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I would like to remove the limbs of a minifig for an upcoming brickfilm. Is there a specific technique to do this without causing any damage or is it simply a matter of just pulling them off?
Thanks.
Well if you're planning to remove the arms, you want to take them off and put them back on as little as possible, because each time you do it they get looser. With the legs you actually have to break them to get them off, and once you do that you risk the legs sliding sideways on the hip piece.
With the legs you actually have to break them to get them off, and once you do that you risk the legs sliding sideways on the hip piece.
I don't think you actually have to break them, they should come off, though some will be stiffer than others, and you do risk that they become looser the more you do it (legs gets looser from this faster than arms will).
With the legs you actually have to break them to get them off, and once you do that you risk the legs sliding sideways on the hip piece.
That is incorrect. You don't break anything when you remove legs from the hips.
I have found the best method to remove arms from a torso is to first remove the hands from the arms. The biggest danger in removing arms from torsos is not loosening the shoulder joint (though that is a possibility, and will indeed happen the more frequently you remove arms), but cracking the arm where the hand is inserted. By removing the hands before popping out the arms, you reduce the stress your put on the arm.
One the hands are removed, rotate the arm so that it is pointing to the back of the minifigure. Then grip the torso in one hand, and pull the arm toward the front of the minifigure in a prying motion. The arm should pop out fairly easily.
To pop an arm back in, line up the shoulder joint with the shoulder hole, and press your thumb firmly on the upper part of the arm until the arm pops back in.
Oops! 
I guess I was looking at the legs wrong, oh well.
I have removed limbs from my minifigs before and doing it too much is a problem.
The responses above are very good and you should follow them.
I recommend not to remove limbs of rare or expensive minifigs because it does damage it. As collector of the DC superheroes, I do as little limb removal as possible because the minifig are hard to find. Something like the minifig series or city figs aren't so much treasured can be damaged without a second thought.
The problems with loose shoulder joints is that if you want them to lift their arm, it is hard for it to stay up, because of gravity. Holding an item such as a shovel or a gun brings more weight down and it is merely impossible to have an arm up without using some sort of tool.
Loose pelvis joints is a lot worse than loose shoulders, the figures are hard to balance and keeping them in an upright position is hard.
It might sound confusing at first but it is as if your minifig is a rag doll.
There was one time I asked for help with fixing loose joints: http://www.bricksinmotion.com/forums/to … se-joints/ . The answers I have gotten didn't talk about loose joints much but I have found the answer on the Internet: a drop of floor polish or clear nail polish is enough for an entire lego minifig. That isn't an excuse for damaging your toys though, because it is also a hassle fixing them every time you do it.
My tip is never put plasticine on the joints or around the area. It is very hard to clean, and the oil from it makes it looser. Use blu-tack or sticky tack (whatever you call it).
I have a few bad figures hanging around my house.
Left: terrible condition, Right: semi-bad condition
The leg on the last slips out of its socket from time to time.
In the right leg you can see a pointy bit protruding from the joint, that's what keeps the leg in place, it's half bad because the point is pointing diagonally and not down.
Left: semi-bad, Middle: nearly semi-bad, Right: terrible
As you can see on the pair legs on the left, is a white mark in the joint area of the right leg. That is like a stretch mark, when plastic is bent it has a very pale colour.
The middle pair is in pretty good condition. I have only removed the leg once or twice. The right leg is a little bit bad, but this time it's not the pelvis, but instead the cheek area is a bit stretched.
The pair pelvis on the right is destroyed, thus you don't see the thing that keeps the legs intact, being stretched.
This is a fake leg. The pelvis joint is perfectly cylindrical and it can be pulled apart easily but doesn't break the fig because there's nothing there to be stretched.
That is incorrect. You don't break anything when you remove legs from the hips.
I just gave examples of broken hips and stretched cheeks, so there is a risk of breaking something.
I have found the best method to remove arms from a torso is to first remove the hands from the arms. The biggest danger in removing arms from torsos is not loosening the shoulder joint (though that is a possibility, and will indeed happen the more frequently you remove arms), but cracking the arm where the hand is inserted. By removing the hands before popping out the arms, you reduce the stress your put on the arm.
One the hands are removed, rotate the arm so that it is pointing to the back of the minifigure. Then grip the torso in one hand, and pull the arm toward the front of the minifigure in a prying motion. The arm should pop out fairly easily.
To pop an arm back in, line up the shoulder joint with the shoulder hole, and press your thumb firmly on the upper part of the arm until the arm pops back in.
Nathan is right this time. Here's an example of what he was talking about. Nasty isn't it? Removing hands from arms can also loosen the wrist socket but it is worth pulling it out because cracking the arm makes it even more looser.
If you tell a five year old child to pull sockets out of the figs, they'll have a tough time. Lego purposely designed the sockets to be hard to remove because they're small pieces, they can become a choking hazard and hard to find. If you have children around the house it's best not to damage your lego because someday, it becomes easier for a child to remove the pieces and potentially choke on one.
For more information you can contact Lego: http://service.lego.com/en-us/contactus
Last edited by Kd2000 (April 18, 2015 (09:19pm))
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