I have been toying with an idea lately, and wanted to see what the members of joecustoms think of it.

This could probably be posted in Site Stuff or in General Customizing, but I am posting it here. If it needs moved, please move it.

Lately in seems that a number of toy lines have gone to using the ball socket joint for the head pieces. There are popular brands and there are some lesser known ones too.

Would it be helpful to the customizing community as a whole to have a guide or some list that included every known ball socket type head?

I ask because I have some spare 25th fodder and it would be helpful to me to know what heads are out there. Right now, other than the GIJOE 25th, there is the Indiana Jones line and the Star Wars line that use these joints.

Is this something that can be done for the wiki? Can there be links to other sites that show the heads or are new pics needed of just the heads?

I also believe there is at least three different sizes of ball joints.

Example:
-Large (Clonetrooper-Scorch or Episode II helmets)
-Mid (ROTS Mon Mothma, some Indiana Jones)
-Small (25th CP Duke)

Each entry could have a listing or notation that states what size ball joint is needed or what size head hole it is. Just from looking at a spare 25th Red Star and Duke, there are possibly more sizes out there. Does it need done by an exact measurement?

This is something that everyone could contribute to, and could definitely benefit those of us that customize.

Obviously it would need to be added to as new product becomes available.

What do you all think?

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If this is done, it needs to have exact measurements. I've noticed differences between heads on the Snake Eyes body. What should be the same body, and when I switch heads there is a difference in fit.

Also, there needs to be some measurement between the top of the ball and the shoulder. Even when heads fit, you end up with some no-neck figs.

It's not a bad idea (I once considered something based on parts compatibility between various Joes, such was what arms work with what torsos, but the sheer enormity of it was overwhelming and I pretty much ran screaming from the idea after a couple of hours) but as Morian Miner pointed out, there's such an...inconsistency among neck ball sizes it would create problems all it's own, especially if you aren't exactly sure which figure you're holding (for example, if you got a bunch of them, or parts of them, in a lot and have no handy reference.) Star Wars figures are pretty notorious for the same figure having multiple sizes of neck ball across the versions, for example. And again, using what Morian Miner said, sometimes they fit the ball but you wind up with either no-neck, or a giraffe-neck look because it sits too high.

It's doable, and would even be helpful, but you (or anyone who wanted to undertake it) would have quite a job on their hands, and you'd want to keep it updated as new versions of figures were released.

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That should go in the wiki (wiki.joecustoms.com) instead of the forum. Pluv can help you out with that if you want to pursue it.

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Great idea, but I have noticed a wide descrepncy in the ball size on the heads, paricularly in the Star Wars line. GI Joe is about the most uniform in size. The problem I find more often is the length of the neck. I have lots of heads that would look good on a certain body, but the neck is either too long or short.

Some other lines that use ball necks:
- Prince Caspian
- Golden Compass
- Build N Brawl wrestlers

This would make for a great wiki article on compatable heads. Pictures of the swapped heads would make it even better.

Sure you're going to run into incompatability problems within the smae line. Super Hero Showdown figures are horrible for thsi reason since just about no two heads could be swapped within the same line. But there will be some that do work. So focus on the heads from other lines that work straight up with 25th Joes. Then we can start categorizing them under what line they came from.

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