Yelnenu

Oh that golden ankle joint clamp bit on the VF-31 kits? Yeah, yeah, that one is... awkward, to say the least. I've broken so many of them it's downright ludicrous. Mind you, it's usually fine if the kit is relatively new - I built one of the new VF-31Fs with lilldrakens recently and those held no problem. Plastic inherently degrades over time however and lose flex to become more brittle, and that affects those ankle joints in particular really bad - the other golden parts are fine, they don't need the flex, it's just that one ankle joint clamp thing because of how it's built. Even more frustratingly, that part is barely visible at all when the kit's assembled and there's no real reason why it couldn't just have been made out of the more flexible grey plastic that most of the joints are made out of which would've basically solved the problem. Alas, it's the one major flaw of an otherwise pretty solid kit - outside that one part or the head laser on the VF-31Js, I've not really had any problems with the VF-31 series - unlike the VF-25s (and YF-27s) where the knee joint is a bit underdimensioned and I've had a few just break apart on me on movement or assembly due to the plastic having become too brittle with age. Anyway, while I've had some occasional success with gluing and pinning the clamp back together again, the most successful solution I've found is to basically just get rid of the clamp bit by sanding it down or cutting it off with a dremel or the like and then making your own clamp using sheets of ABS plastic wafered together, usually with a pin down the middle of the clamp to keep it solidly in place. It's a bit awkward because there's not a lot of space for material while still keeping the ankle tilt, but for me it's been generally tight and durable than trying to just glue together the original clamp. Fortunately the joint's not really visible even in battroid form, so it doesn't matter if the solution ends up kinda ugly so long as it works.