I guess you should take extra care when using RIT dye on your hair then too...

Glad you like the pencil gripper idea. I have yet to misplace my X-Acto from where I put it. And if your desktop is as cluttered as mine, the bright color will make it easy to find.

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well, I'd found the last Battle Ravage in town here at a Shop-Ko (wich had the 5.99 toys for 9.99), and despite the gouging picked it up for the sake of its Energon weapons for a custom.

Well I try to rit-dye them black... but put them in too long and they fry. the Missile launcher splits in two along the seam, and the fusion cannon sags. 2 beutiful weapons, and 10 bucks, down the drain.

earlier, when I was first testing out Rit dye, I also warped Energon Strongarms shoulder pads to the point where they where useless.

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Thats why you don't put them in the pot itself you use a strainer as seen in the wiki.

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I was using a strainer... left the both of em in for like... 3 minutes.

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the means I was only teasing. yea but quick dips of about 10 sec and flip about 4 times worked for my figure I rit dyed. Since I haven't done a lot of customizing I haven't had any probs yet as only 4 things done. Give me time though.

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Oh yeah, I had a chap Mei head the guy with the beret and the red scarf on his face. Well I had scupled a great neck ball for him and left it in the pot to long and well you know the rest.

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My historical favorite sounds so much better than it really was:

"I was screwing Covergirl in the back, but went too deep and her chest cracked."

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You had me at "I was screwing Covergirl..."

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My worst accident was a few years back when I was customising Batman and DC animated figures. I was cutting the tips off of a batman figures gloves with a ( I know WTF was I thinking)
box cutter and it slid right through the plastic and cut the entire top of my thumb knuckle off right to the bone. I had a hole about the size of a dime and could see joint of the knuckle. as soon as I did it I looked at it and thought " This is bad, very bad" It didnt bleed at first but all of a sudden it gushed and within 2 seconds my hand and arm were covered in blood. Luckily I havent repeted anything like that since, but it made me super careful from then on.

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I don't have much experience in customizing, as I've only been doing it for a year or so.

The only big mistakes I've done as far as figures were concerned was trying to drill through a stripped out screw on my old Wet Suit figure. That figure was the one I had as a child, and only found it back about 15 years later, only to notice the rubber had broken. No big deal, I knew it would be easy to replace it, but the problem was the stripped screw in the back: I couldn't unscrew it to fix the figure.

So I managed to borrow a dremel and some small bits and started drilling... well I eventually managed to get the screw out, but it had somehow heated up so much that the screw hole thing had melted inside the torso, making it not usable for another screw. I was devastated...

Now with regards to body harm, I have been lucky so far. My only accident involved trying to unscrew a stripped screw (once again), and the screw driver slipped from the hole and came right into my left thumb. I must admit it cut nicely and easily through the flesh, and I wasn't too pleased at the idea of having that rusty driver tip planted right into my thumb...

What happened to many of you sounds downright scary though.

I've cut my hands to mincemeat over the years, between Joes and tabletop figures and models; but the one that has scared me the wost was when I was using thinner to wash a brush and flicked a huge drop of dirty thinner straight into my open eye. It hurt really bad and I flipped out, like cartoon style flip out.

As far as wrecking parts, well, I haven't done very many real adventurous customs yet, so I haven't wrecked anything that I didn't go "Meh.." and toss it into the ash can.

One time, while adding antlennae to an Ant Man minimate custom, I glued my hand to his helmet, and I had to rip off part of my skin to get it off! The cool thing though, was my fingerprint made it look like airvents on the helmet!

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Well, my first Star Wars custom was a Lando in Coruscant Guard Uniform from the Shadows of the Empire line.

I was at a toy show in Syracuse and saw someone with a custom carded version. Since I knew Hasbro hadn't made one, that really got me thinking about Star Wars customs.

A simple head swap and it looks nice, except for the drill hole right through the front. I haven't fixed it yet.


My other one I wanna finish is 'Piggy' from the Wraith Squadron series. He is an altered Gammorean. I did some heavy sanding a few years back (when I was out with mono).

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During my pre-Joe custom era I was heavy into Star Wars customs and Total Justice Customs. The whole Superman Red/Blue series had come along, and I wanted to make them. Painted the blue fig and sculpted the modications. 99% done. Took the figure outside and sealed it on my in-law BBQ grill (living with the in-laws at the time). Their very nice, sweet, perfect....dog got a hold of the fig as it was drying. I really controlled myself (temper-wise) that day, but the re-sculpting/painting was never the same.

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been there, done that too

if you ever have to do that again, put the part in a dish of water, then drill it while it is under water. It will keep everything cool

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