Jump to content

IXTL

Recommended Posts

  • 2 weeks later...

Kinda annoying. I wanted to use the VF-25 Armoured Part's Reaction Missiles on my VF-19Advance and they dont work...

That really sucks. Do the others fit on it? If not, I think we'll be seeing another exclusive parts set with the HMMs and the other missiles that are similar to Arcadia's release. I mean, God forbid they actually come out with EVERYTHING.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Gundam@EFSF

Great shots!

Concur. I've never been too crazy about Alto's VF-171 color scheme, much preferring the CF, but your pics make me reconsider. Thanks for sharing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

just went through my very first attempt at transforming the 171 from battroid back to fighter.. geez what a total PITA!!! so fiddly and unnecessarily complicated! Big thanks to Jenius video on Anymoon.com which helped me out a great deal!

but hey what a total head f#$% of a job to get it all done and in a presentable state! The shoulder covers still don't quite want to line up exactly flush with the upper part of the body but after wasting 2 hours of my life which I won't ever get back I am happy I the way it is now..

Getting both the upper shoulder articulation joints lined up correctly so the arms sit properly on the upper fuselage was quite tricky too!

I tell ya this friggin thing nearly ended up against the wall a few times!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

just went through my very first attempt at transforming the 171 from battroid back to fighter.. geez what a total PITA!!! so fiddly and unnecessarily complicated! Big thanks to Jenius video on Anymoon.com which helped me out a great deal!

but hey what a total head f#$% of a job to get it all done and in a presentable state! The shoulder covers still don't quite want to line up exactly flush with the upper part of the body but after wasting 2 hours of my life which I won't ever get back I am happy I the way it is now..

Getting both the upper shoulder articulation joints lined up correctly so the arms sit properly on the upper fuselage was quite tricky too!

I tell ya this friggin thing nearly ended up against the wall a few times!

Sad to hear about that, Spanner. The only trick I learned from transforming Valk after that 7 hours incident with me and my Yamato YF-21 is when you're on the point of getting frustrated while transforming it, put down the valk, walk away, relax and do something else. After that, come back and do it again. You'd be surprise how easy it is to transform it. ;)

By the way, that VF-171Ex was engineered by those who made that 'famous' and 'well praised' VF-19 Advance, right? :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sad to hear about that, Spanner. The only trick I learned from transforming Valk after that 7 hours incident with me and my Yamato YF-21 is when you're on the point of getting frustrated while transforming it, put down the valk, walk away, relax and do something else. After that, come back and do it again. You'd be surprise how easy it is to transform it. ;)

By the way, that VF-171Ex was engineered by those who made that 'famous' and 'well praised' VF-19 Advance, right? :lol:

7 hours!! I don't feel so bad about how long it took me now! I got this Valk loose so I don't have the user manual to reference from which didn't help. And yes I think Bandai have learnt a great deal about tricky transformations since then! The VF-19 is a total breeze compared to this!

I feel the only real hard part is getting that neck plate and head turned around in that confined space. Requires some finger acrobatics.

Ahhh yes that head swivel joint had me stumped for a while there. Tricky little bastard of a thing!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours!! I don't feel so bad about how long it took me now! I got this Valk loose so I don't have the user manual to reference from which didn't help. And yes I think Bandai have learnt a great deal about tricky transformations since then! The VF-19 is a total breeze compared to this!

Yup. 7 hours. And I have photos of that to prove it. Hahaha! :lol: All it gave me is a stressed plastic in which after 2 more transformations, it finally got snapped. Hence the famous exploding thigh of the YF-21's. And that's before I found out about that extra 'click'. :rolleyes:

Edited by no3ljm
Link to comment
Share on other sites

ahhh yes I remember that now! :rolleyes: A rather unfortunate incident.. -_- As frustrated as I was getting I did my best to keep my cool and not start wrestling it or being forceful. I few deep breathes and a closer look at what I was doing started generating results!

What really gave me trouble was getting the upper arm joints absolutely right so that the arms line up and properly click in on the upper fuselage. I might have a another go at those just to make the shoulder pad sections line a little better. Not holding my breathe on that one though.. <_<

At least now I know how to transform it. And I think it looks a lot better in fighter mode AND with a clean load out! I packed the super armor bits away. Being a somewhat awkward looking plane as it is it looked a little too busy with all that stuff hanging off it.

Edited by spanner76
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess it came down to being able to make a toy that is as faithful to the anime as possible even if it meant engineering overly complicated joints / mechanisms in order to achieve the desired results.

Clearly they would learn from their mistakes and as design and construction methods advanced along with improved materials it would result in better (if still complicated / intricate) toys such as the VF-19Adv and YF-30 (which are pretty much completely new molds for Bandai). I don't think there have been that many significant design or failure issues with them.

Edited by spanner76
Link to comment
Share on other sites

just went through my very first attempt at transforming the 171 from battroid back to fighter.. geez what a total PITA!!! so fiddly and unnecessarily complicated! Big thanks to Jenius video on Anymoon.com which helped me out a great deal!

but hey what a total head f#$% of a job to get it all done and in a presentable state! The shoulder covers still don't quite want to line up exactly flush with the upper part of the body but after wasting 2 hours of my life which I won't ever get back I am happy I the way it is now..

Getting both the upper shoulder articulation joints lined up correctly so the arms sit properly on the upper fuselage was quite tricky too!

I tell ya this friggin thing nearly ended up against the wall a few times!

There's a reason I sold it to ya...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

True, bad design is just bad design. It's more that Bandai seems to always design everything with 3 to 4 times the number of necessary parts, so unless they're mandating a ton of details to their contractors, I don't think the group who made the 171 worked on any of the Yamarcadia valks. It's just a consistent style of parts breakdown that the Bandai designs have that I haven't seen replicated anywhere else.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can check my old emails but I'm pretty sure it was the same guy. I remember there were specific requests to differentiate it from the Yammy VF17 he had done as much as possible. I'd guess the stupid wings are directly from a Bandai request as a money making scheme.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

K, maybe Bandai just likes to micro-manage it's products then.

The specific thing that I always see in every Bandai valk is that they absolutely love tiny insert pieces. When I took apart the hips on my 171, there were at least three individual itty-bitty plastic nubs that slid into place around where the rest of the leg fit in. And it's like that all over the thing. Removing any major assembly will usually result in a handful of plastic filler bits falling out.

I've just never seen that kind of practice on anything Yamato or Arcadia do, so maybe it's just in Bandai's requirements.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess it's possible that it was another guy and he was just told to differentiate it from the Yammy VF-17 as much as possible... but I think it was the same guy or else I probably wouldn't have heard anything. Also, I remember when the 171 CFs started falling apart he said that the specs had very specific requirements for tolerances that the factory had completely ignored. As to the level of complexity, that also might come down to specs laid out by the company ordering the design. I could easily imagine Yamato/Arcadia specifying fewer parts to help reduce costs and Bandai just saying "go nuts."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The biggest difference, visually, is the cockpit/canopy. It's easy to tell by looking at it. But why is it different? Because the EX (Alto and co's version) is built to use the EX-Gear. So the whole cockpit/canopy section had to be based around that piece of equipment. It looks more VF-25ish too, if you look at them side-by-side.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...