I’m currently in the middle of a large scale toy rebuilding exercise involving disassembling and cleaning dozens of neglected Kenner ALIEN toys. This task has has taken me about 20 hours and is now complete. As part of the process, I have been adding to my collection of broken neoprene rubber anchors. Kenner used this method to hold both arms in place and give them flexibility at the shoulder joints. I don’t throw anything out, so these artifacts from multiple tear downs of the toy now only serve as testimony to how easily these arms can break off, leaving these anchors sitting inside the torso. These items are broken and now of extremely limited use.

Of great interest to me is repair methods used by previous owners of these toys to re-attach severed arms back to the figure. I’ve encountered many weird and wonderful methods used by previous owners. The image below shows some of the creative methods employed to achieve this goal.Featured here are O-rings, cable ties, rubber bands, even a resin reproduction (top Right). If it can be imagined, someone has tried it. These methods were all successful to varying degrees. McGuyver. Eat yer heart out. I like to use my own methods for returning arms back onto the figure. Right now my favourite technique is to use a combination of 3mm bungee cord along with materials extracted from wire coat hangers and paperclips.

For more information on how this arrangement actually works and implement it yourself, you can visit the  page dedicated to re-attaching arms to a 1979 Kenner ALIEN toy.

-Windebieste.