Anasazi37

It's been over a year since I started working on Hasegawa-style armaments for the 1/55 VF-1. I set the project aside for a long time, but picked it back up this past week. It's really coming together now. The armaments break down into multiple parts for easier printing, painting, and assembly. They are hollow so there isn't any strain on the wings from extra weight. They utilize tiny magnets for attachment (right now I'm using some blue tack for quick testing purposes). I'm also thinking about making a pylon to hold both RMS-1 missiles instead of having one for each. That would be more consistent with Yamato, Arcadia, and Bandai valks.

31 minutes ago, grogall said:

Have you tried this stand with a DX and Super/Strike parts? or anyone else? Would like to know if they hold!

There's a whole lineup of DX adapters for the stand and if it can handle the weight of a fully-armored Yamato 1/48, you should be fine. Just be sure to tighten the nuts and bolts appropriately.

3 hours ago, Slave IV said:

I still need to get some Yamato adapters at some point to get my display set up ideally. 

They've made a big difference for my displays. I now have options for Fighter, Armored Fighter, Gerwalk, and Battroid. Those last two work with or without armor. Fighter required a separate adapter for each.

1 hour ago, Slave IV said:

The Yamato 1/48 is a pain to handle with super parts because its just too much stuff for the frame. 

This is particularly true in Fighter mode. I designed an adapter for the Archi Stand and had to do some clever engineering to make sure that the back-heavy weight was distributed well and that the arms don't drop down when the armor and gunpod are attached. They don't "peg in" as securely on the Yamato as on the DX when the legs are lowered to accommodate Super/Strike parts. 

7 hours ago, Slave IV said:

Surface is almost always the way to go. The only time it isn’t is for very small items that cost less to ship small packet so you get it faster and cheaper that way. Saving $10 or more per shipment adds up quick!

You also have to hope that the store packs your item well enough to survive the long trip, or at least be okay with some item box damage in exchange for the lower shipping cost. The more time your item is in transit, the higher the probability that something will happen to it. DHL nearly destroyed my VF-25 Alto Full Set Pack, so even express couriers have problems (especially DHL), but my experience with Surface hasn't been great. If your item ends up in a bad position in the shipping container, with many heavier packages on top of it, and stays that way for 2-3 months, it might get crushed unless it's packed well. The few times I've used Surface, as an experiment, the shipping boxes arrived in bad shape, and there was some inner box damage. I know that you've had consistently good luck with Surface, and I tried using it based on your good luck and recommendation, but it hasn't worked out for me.

Reputable stores like HLJ, AmiAmi, and AE do pack well, which gives your item a good shot at arriving safely via Surface. Amazon Japan sucks for international shipping, or even just domestic shipping to a package forwarding service so you can use Surface instead of DHL (helpful for large and/or heavy items). There's always item box damage, bent pages on books, etc. because Amazon just tosses stuff in boxes or bags, loose. Little to no packing material. Speaking of package forwarding services, Tenso and Blackship pack well, but you generally have to pay extra for the service. It's worth the few extra dollars to make the box bomb-proof, though.

3 hours ago, Robin-11 said:

Just got my item in stock notification from Anime Export. I know DHL raised its prices a bit lately...hoperfully shipping won't be so painful... Anyway i hope i will have it in my hands by the end of next week...

Same for me with HLJ. I'm waiting on a few more items to come in stock before I ship, but hopefully within 7-10 days it will be on its way here.

5 hours ago, etcknight said:

Wait?  They said a second batch is coming out in May?!  Has anyone else seen/heard anything about this?

Yes, I remember hearing something about this right around the time the first batch was released. Might be more of a general release for the second batch instead of another lottery, but we're talking about Bandai, and they like to torture collectors, so it could be another lottery.

Accidental repost--deleted.

Accidental repost--deleted.

11 hours ago, Robin-11 said:

Thank you, so this means that the price can go down(depending on the exchange rate yen/euro i guess) but it can't go up, right? I am pretty sure i ordered it directly from Amazon.

