Sanding Alternatives

We pretty much all have to deal with minifig arms and legs being too tight for paint or decals to stick on best, and so a common solution is to sand down minifig sides or the rounded tops of legs so that when rotated, the paint won't be scratched off as easily because it isn't in the way of plastic that isn't all there anymore.

 

This can get a little difficult to do well, so I'm sharing my solutions.

 

I take a drillbit the size of the hole in the leg and work it around, twist it and shave off just a little of the inside plastic, so that the leg is a bit looser on its peg, giving a little bit of room for the paint to not-die every time it is rotated (more of a problem for some paints than others).

 

I sometimes do the same thing with arm sockets, except with a round metal file. A drillbit the size of the hole would work just as well.

 

The other thing that I sometimes do for arms--don't do both of these things!--is to lightly sand down the peg of the arm, making it looser and more easily rotatable.

 

 

The point of this is that the paint ends up making the minifig limb just as tight as unpainted, unmodified minifig limbs, and not tighter.

Done