Springs in figures.

[Stompy]

Being relatively new, I thought I'd ask the more veteran and long-time collectors their thoughts on the subject of springs on transformers figures.

What is the ideal way to store spring loaded devices on the figures? Relaxed or coiled? What state is best to ensure long life on the springs? Eg. Missile in, or off. Animated Activators in robot mode (relaxed springs) or alt mode (coiled)?

I've read various other forums but would probably trust you lot more.

[1orion2many]

I havent tested the theory but I'm of the belief that if you display you TF's with their weapons loaded that over a period of time the springs are going to compress somewhat and lose their ability to shoot the missiles.

[JuzMel]

I would say leave them relaxed as well because for some funny reason my Sky Shadow keeps shooting out his missile itself all of a sudden one day and I'm guessing because the spring has been coiled too long and it's just "dying" to uncoil. So I can't put the missile back anymore because a minute later, the missile will just shoot out by itself. The first few times it happened I thought my TFs had come alive and were fighting each other.

P.S: The Activators look better in robot mode anyway.

[liegeprime]

As much as possible leave them uncoiled. G1 wise - the cassetticons - Rumble Frenzy are a good example of springs losing their "springiness" ( for a lack of word at the moment) easily. You will mostly end up with a head leaning to one side or the other. But with 20+ yrs old toys you cant really expect it to last forever, however for newer versions, Id say leave the missles off and store em separately (and prevent loss) as it doesn't lose much anyway in aesthetics while displaying/playing them. Some toys though are just freakin hard to get the spring to ease up - Unicron chest spring comes to mind - of which I completely disabled the feature in my toy otherwise I end up with "burst open unicron" due to the strength of the clip not equal to the strength of the spring recoil on this particular toy... hope this helps

[gamblor916]

I remember the springs in the early toys were pretty weak to begin with. In fact I used ball point pen springs in some launchers to increase 'springiness', enough to take an eye out.

[Pulse]

After 20+ years, I really don't think G1s will become any less-springy than they already have...
(Who knows how much they were played with before they found their way to us?)

[Omega Supreme]

I would say leave them relaxed as well because for some funny reason my Sky Shadow keeps shooting out his missile itself all of a sudden one day and I'm guessing because the spring has been coiled too long and it's just "dying" to uncoil.

My Sky Shadow does that as well, I have actually lost one of the misslies from it because of this very thing, think I may have vacum'd it up.

I recommend leaving the missiles out, for the loss factor and the long life of your springs

[Stompy]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm not fussed on the missile launchers but mainly the conversion springs like STL pointed out on Cybertron Override and of course activators and plenty of the spring loaded mechanisms in a lot of the Cybertron figures with the Cyberkey functions. I guess it's not so much an issue unless they eventually rust and break.

As for the missile loss, it's amazing where they end up even if you saw the vicinity it landed. I guess the pinball effect makes them go where no toy missile has gone before.

[griffin]

To be honest, I had never even thought about this before reading this topic. It has really made me think about what is happening to my collection (they are all in robot mode, with missiles in their launchers). But since I don't play with them anymore, and not planning to sell them any time soon, I guess it doesn't really matter if the springs don't work as well as they used to.

[kup]

I would say leave them relaxed as well because for some funny reason my Sky Shadow keeps shooting out his missile itself all of a sudden one day and I'm guessing because the spring has been coiled too long and it's just "dying" to uncoil. So I can't put the missile back anymore because a minute later, the missile will just shoot out by itself. The first few times it happened I thought my TFs had come alive and were fighting each other.

P.S: The Activators look better in robot mode anyway.

My Tarantulas does that. He could be there for days or weeks and suddenly BANG! the missile fires and scares the crap out of me.

I have had to replace the spring of several of my G1 figures and added springs to figures which springs were removed for safety reasons. The best springs you can use are those from those multi color pens. I buy them from the reject shop, remove the springs and cut them to the appropriate size if necessary.