanted money from my mom and that's all she got us infected. But she also messed up my legacy millennium falcon that I have. I had it at the foot of my bed because it's so big and I didn't have any place to put at the time, and while I was in the hospital she picked it up and moved it and lost all bunch of pieces of it. Twit! So I've been putting it back together.. and I've been buying figures to decorate it as well. I'm actually thinking of putting it into like a coffee table type thing so you can look at it as a display. I like the head sculpt, and what I wanted to do was put the head off the Han Solo in stormtrooper outfit onto a death star escape or just for your plane old Han Solo legacy or saga body since they're basically is the same mold as the vintage collection figure. Thing about all three lines is that the bodies have bigger neck ball joints then what are on the stormtrooper. Technically you can take a blade and just shave a little bit off the ball till it fits the head joint, but I'm looking for something that's a little more controllable and cleaner when you do the shaving. I forgot the name of the toll but it's something that I've used when I've made my lightsabers, but it's a tool that works similar to a pencil sharpener that cleans up all the sharp edges on piping, like aluminum and steel pipe so that they don't have sharp edges when you put things together. I was wondering if there was something out there like that I can use on the ball joint to shave it down ever so slightly so that I can get the heads to fit on the body. Part of the reason why I'm interested in this is by hand dexterities still crappy after having the Guillain-Barre, and I'm just wondering if there's an option out there for that. Do you or anybody on these posts have any suggestions that may be a good idea to use because I don't trust my dexterity after what I've been through. Just a thought and an idea!

Do you think this would work trying to put a marvel legends head on an shf body?

A lot of work when a little rtv and cornstarch would make a perfect joint...