How to Disassemble and Reassemble 1/6 TinyFox Angel Body

So I mentioned this in another post, but earlier this month I tried taking Cherrie apart to fix her floppy chest piece and in the process I ended up ripping her in half and breaking the internal frame.

After desperately asking around to no avail, I reached out to TinyFox customer support for help. They offered to fix her themselves for a small fee if I sent her to their office in China, but that wasn't very practicable since I'm not in China, so instead they offered to send me a replacement part and a video so I could fix it myself. I took them up on this offer and they sent me the video and mailed the spare part to my warehouse in China.

The video was so easy to follow that I got the crazy idea to try fixing it myself without waiting for the spare part to arrive. In the end, with help from @Tierparkzone, we were able to salvage the part ourselves by removing the broken thread from the plastic shell and replacing it with a new screw and washer. I don't think I can share the video they sent me, but instead I'll document how to disassemble and reassemble the 1/6 TinyFox Angel body in this post.

PART 1: TAKING THE BODY APART

So, first thing's first. I remember someone here or on Discord asking if the body can be taken apart, and the answer is yes, sort of. I'll explain.

The head is pretty straightforward. Everybody who owns a TinyFox knows how the head works because you need to open it up and take it off to put the eyes in. For anyone who doesn't have one yet, basically you just pop the headcap off, twist the O-ring/tab (depending on whether the body is old or new) off the donut, then take the head off. Cherrie is on the old body, so she has an O-ring at the end of the neck.

Next, the arms and legs pop right off the body. You don't need heat to remove them, although that might make things easier. I haven't tried pulling the limbs apart at the elbows or knees, but I imagine they pop on and off much like the hands do on the arms.

And finally we have the bust and torso. Interestingly, these parts have an internal frame. You cannot pull them apart. You have to unscrew them carefully in stages.

First, in order to remove the plastic shells, you need to remove the arms and legs before anything else. Pull them out sideways, not up or down. The legs fit on the rod, which is a plastic bar reinforced with a metal bar inside, but the plastic can crack if you're not careful.

Next, remove the bust shell and unscrew the screws in the following order (2 and 3 are interchangeable):

Unscrew 1 and remove the top connector piece. Do not try to remove the the Y part yet (I call it that because it's shaped like a Y). It's not pictured here because this is the part I broke when I ripped Cherrie in half, but the bottom of the Y part has a spring that's held in place with a washer and screw (see Part 2). It will not fit through the hole in the lid piece above as long as the spring and washer are screwed in.

Next, unscrew 2 and 3. This allows you to remove the lid together with the Y part. After these parts have been removed, you will see a screw at the bottom of the vessel piece. You must unscrew 4 in order to remove the bar. Once 4 is unscrewed, you can push the bar up (which will push the vessel piece up) and then bring it back down to remove it through the leg openings.

To remove the vessel piece, push it up from below (through the leg openings in the torso shell). You may need to use heat here to get it out, but I didn't.

Now the internal frame should be outside the body. You can take this opportunity to tighten the screws if the body is floppy. GENEARZ made a video about this on YouTube, and though I personally didn't find it helped much, you can kind of see how it works without taking the body apart:

PART 2: PUTTING THE BODY BACK TOGETHER

So in my case, the screw snapped in two and the thread was stuck in the bottom of the Y part. After we painstakingly removed it, I replaced it with a new screw and washer. I think these are slightly larger than the default TinyFox ones, but they still got the job done. The screw is 2.3mm thick by 8mm long and the washer is 0.5mm thick with an inner diameter of 2.6mm and an outer diameter of 7.5mm.

Below, you can see the one it originally came with (left) with the new makeshift one I cobbled together with the parts above (right). Interestingly, the original washer and screw top seem to be fused together.

First, the Y part has two sides, and they're different. One side is for the screw and the other is for the bolt. You'll know which side is for the bolt since it's hexagonal.

Fit the bolt into the depression and hold it in place while you screw the other side into the bust piece. If you've gotten your screws all mixed up, you'll use the longer one (~1cm) for this part. The video said to tighten it as much as possible. Idk if that's such a great idea since it will limit movement, but I did as I was told.

Next, fit the Y part back into the lid piece. Make sure the TinyFox logo is on top. This is something they pointed out in the video.

Now put the spring back on the bottom of the Y part and screw the washer+screw combo into the bottom to hold the spring in place.

It should look like this when you're done.

Set that aside for a minute and grab the vessel piece. Put one of the screws into the bottom so it's ready to be reassembled.

Put the bar back in through the leg openings and push the vessel down on top of it (as far down as it will go). One side of the vessel has a protrusion. The protruding side goes into the front of the torso (you can see the groove on the inside of the shell).

Screw the screw at the bottom into the bar to hold both the vessel piece and the bar in place.

Now grab the top part we set aside earlier and put the screws into the lid. Fit it on top of the vessel part, push it down into place and tighten the screws. It's hard to tell if they're in properly, so turn it upside down to make sure the screws are locked in place. The frame should be back in one piece now and properly fitted into the torso.

Now push the bust piece onto the top of the frame and pop the arms and legs back on. The doll should be fully assembled!

The whole reason I did this was to fix her floppy body. I had seen the video above and was trying to tighten the screws, but forgot the proper steps (aka remove the limbs first) and ended up snapping her in half. Even though this was an interesting learning experience and I was able to put her back together again, at the end of the day, she's still floppy, even now. Tightening the screws did nothing to fix the problem, and in fact I'm not sure there was really much point to this entire ordeal. I guess I got to write up this report for you guys so it wasn't a complete waste...? 🧐

I'm never willingly taking a TinyFox apart again though... 😅

Edited May 27 by ragnamuffin
Clarified that this is for the 1/6 Angel body