Rubber Band Trick

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Rubber Band Trick

I know what you're thinking... using a rubber band to hold an item in Joe's hand isn't a big deal - that's the way they're packaged half of the time these days. It wasn't always so. When I was a kid, the biggest problem we had was making the HH Joes hold things. It was pretty frustrating to have a Joe who always dropped his pistol at the crucial moment. Using my sister's hair elastic, I came up with what the neighborhood came to know as The Rubber Band Trick. I, and all of my friends, did this to our Joes and ended up getting a lot more play value out of them. Clear elastics weren't available then (or at least I don't remember them). The flesh-colored ones were, though, and whenever my sister would get the teeny tan rubber bands, I'd snag a few for my Joes and for friends in the neighborhood who didn't have sisters.

Here's how it worked: we'd wrap the rubber band in a figure 8 around Joe's wrist and around his grip. Using modern clear elastics, I had to wrap it around a few extra times, but these pics give you the drift.

Now Joe could hold that Lebel revolver that he couldn't grasp before. This also worked well for any number of firearms and other pieces of equipment. Anything we could cram into the elastic, Joe could hold. Plus, he could hold larger objects without stressing, cracking, or breaking off any fingers.

Here's an updated version of the Rubber Band Trick. It works well to close Gung Ho Grip. Now the GHG guys won't have to drop their weapons and accessories at the first sign of danger. Yes, it's more difficult to get Joe to hold rifles, as the whole rifle needs to be pulled through the rubber band, but for most pistol-grip weapons and for most accessories, this approach works just fine! You can see how the rubber band just loops around the wrist and between a couple of the fingers. Now his Gung Ho really has Grip!

You can see how the rubber band just loops around the wrist and between a couple of the fingers. Now his Gung Ho really has Grip! Since we actually PLAY with Joea around here, this is important. These figures don't just gather dust on shelves here - the kids (and I) can be found most weekends crawling around on our hands and knees with tape measures and dice during our Joe Battles. Having Joes who can actually hold and carry things is a huge improvement over the factory "Buzz Lightyear" hands. Since they're posable and can signal expressions as well, the kids and I like these better than CC hands, Elite Action Hands, certainly more than Hard Hands, and even better than 21C interchangeable hands. We've even played around with the new KFG on the modern SA AT guys, but these GHG hands are still cooler - these hands do it all, especially now that they can actually grip!

Thanks to our neighborhood's Rubber Band Trick, we had tons of mission-capable Joes. No longer were they the fumble-fingered adventurers and soldiers they once were.
This is probably what many kids did with their Joes in those days. I doubt I'm the first one to think of it. I was in MY neighborhood, though. When you're 6 or 7 years old and you come up with a solution that everyone in the neighborhood uses and they even give it a legendary name ("The Rubber Band Trick") then you know you're a Neighborhood Big Shot! Today it makes me smile. Back then, however, this made me the Big Cheese on the block. The best part was thing was that Joes could now hold things better than my sister's Ken... until the Rubber Band Trick, neither one could hold anything!

LMK what you think of this project or anything else you stumble across on my humble little site!