Nice trick with the soldering iron, have to see it painted to see how well it actually worked though. I remember asking someone on Fwoosh about how they did their lines, and I can't for the life of me remember who it was or how they did it. Haha.
The base for Cable looks pretty good. I really want to use Hyperion's head for something, it's a great sculpt. I'm borderline on the figure though, mine has a loose shin twist and two left biceps...I can deal with both with a bit of glue and resculpting, since I was planning on using him for AoA Gladiator anyway, but I dunno, it lessened my urge to do it.
Totally going to use X-force Wolvie to fix the now vastly inferior AoA Wolvie. I was just going to replace the legs and find a better head than the one I made, but the new one's shoulders are also bulkier so I may switch out the upper arms too. Gotta sand down the boot straps like you did though. Is yours missing paint, or is the blue just an effect of the flash?