STAR WARS toys - nerd in distress!

  • Nerd warning *

I’m making a display case for my 1977-1985 Star Wars action figure collection. These figures have a little hole in each foot to help them stand on plastic pegs that were molded in the old playsets. My idea is to etch away the surface of the base leaving behind small “pegs” for the characters to stand on, but I can’t for the life of me find anything that will measure the size of the hole (nor, suddenly, can I find any of the pieces with an original peg on it).

Has anyone tried this before - and if so, can you advise to the peg size?

Help! Nerd in distress!

Use toothpicks of different sizes, kebab skewers, wire of different sizes and test the fit. Measure the correct one with the calipers.

If the calipers inside measure isn’t fine enough, maybe this:

Other thing is to get a fatter kebab skewer, a drill, and some fine sandpaper. Put the skewer against the sandpaper on a flat surface and sharpen to a point doing a long gradual thickness. so it would be like making a mandrel. Then poke it in the hole and measure where it stops.

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This may help as well. Says they’re 0.1" tall and 0.1" in diameter for GI Joes. They should be similar, but a digital caliper (like @marmak3261 said) would be easy enough to determine.

http://smalljoes.com/modern-figure-stands.shtml

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Do you have a drill bit index (set of drills)? You can use the back of the drill bits to find the correct fit. Do you have a hardware store that sell drill bits individually without a package (we have an old ma and pa hardware store and I think they still do). Maybe take one of the figures there. Maybe a hex bit set might help.

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Useful! Thanks

Excellent idea! Greedo thanks you.

(…and if you know who that is, we can be friends.)

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Most digital calipers have the ability to measure inside dimensions and depths.

Check it:
https://makezine.com/2015/11/13/how-to-use-your-digital-calipers-7-tips/

Fairly essential tool for accurate measurement.

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Indeed, but these are tiny holes and my calipers are more broad nosed. Not that it’s the best set ever (#harborfreight) but its only purpose so far has been to measure material thickness.

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