My 40 year old Optimus Prime figure has seen better days.
I made the mistake of comparing my completed Nemesis Prime with my original G1 Optimus. Obviously a much loved toy from my childhood wasn’t going to stand up against something fresh out of the box so I decided to do something about it.
My 40 year old, much played with Optimus. Still looking better than anything Michael Bay s*its out.
I’ve gone a bit Transformers crazy of late but I don’t care because I’m finding it therapeutic.
Before doing anything I needed to see if I could replace those ancient decal stickers. Toyhax sell some good quality decals for a reasonable price but that meant ordering from overseas and our local postal service is dire, having delivered over £1000 worth of our parcels to wrong addresses in the space of a week. I’d already measured out the trailer decals and cab stripe for Nemesis Prime, I think I’ll try giving the rest a go.
Optimus’ decal design didn’t look complex, I’m sure I can recreate them from scratch. I’m only going to reproduce the outer decals due to the internal trailer decals still looking reasonable. Let’s start by removing the old ones.
40 year old adhesive doesn’t come off too well
I tried peeling the decals off by hand which kinda worked but the adhesive had other ideas.
Keep peeling til all are gone!
I intend to take him apart to soak the chrome off with isopropanol alcohol anyway; might as well let that take care of the adhesive. I stripped him down and let him soak in the alcohol for a couple of hours. The adhesive wiped away nicely as did much of the chrome. The rest of the chrome came away with a little scrubbing from a firm brush.
Time to gather together the items to restore him to his former glory.
- The A4 label sheets from Amazon (bought for Nemesis Prime)
- Liquid Chrome pens, also from Amazon. I’d spent a fair bit of time asking around about re-chroming. This seemed to be the choice amongst my model making friends.
- Revell model paints Red (#34) and Blue (#54). The red was a little darker than the original but it’s not massively noticeable.
- Junker Optimus Prime parts from eBay. I needed a replacement smoke stack but this also gave me an idea for my G1 Ultra Magnus with a broken elbow joint, plastic feet, plastic wheels, and without cab glass.
Do I need to explain this next part?
I painted the metal cab parts red, the feet blue, and coloured the chrome parts in with my pens before putting everything back together. I then applied the new decals and I’m happy with the end result.
So, about these decals…
I got a little carried away with the decals. After completing Optimus’ decals I decided to make a Nemesis Prime set. Then I thought it might be cool to have a set of Diaclone Battle Convoy decals too. Oh, while doing that I had the idea to make a set for a G1 Shattered Glass Optimus Prime to go with the rest.
So yeah, I’ve gone a bit Transformers crazy of late.
