Hi-nu (and repairs)
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Sorry for my lack of photo taking abilities... a little more than a year ago, my old phone broke, I had no digicam, and decided, after reading all the hype, that I could get both in one shell by the name of Viewty. A little more than a year after... boy did I realize I was wrong. Cellphone cameras are just not that great no matter how much the phone looks like a camera. Not to mention, I only have a reading light.. so that doens't help either.
On with the pics:
Only the head was modified - the face mask/eyes was set around 1mm inwards. The neck was raised by around 1.5mm. Antennae sharpened.
Now for the problem - I don't know what the engineers were thinking when supporting a 3/8" rod (not to mention a hollowed out one) with a 1mm thick plate. It just doesn't work when the rod needs to handle 5 degrees of freedom - the only one not required being on its parallel axis. The torquing ripped the rod right off the plate and this was after I finished the model... *sigh*... into the surgery room we go for a hip replacement.
Advice for those building a MG Hi-nu - take a knife and scrape the rod on AT MOST 2 sides (one side on Z axis and one side on Y axis) before inserting into the socket. Save yourself the pain.
I was searching for hollow 3/8" rods and didn't find any nearby, so used the shaft from a Display Base.
Cut to length and checked to make sure that the fitting was correct, then filed down both sides flat to make sure there's a good gluing surface.
The next step requires a pin vice and some small drills. If you search up Japanese websites, you'll see that most people go with one rod down the middle to reinforce - that's NOT a good idea when dealing with a piece that torques - it'll leave you with the same problem as before. The idea is to restrict the degrees of freedom so the rod cannot buckle. Since the main movements are forward backwards, and turning, I went with 2 pins on each side. Note: you cannot do 4 since the southern part of plate connecting the rod (-y axis) on the otherside is required for the slide gimmick - putting metal there will destroy the internal frame. 3 is probably the max - more on that later.
Of course, this side needs to be drilled too. At these spots, even if the pins are protrude on the other side of the plate, it will not interfere with the functionality.
The reason for a hollow rod? Here it is - the 3rd rod down the middle for final reinforcement - this one is just for strength of the shaft and not so much for torquing. I filled the middle with cyanoacrylate + baby powder mix.
The shaft itself is a bit large for the socket in the leg. So I filed down the entire shaft until I obtained the optimum fit. The key is to get it smooth (and looser than OOB), but retaining enough strength to hold poses. As shown above, that's not a problem.