Kaori on the Operating Table (Update! Now in recovery mode)

It's not a pretty sight....

(Also not the story that i wanted to tell....was gonna make a photo story but this happened)

 

The dreaded broken spine, we all seen it before....

IMGP8563 by XOHimitsuOX, on Flickr

 

OK, the peg is stuck in the top part and i've seen people use pliers to pull them out, making a mess of it.

I took the whole top part to get the broken parts.

Once i wiggled the bust off the skeleton, now i had to remove the skeleton from the bust support.

But to do this i had to pull off the arm socket rings, using a flat head screw driver to pry them out then pull them off with my hands.

Here's an after shot cause i forgot to take a photo.

IMGP8565 by XOHimitsuOX, on Flickr

 

Now the rings are off, you can squeeze the bust support and push one arm socket in then down, then the other and the skeleton should fall from the bottom.

The the bottom part should have two rings and use the screwdriver again to remove the rings, and unscrew the neck piece and the parts should spit apart giving you access to the broken parts

IMGP8561 by XOHimitsuOX, on Flickr

 

Now here are the broken pieces ready to be fixed....

IMGP8564 by XOHimitsuOX, on Flickr

 

I kinda deviated on my fix. By the way it was all trial and error.

I was gonna make my own part to replace the broken parts. But i bought a rod instead of a pipe part which prevented me continuing that plan.

 

First i made my own peg, out of Plastruct. i rather wanted a solid piece instead of a hollow peg made of 2 pieces. My first problem was i could only find 6.4mm rods, but worked out better in the end. Rod had to be thickened to ~8mm. Which was done by layering 0.5mm & 0.3mm sheets around the rod. The sheets were cut 3cm wide and length wise was enough to wrap around the rod. I was a messy process cementing the sheets. After letting to dry a bit, i test fitted it and was a quite a tight fit, having the rod clamped in the vise it was easy to take off for some sanding. I repeated till i got the desired fitting.

 

Since i was on plan B i resorted to hollowing out the broken piece so it could accommodate the rod. It's vital to do this slowly and test fit a lot of times. If this gets screwed up, you will need to make that piece from scratch. I also drilled a hole in the right position using a 2.8mm bit. If you don't have the right tools to get it dead center (like me) you might need to redo the rod. Lucky for me i got it on my 1st try.

 

IMGP8566 by XOHimitsuOX, on Flickr

 

IMGP8567 by XOHimitsuOX, on Flickr

 

IMGP8568 by XOHimitsuOX, on Flickr

 

I've been pushing and pulling and so far it seems to be quite strong. If it does break i will need to go back to my original plan.

Edited July 20, 2012 by Guest

You can do it! I have faith in you~

 

Updated with my fix

Looks nice and solid, Hopefully the next time you post a 'snapped' topic it'll actually be a photostory

Very clever fix. Thanks for detailing you method, just in case. I'd be very nervous to do it myself, though. I'd probably just send SKthe link and say "Just do it like this.".

Couldn't have saved my girl without this guide. Thank you!