Waist Ball

DESC: The waist ball is a small ball that fits between the upper chest piece and the groin area. Both of these pieces are concave so that the ball can fit in there and allow movement about it. It allows complete rotation of the waist as well as tilting of the upper chest area. The construction is very simple, consisting of the ball and two ball and socket joints on opposite ends of the ball. The ball parts of these joints are attached to the groin area and the upper chest and consist of bulb shaped pieces (on either side of the waist ball above). One interesting and unique thing about these joints is that the bulbs have a thin ring of rubber (sort of an 'o' ring) around them. I suspect this aids in construction, but it also allows a small cushion in the joint which reduces wear on the waist ball by preventing plastic-plastic contact. It is yet another example of the quality in these figures. (The white stuff on the upper waist ball is fun-tack that I used to keep the ball from rolling.)

REM: Removing the waist ball from either part that it is attached to (upper chest or groin area) only requires a screwdriver. Just get the screwdriver blade into a gap and pry the ball off of either piece. It is easier to get the blade of the screwdriver in between along the back edge of the chest and groin area. Keep in mind this may leave a small mark on the chest or groin area when removing this. If you took the groin and chest area apart first then the ball and socket joints may still be in place on the ball. To remove these you'll simply need to grab each end securely and pull them apart. Also one thing to note is that when I removed the bulbs a small part of the rubber 'o' ring was torn off, so be careful. If you decide you need to take this apart it may not be as nice once you reassemble it.

REST: All you have to do is pop the bulbs back into their sockets to get back to what you started with. You needn't worry about the alignment of the ball as it can be twisted around the figure for any orientation. It would be easiest to pop this back together when the pieces on either side of the waist ball have been reassembled (or were never disassembled).

Upper Chest

DESC: The upper chest consists of two pieces of brittle plastic that have been glued together. In the above picture the back piece is on the right and the chest is on the left. This was one of the hardest pieces to open I ended up cutting a little to get it open, so it won't go back together perfectly. I had to cut the neck off of the figure before I could pry the chest open. The two parts are glued around the edges and they have three pins inside that glue together. Two of these are large and in the chest area while the third is small and is in the neck. You can see the large pin locations on the interior of the chest and back, but the small peg in inside the neck and can't be seen. Also there are three channels that are molded into the interior surfaces of the chest that are used to hold the bulb for the connection to the waist ball and the shoulder joints. The shoulder joints will be covered in detail in the next section. It is fairly easy to see where the various joints go inside the chest.

REM: I was forced to cut the neck completely away in order to get enough leverage in there to crack open the two chest pieces. I also cut along the edges of the pieces to try and loosen them up. If you get the chest apart the odds aren't very good that you'll get it back together. This part and the groin area are the most likely pieces not to go back together again. Cut along the edges of the piece and try to work something in to pry them apart. I don't recommend taking this section apart, but if you must that's how I did it. Don't try to use the shoulder joints to pry it open because you can't remove the shoulders with this together without breaking them. And even then I don't think it would help.

REST: Good luck on this one. If you get it apart intact then you need to glue it together the same way. Just try and use the pegs to line it up and make sure the shoulders are in their proper places while the bulb for the waist ball is in it's slot. If you can get it apart and back together let the glue dry thoroughly before you start to mess with the body again, just to be sure.

Shoulders

DESC: This is the most innovative part of the FC figure design IMO. The shoulder design incorporates the ball jointed shoulder you would expect with the added twist afforded by a bicep twist. The result is that this joint has the equivalent of three points of articulation in each shoulder and is one of the reasons this series is so popular. Please note that the picture of this joint shows that the joint is broken and one of the hemisphere's has an arrow used to attach it to the bicep. Also, the shoulder piece on the right shows a cut-away view of the slot where the arrow attaches. This is similar to the same slots used in the wrists and ankles.

The shoulder joint is the only joint that has any metal on the FC figure bodies (you can see a glint of it on the second piece from the left). I'm not sure if this piece will rust, but it is covered with paint on the ends so that water shouldn't be able to get on the metal parts, but you should still consider this before you leave your figures in the tub for two weeks. The shoulder consists of three parts - a metal pin, the chest connector and the bicep connector (see picture). Each connector is a hemisphere with a flange that sticks out and is used to connect it with the parts on either side of it (the chest and bicep). Only the chest connector has a hole drilled all the way through as the bicep connector has what appears to be a covered hole on the outside but is in reality just a tooling mark. The scratched off paint in the picture below reveals the only metal in the FC body. Since I haven't been able to get these two pieces apart I can only speculate on the construction, but it appears that the metal rod is glued into the bicep connector and then the chest connector is slid over the rod to connect the two halves together and allow rotation about that joint.

Each half them has a connector that goes into the body part it is associated with. The disc shaped connection goes into the slots in the chest and these are covered with a rubber cap when installed. These rubber caps seem to have been glued onto the shoulder joints. These caps pad the joint and extend its life by preventing plastic-plastic contact and they also keep the joint tight. The bicep connector has an arrow just like the wrist joints and is attached to the bicep in the same fashion. In the side view you'll note that the flanges for each hemisphere have cuts in them and overhang the other half (look closely at the left-most piece). These parts are made of brittle plastic and these are weak points and may break with removal. I broke one of them and stressed the other close to breaking, so keep this in mind if you really want to remove the shoulder joints from the bicep (removal from the chest is easy if the chest is open). I don't recommend removing the shoulder joints from the bicep as they are very difficult to get out and the chances of breaking the arrow while removing it are extremely high.

REM: The shoulder cannot be removed from the chest without either extensive cutting or opening of the chest cavity. It is best to remove the shoulders after you have opened the chest per the previous section. Removing the shoulder from the bicep is a bit harder. If you can get pliers or another means of gripping the shoulder joint tightly you should be able to yank it out if its socket on the bicep. However the design of the joint makes this very hard to do since the flanges are attached to the hemispheres with a small notch in them which weakens them and makes them likely to break. You can also cut the bicep around the arrow to remove the shoulder, but this will damage the bicep piece. As far as taking the two hemispheres apart you should try and get something in the small gap between them and pry them apart. I haven't been able to do it so far, but you may have better luck.

REST: For the chest piece simply put the rubber caps back on the ends and place them in the small chambers in the chest cavity and then glue the chest back together. For the bicep socket simply press them into the socket as you would for a wrist joint to be reattached. The weak points in the shoulder joint still exist, so keep this in mind while pressing it into the socket.