Repositioning figures???

Except for very small adjustments, this is not a workable solution. To get the plastic warm enough to bend, it will be almost too hot to handle. Detail will be lost and bends will be too soft for a realistic look, unless you're modeling Rubberman! The only real way to do this is surgery and/or interchanging parts. Surgery involves cutting wedges at the joints, drilling locator holes and inserting wire to reinforce teh joint. You'll still likely need to build up some lost detail.

Heat bending is a big no-no!
You might also risk the plastic to catch fire and thus loosing the part.
As ajlafleche said the best way is surgery: cutting, inserting a metal wire and then fill with putty to recreate the cloth or body.

I usually cut the joints to pose the way I want , its a tough procedure , but do able . then use putty  to fill sculpting creases and such .

I have some of DML's 'Nam' series kits, and several figures have 7.62 ammo belts across their chests. Problem is that the ammo belts are moulded 'flat' and not contoured to the figure's body.

Seems that it would be an absolute nightmare to cut and reform the belt around the figure to get the right fit, how do you guys think i should approach this one?

cheers,

 

Aaron

Take a standard, cheap exacto knife handle, and carefully bend the belts around the contour until it reaches the desired curve. Use one of the fatter handles, if necessary. Or, use anything that has a good contour to it that you can use as a form.

 The sections that represent the links should be strong enough to take it. If it breaks, you'll have to glue it back together. In that case, I'd form the separate pieces and then glue one in place, and add the second after, taking care to make the two ends meet up correctly.

 According to an old back issue of Fine Scale Modeler, you can heat arms and legs in hot water and get away with doing some pretty fine adjustments, too - individual fingers can be repositioned.

The trick is to use boiling hot water and to dip the arm/hand/leg in long enough to WARM the styrene. Keep in mind that MINOR repositioning is all you can do with this technique. Also remember that if you are repositioning a hand to get a better, more realistic grip on a weapon, make sure to have the weapon with you when working the hand. This way, you can check the grip right then and there. Hope this helps!

 

several figures have 7.62 ammo belts across their chests. Problem is that the ammo belts are moulded 'flat' and not contoured to the figure's body.

Are these ammo belts moulded to the figure's body or are they seperate from the figure? If their seperate, then do as above with boiling water, then slowly bend them around the figure slowly, dip & bend, dip & bend till its right....If the ammo belt is molded to the figure your stuck with it as is...Take a #11 Exacto blade turned backwards and slowly, slowly cut a little at a time, just enough to show seperation from body & ammo belt..The minds eye will show its shaped right....Not much else you can do with it moulded to the body...

When I was 15 or so I tried heat on figures.   Total disaster. The horror...  It didn't take much to light that poor fellow up.  The smell was awful.