Macross maintenance.

[TheLoneWolf]

Does anyone know how to safely take apart a v2 1/60 VF-1S head?

I got the Fugu Model FG-01 and the head lasers barely budge. I want to take apart the head and see what's going on internally, but can't figure out how to.

[pengbuzz]

16 hours ago, TheLoneWolf said:

Does anyone know how to safely take apart a v2 1/60 VF-1S head?

I got the Fugu Model FG-01 and the head lasers barely budge. I want to take apart the head and see what's going on internally, but can't figure out how to.

As best I can tell from watching extreme closeups on several videos: the front is one piece, and the back of the head is a left and right piece that combine to form the entire back half. It looks to be glued or sonically welder together; I recommend you go slowly and use caution.

[GGemini]

This might help:

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, GGemini said:

This might help:

As I described (and suspected).

[TheLoneWolf]

Thanks everyone! I was holding out hope that it wouldn't be glued together, but I guess I've got my work cut out for me now.

[jenius]

I wonder if the head lasers are too torqued if you could just spin them completely around (gently) a time or two to loosen them up? Maybe wishful thinking.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, TheLoneWolf said:

Thanks everyone! I was holding out hope that it wouldn't be glued together, but I guess I've got my work cut out for me now.

Try putting the head in the freezer for a bit; that may make the joints brittle enough to pop apart.

[Angesdad]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

Try putting the head in the freezer for a bit; that may make the joints brittle enough to pop apart.

Or boiling water has worked for me in the past:)

[pengbuzz]

2 hours ago, Angesdad said:

Or boiling water has worked for me in the past:)

Be careful of that though: too long and the parts can warp! That's how I lost the booms on my Matchbox SDF-1! O.O

[levzloi]

On 7/11/2025 at 12:55 PM, jenius said:

I wonder if the head lasers are too torqued if you could just spin them completely around (gently) a time or two to loosen them up? Maybe wishful thinking.

They’re actually pegs, not screws.  But it might still loosen up. 

[TheLoneWolf]

Just to give a quick update:

• Yup, I managed to rotate the head lasers about 5 times by gripping them at their base, hoping that it might break up any excess flash. But no luck, they still require a ton of force to rotate. And I don't want to rotate them by their base every time, because with all the force needed, one slip of the finger and a head laser could snap.
• I tried freezing them overnight twice, but it didn't break up the glue. Great idea though!
• Since this is a KO, I really don't want to subject it to boiling water. The plastic feels as good as an Arcadia, but I still don't completely trust it.

So I've settled on breaking out a fresh x-acto blade and carefully cutting away at the seam line on the back of the head where the glue is. Very small flakes of plastic are getting removed in the process, which will probably leave a more noticable seam line, but seam lines don't really bother me that much. And I'll take them any day over a broken head laser.