Sunday, January 18, 2015

January Purchase (2) - DX Shift Fruits and Drive Lockseed Set, DX Shift Car Set 04,

Bought in CSC today, and the kind stall-owner gives me a discount of $5 each, so in the end I only paid $30 and $20 respectively for the 2 DX sets... And yes, for my little nephew...

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Update: Legend Rider Series - Kamen Rider Orga Driver Minor Paint Details

Added minor paint details on the Legend Rider Series - Kamen Rider Orga Driver: red paint on the holder, and silver on the phone antenna... Now is one more step closer to the DX/CSM one, happy...

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Legend Rider Series - Orga Mission Memory (Kitbash)

The flat mission memory sticker for the LRS Orga Driver looks way too out of place, and so I decided to ktibash a new one using a spare mission memory from one of my DX Faiz weapon... The Faiz "face" details are removed first using a file and lightly smoothen with sandpaper... The centre of the Faiz "face" is lightly poslished... 



New detail are traced from pictures of the Orga mission memory onto a thinner ABS sheet, and then cut and pasted...




Silver paint is applied on the supposed white parts on the "Orga" face, then the whole mission memory is masked with masking tape to prepare for spray painting... Also took the opportunity to respray some parts on the phone and holder that are paint-scratched or look dirty...



Stickered a small piece of silver reflective tape directly underneath the red circle. If not, since the plastic is transparent, the red circle will look black when placed on the phone. Double-sided tape is then used to paste this new mission memory to the phone...



Nice! Although not really much difference when looking from the front (especially viewing from a picture)...



... it makes a BIG difference when looking from the side...



And a video clip of this kitbash as well as a quick demo of the driver:


Friday, January 2, 2015

January Purchase (1) - DX Beast Ring Holder Set

Costs about $23.50 from Amazon... which is about $1.50 cheaper than the one seen in eBay.sg, and umpteen $ more expensive than the one seen in 1 of the previous branded toys warehouse sale... Well, comes with 1 "rare" DX Dolphi Ring... 



But hey, it looks nice, and now the DX Beast Driver looks less plain...

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Legend Rider Series - Kamen Rider Orga Driver (Repaint / Modifications)

This is a old old old mod that I had wanted to do very very very earlier ago... Repainting the LRS Faiz Driver into the Emperor's belt - Orga Driver!!!! hahahaha.... Also, I saw someone posted a Youtube video on adding lights to the LRS Faiz Driver, so decided to do the same.. Very hard to do this, perhaps there is a easier way to do than mine way... hopefully someone can figure it out and benefit future modders... For mine, I add in 2 yellow LEDs soldered to the speaker's solder pads on the PCB to test... Workable...But not really bright... but who cares...




The wires need to run through the hinge to the other side of the body (with number pads) where the PCB is secured to. So I cut a small groove slot painfully with a penknife and file smooth with a needle file for the wires to run along in...



A very thin and narrow ABS strip is cut to cover the wires over the hinge. This will not only hide the wires but also allow a smoother sliding action without the wires get caught and get entangle when moving the phone cover to open-close.



Also added a guide/stopper to ensure the ABS strip stays to the groove path...



Here's how it looks like from the inside... The other end of the ABS strip is hot glued to the PCB, so that this end is free to slide in and out when open-close the phone lid...



As I will be adding 2 more LEDs, I have to cut out the top cover piece's internal (in yellow dotted lines) to create space for the wires etc. Note the side opposite has to be cut too... In this case, a pair of wire cutters and long nose pliers are used to cut, pry, and destroy the unwanted parts... Oh, the positions of the LEDs are placed closer to each other in the end...




Cut out the 2 parts where the LEDs are supposed to shine through... Hmm... stickers for LEDs??? Wow, cheapo LRS version, hahahahaha.... but I will imitate this feature later, hahahahaha...



I cut out 2 pieces of LED covers from a translucent cover for a notebook/diary (???) that I save for a "rainy" day in the past... Some bending has to be done...



When I fit in to assemble, I realise there are gaps at the LED covers areas. So an additional piece of the translucent piece is cut and pasted at the gaps' area... 2nd picture shows the before and after effects of adding the additional side piece...




Testing... Ok, working!



After some fiddling and "endurance" testing, the ABS strip gets loosen up and springs slightly up, causing it not to slide in properly and whole strip with wires get caught and badly bending outside the hinge... so decide to add a tension spring to pull the ABS strip back... Black electric insulation tape is used to cover the ABS strip since it can't be painted... A big piece of plastic (transparent in the picture) is used to separate the wires from the ABS strip so that they don't get caught by each other when sliding...



But because the original ABS strip is too narrow to properly join to the spring, I had to remake a 2nd ABS strip with a bigger end to let the tension spring hook onto it properly...



Up next is dis-assembly of the Driver-holder / base, whatever you call it, I know there is a proper label assigned to it...



The pin connecting the belt strap to the driver-holder is too tight to knock out, so have to destroy the small belt strap. And the gear holders are cut out to attach to the yet-to-make belt strap...



I decided to also cut out the cavity at the centre of the gear-holders, so as to hold the DX gears if I ever wanted to, hahahaha....



To keep the LRS "sticker" tradition, and mostly because I am lazy, I printed out the screen and mission memory, used the sticky side of a self-laminate coating film to protect the printed surface, and double-sided taped the other side... Only worry is that the mission memory colour may be off... A piece of thin ABS (about 0.8 mm)is cut to fit in the big depression that contains the original sticker... The centre of this ABS piece has a space cut to put in the screen (SCREEN only)...



So the phone and base are masked and sprayed with gold paint.



Not bad, but I had thought the gold will be more brighter... this looks more like bronze-gold... Put up the screen sticker... nice...



And my worst fear came true... The mission memory colour is off... So printed another one... The Omega sign on the memory is cut out from a separate piece and pasted on top of the mission memory sticker to create some layer effect... Not too good though...




The rest of the details are painted onto the phone (the 4 "E"s), using masking tape cut into strips as maskings... as well as the black parts on the holder done with black paint pen...





All done!!! Hahahaha...




The LEDs don't light up very well, but good enough for me...



Here's a clip to show that the henshin effects still retains... To activate the low-pitch sound effect on the LRS Faiz Driver, first press the "Enter" button with the power switch off. Then Slide the power switch to ON and release the "Enter" button at the same time. Timing is crucial.. Opps, forget to show the Exceed Charge... but it works...


December Purchase (7) - Candy Toy Shift Cars (Midnight Shadow, Max Flare), KO Lego Superhero Green Lantern

Bought 2 candy toys Midnight Shadow Shift Cars for approximately $19 and 1 candy toy Max Flare Shift Car for approximately $8.80... All from Taobao.com... The Midnight Shadows are the Bandai-asia version so no candies, but the Max Flare has!!!



This is also my first time I eat the whole candy that came in Shokugan-s... Typical Japanese flavour (in my memory)...



Also bought a KO Lego Green Lantern figurine from the pasar malam for $3. The quality this time is not soo good, with plastics that seem matt from improper manufacturing and the calm face of Green Lantern has superglue-like residue on it...



As usual, the KO box contains all these...



Angry Greeen Lantern!!!!! HAhahaha...