It's obvious that there's an intentional Devastator homage here both in the general theme and individual vehicles which all map easily to an orignal Constructicon. OK the "Scavenger" counterpart is on a 6 wheeled lorry base (like Hook) rather than treads but ...
The team consists of:
Crush-bull (Green Bulldozer)
Digger (Wheeled Orange Excavator)
Iron Lift (White Crane)
Gran Arm (Red Bulldozer)
Treader (Black Lorry)
Mixing (Green Concrete Mixer)
For those sensing a homage in the colours to the origial Diaclone version of Devastator: I'm afraid not. In that line the Bulldozer, Excavator & Digger were yellow, the Crane & Concrete Mixer is either red or blue (but the same colour in each set), Dump Truck is Red
Here's how the coloured plastics are used through the toys. Some colours are listed more than once because we know the parts are on different Sprues:
Green: Crush-Bull & Mixing's bodies
Orange: Digger's vehicle and Iron Lift & Treader's robot bodies
Red: Digger's robot body & Gran Arm's vehicle mode
White: Iron Lift's vehicle mode, Gran Arm's Robot Arms and Mixing's chest & upper legs
Black (1): Treader's Body and SixBuilder's Hands & Head
Black (2): vehicle wheels and Gran Arm & Crush-Bull's Upper Legs
Black (3): Gun & Upper Legs
Blue (1): Digger's excavator arm, Iron Lift's Crane Arm, Crush Bull's shovel & all four 5mm ports
Blue (2): Chest & feet
To combine the toy start by taking Gran Arm's robot mode, folding his head down and bending his legs forward at the waist. Fold the shovel down onto his back and place him into the cavity on the chest piece with the shovel pointing up. Lock the chest and wasit/leg sections together. Fold Crash Bull's head down, then bend his knees back 90 degree and his waist back about 30 degrees. Peg him onto the waist - he fits perfectly in the cutout section - with the shovel going into the small of Sixbuilder's back. Digger & Ironlift's robot modes are then sat down by bending forward at the waist. The top of each toy is then locked onto the shoulder - Digger is the right arm, Ironlift the left - and the apropriate hand attached. The hands can't be swapped round. Treader & Mixing's vehicle mode then become the legs - Treader is the right leg, Mixing is the left but they can be swapped - with the front of the vehicle clipping into the knee and the back onto a peg on the foot.
The three new six team combiners moulds introduced in 1992 all feature body parts that combine to form an aircraft when not being used to make the combined robot. Most of the body parts are the same for all three newer Sixteam toys: The chest & feet are moulded together in one colour (blue for Sixbuilder) while the legs & gun are another (black). The head & hands are moulded new for each toy but each features a 5mm peg hole (again black). To combine the pieces take the waist & legs and lock them onto the chest unit. The gun goes between the where the knees would be on the combined robot, the fists lock onto where the robot's shoulders would be then the feet peg onto the fists. The robot's head is then put onto the back of the plane upside down. The resulting vehicle is about the same size as one of the Micromaster Transports, and one Micromaster figure can stand in the middle of the chest cavity using it as a cockpit. It's not the best Transformers plane but well done for doing something with all those left over bits when SixBuilder's in it's robot/vehicles mode.
1 Crush-bull with waist & upper legs
2 Digger with right fist & gun
3 Iron Lift with with left fist
4 Gran Arm with chest & head
5 Treader with right foot
6 Mixing with left foot
There's a lot of colour swapping for this release:
Green becomes an aqua blue green: Crush-Bull & Mixing's bodies
Orange becomes yellow: Digger's vehicle and Iron Lift & Treader's robot bodies
Red becomes orange: Digger's robot body & Gran Arm's vehicle mode
White becomes red: Iron Lift's vehicle mode, Gran Arm's Robot Arms and Mixing's chest & upper legs
Black (1) becomes orangey yellow: Treader's Body and SixBuilder's Hands & Head
Black (2) stays the same: vehicle wheels and Gran Arm & Crush-Bull's Upper Legs
Black (3) stays the same: Gun & Upper Legs
Blue (1) becomes grey: Digger's excavator arm, Iron Lift's Crane Arm, Crush Bull's shovel & all four 5mm ports
Blue (2) stays the same: Chest & feet
The overall effect here is to make a combined robot that's a vague homage to Car Robots' Build King/ Robots in Disguise Landfill. We get an orange central component, a yellow truck limb, a red crane limb and another limb in green. It's a loose homage but you can see what they're aiming for here.
Destron SixBuilder is formed from the Six Micromaster Collection toys listed bellow. I've listed here with what would be their Constructicon names, but they still go by the names they had in their two previous Cybertron versions. This is explained in the back story. (Allegedly !)
1 Crush-bull (Bonecrusher) with waist & upper legs
2 Digger (Scavenger) with right fist & gun
3 Iron Lift (Hook) with left fist
4 Gran Arm (Scrapper) with chest & head
5 Treader (Longhaul) with right foot
6 Mixing (Mixmaster) with left foot
Most parts are now moulded in a bright green plastic - the TFU pictures give it a yellow tinge which isn't there in real life - with little in the way of paint applications - just Crush-Bull's tracks, all the cab windows and Decepticon symbols in purple. The parts that were numbered Black (2) & Black (3) above (The wheel, the gun & the legs) both remain black, while the parts that were Blue (2) (Feet & chest) become purple. I'm not sure why Black (3) wasn't purple too to match the original Devastator, but the green hands are perhaps more forgiveable as no other new paint applications are used to make this toy.
This isn't quite a G1 Devastator with various bits of the colour being off but I love it.
1 Bonecrusher (Crush-bull) with waist & upper legs
2 Scavenger (Digger) with gun & head
3 Hightower (Iron Lift) with left & right fists - should be Hook
4 Buckethead (Gran Arm) with chest - should be Scrapper
5 Longhaul (Treader) with right foot
6 Quickmix (Mixing) with left foot - should be Mixmaster
The Universe release of SixBuilder was something of a surprise. For a long while it was thought that Takara exclusives couldn't be released in the west.... Then the Energon command Ravage repaint came out, almost exactly the same as the Takara version. Devastator isn't quite the same a Micromaster Collection SixBuilder: the green is flatter, closer the green of the original Constructicons, there's more paint applications too. Waist, hands and gun moulded in green - with gun & hands painted mainly black - why not purple ? Answer (as we've already indicated): Hands & head (look inside the hole for the neck post) are on the same parts sprue as the main colour used for Treader. The waist & gun are separate sheets used on all the SixCombiners so are independent to the rest of the toy so there's no excuse there for not moulding them in purple. But the hands are painted anyway - the fists are purple but the wrists (what would be the missile launchers on the Constructicons) are black. If you're painting a part why paint it black instead of purple ???? I feel the use of black here detracts from the combined Devastator toy and would be painting these PLUS SixBuilder's waist & gun, the shovel on Bonecrusher, Scavenger's Excavator arm and Hightower's Crane Arm purple if my painting skills were up to it !
Even given all this it's a pretty spiffy release and there's no reason not to own it.