The Step-Flip Test
Finally it is time to see if he does the step-flip well.
The steps should be constructed very accurately as well. In my case the height of the steps are 85 mm and the depths are 131 mm. One or two millimeters should not matter for a good figure, but it is very useful to make adjustable steps, at least for the first trials. (Later I found that even half a mm did matter. When I set all steps to 86.5 mm it worked much better.)
The step-flip is the most difficult among all. The problems could be that the figure doesn't go straight, falls off, falls on the head, etc. I tried a lot to stabilize the movement. Literally, for weeks I tried many-many things.
I mostly tried to change the length of the legs and arms by adding and taking off little cardboard strips on them. I also tried to change the angles of the legs and arm by making the stops smaller or bigger. None of these gave any significant improvement.
A little cardboard piece is added to the sole to even it out. (It didn't turn out to be very important.)
Putting a flat surface on the stomach (foam board) did not improve the step-flip nor did the apron as on the commercial figure.
The step-flip test.
After weeks of trial and error, I learned that two things needed for a good step flip. One is the figure must be absolutely straight. As I described above, it is the most important that the axles are to be in right angle to the torso and parallel to each other. The other is the slowing down. Both the shoulder and the arm flips must be slowed down as much as possible. They can be slowed down by the right string length and string placement. So there is not much new material to know for the step-flip but I must emphasize again the importance of the shoulder-n-hip-flip's importance. If the shoulder-n-hip-flip is right, the step-flip will almost surely be right.