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Adding a Joint to the Head - Brian Spradlin
Another point of articulation that can be added to the basic Stikfas figure is at the head. You can add a mouth to your next custom by following the steps below: | | Step One | 
| The first step in the process of creating a jointed head is getting the materials that you will need. You will obviously need a Stikfas head (o-cap), but you will also need a second piece to provide the socket and ball joint that will form the back of the head. The easiest part to adapt is a joint from a Mechana finger, but any other part cut down enough would work. Once you have the parts in front of you it's time to make your first cuts. A dremel tool works best. Cut through the bottom of the head as shown here. Just above where the "neck" starts to taper so that you don't cut through the socket at the bottom of the head. Make the cut as straight as you can. Once the head is done, cut the ball joint from the top of the mechana finger. You can leave a thin, flat piece of the plastic just below the ball joint to give it more strength when gluing it to the bottom of the head (as shown in the image here), but that isn't necessary. You can just cut right at the bottom of the ball joint directly. | | Step Two | 
| Your third cut needs to be carefully done to the back of the Stikfas head. You need to take a notch out of the back as pictured here. It is very important to make the notch as close to the size of your Mechana socket as possible! You will be gluing the socket in the back to fill in the head. You can sand or cut the Mechana socket down a bit if you want a smaller fit. | | Step Three | 
| Once you have the notch cut out of the back of the head do some sanding and test fitting of your parts. Get them as close to the size you want as possible and then start gluing them together. Glue the socket into the notched area of the top of the Stikfas head and let it dry. Then, once it's dried, insert the ball joint into the socket you just glued. Set the top and bottom parts of the head together to make sure everything will line up properly first. Do some sanding if necessary. When everything looks like it's lined up properly, place some glue on the bottom of the ball joint while it's still attached to the top of the head. Then carefully push the top and bottom parts of the head together again. This will ensure that the top and bottom of the head are lined up properly when the glue sets. Just be sure that no glue seeps out to stick the top and bottom halves of the head together. Once the glue has dried you can pull the two halves of the head apart again and should have what is pictured to the left here. | | Step Four |  | The final step is just filling in any gaps you have with epoxy. There shouldn't be much to fill, just the areas to the sides of the socket on the back of the head. Fill them with epoxy, let them dry and then sand them down to match the rounded shape of the head. In order to get the best movement of the head you may need to "round" the back of the head slightly, as pictured here. If the back is left squared off, then the joint may pop off whenever you try to open the "mouth." Just experiment a bit with some light sanding to the back of the head until it moves smoothly. | | | | | That's it, you now have a jointed Stikfas head! Paint over the epoxy just as you would the Stikfas plastic and add it to your next custom figure! My Venom custom below was my first attempt at such a modification. 
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