[windebieste]

I hate doubling up my posts and I love seeing feedback from interested visitors but if no one is going to respond, well, that's not going to stop me. I have a ton of material to go through here. So, onto my next post...

Getting away from some of the difficult to verify historical details of the figure, let's start taking a look at how to repair these things. This is an area I have had a lot of experience in so I know these facts and techniques outlined here work; and they work well.

Here's a pair of figures that are clearly in a pretty bad state:

Sadface is sad. ...but all is not lost.

The one on the left is missing his head while the other is missing a number of other features including his left arm, the shoulder spike (or crest) and is his dome. I am pretty sure he has his tongue in place.

Unlike many action figures, the old Kenner Alien can be repaired. For example, the net result of dismantling both of these figures and reassembling them is rewarding. A single almost complete figure will emerge with of its limbs and critical body parts present. Only the head dome will be missing. To complete it is possible and all that is required is to purchase either an original Kenner dome (very uncommon and expensive) or a reproduction item (which will look just as good) on Ebay. The net result will be a fully feature complete figure in great condition and worthy of display. ...along with a bunch of left over scraps you can sell on Ebay to recover your cost of which ever choice of dome you purchased.

The nature of the damage can vary greatly. The figure below has experienced a nasty fall resulting in the head being snapped off at the neck. I purchased this fellow from a guy whose cat knocked it off of his display shelf. It is true. Cats and Aliens don't mix very well! Jones will testify to that. Nonetheless, this figure is severely damaged and in this condition would normally be considered to be beyond hope of repair:

Despite this serious damage, this particular figure was repaired without the need for glues or adhesives. Today you wouldn't even know it was damaged.

There are several ways to deal with this issue. Actually, quite a few options are available to you. You can accept that it's broken and just let it be, displaying it in this condition. You can either give it away or sell it on Ebay - which will net you about US$100 or more. Or you could repair it. Whatever you do, don't throw it away! It's worth a lot to someone like myself and it's potentially an ideal source of genuine parts not available any other way.

If a restoration is planned, there's a few ways to tackle this problem. As outlined above, you could cannibalise parts from another figure and swap out the broken head. Or if you don't have a another figure available to you or don't want to purchase one then you can repair the damage part. This repair is a challenge in its own right but it can definitely be done. Here at AvP Galaxy I have written a brief outline of how to repair this particular kind of very serious damage.

The scope and potential for repairing any of these old damaged Kenner Alien action figures is extremely high. Almost any form of damage done to the figure can be addressed in one way or another by either replacing parts cannibalised from another figure or directly repairing an already damaged part.

Of course, some figures are just beyond restoration but even those can still be used as a source for genuine parts that are otherwise unavailable by any other means. Either way, you can fully restore many old and damaged figures and make them display worthy. I've done this many times now and have become very familiar with a variety of techniques and methods to achieve this end.

In the end, there's just about nothing that can't be fixed on this figure.

-Windebieste.