I honestly don't know. I've only ever seen a price go decrease by a little bit. I found Amazon Japan's description of what's covered, which should help you:

The Pre-order Price Guarantee - Amazon Customer Service

Quote

Amazon.co.jp's price for not-yet-released items changes occasionally from the time an item is listed for sale to the time it's released and shipped. When you pre-order an item, the price we charge is the lowest price (tax inclusive) displayed on Amazon.co.jp from the time you place your order until the shipping process begins (or release date of the item, whichever comes earlier).

8 minutes ago, Robin-11 said:

In the end i pulled the trigger on the amazon.jp deal. € 350 shipped to Italy including custom fee. Probably the best possible deal for this toy, at least for me. Just one question,  does amazon.jp have a pre-order price guranteed policy? 

If you preordered directly from Amazon JP itself, and not a third party seller on Amazon JP, the preorder price could be adjusted. I've seen that with some POs. If you went with a third party, I think you might be stuck with what you paid. At that point Amazon is just a platform provider.

9 hours ago, Pontus said:

Clearly, BBTS takes preorders and then tells Bandai how many they sold/need.  Simple, confident and easy for the customer, and maxes profits.  WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD ANY STORE ONLY OFFER A LIMITED NUMBER OF POs ON AN UNLIMITED RELEASE?!!!  This crap makes me not want to use Amiami anymore, but it sounds like ALL the Japanese stores do this.  WHY?  This makes zero sense.

To the best of my knowledge, we, as a community, have never been able to determine how Bandai manages their general Macross releases. Most signs point to them being limited, not unlimited, though. That tracks with broader "artificial scarcity" trend in the Japanese collectibles industry, and it probably reduces risk for the company. Bandai likely decides to make a certain number of them, based on how much production capacity they want to or can set aside, and distribute allocations to retailers (and now overseas distributors). Their factories make lots of things and they probably can't afford to wait and see how many orders show up from around the world before they start planning a production run. The one exception seems to be Tamashii Web Exclusive (TWE) items, like the Hayao VF-1A DX. Bandai will generally leave the PO page open on their site until a specific date, then produce the number of units that were ordered. They must have an upper limit, though, because we have seen TWE items sell out quickly and then sometimes Bandai will offer a second run at a later date. That happened with the first run of DX Super/Strike Packs.

However, we're talking about Macross right now. Gundam and the other significantly more popular and more lucrative franchises might operate under different rules. Unlimited releases might make a lot more sense for them, or at the very least the production capacity set aside for them is probably much higher. 

6 hours ago, grogall said:

Honestly you can't beat a Valkerie that can be transformed in any of the three modes in under a minute and has a firing gunpod! 🤪

And can withstand a lot of physical punishment from a small child playing with it. They are virtually indestructible.

2 hours ago, wm cheng said:

Booo!!! BBTS - somebody called the US pricing and they were right!

59 minutes ago, Mommar said:

Roughly 386.18 to NM from BBTS.

A few of us we're guesstimating a 55-60% markup over Japan retail price, based on what Bandai has done in the past. Current exchange rate puts it at $240 before shipping, so $350 would end up being about a 46% markup, but then there's state sales tax and domestic shipping. If you go with Mommar's BBTS door-to-door estimate and then add decent courier shipping from Japan for, let's say, $35, to level the playing field, it turns into to a 40% markup. That's...better....

Snagged one at HLJ right at 4pm Japan Time, but their site was definitely straining under the increased load. Figured I would get cartjacked, but somehow made it through. As others noted, HLJ sold out in less than a minute. I was watching AE at the same time and they sold out in about two minutes. That's very unusual. There's usually still some units available the morning after PO Madness because they now charge the Japanese-tax-included price (even to overseas customers) and want payment up front. I gave up on AJ a while back. I think it's been overrun by shopping bots, so they sell out instantly, plus they don't pack things properly for international shipping.

2 hours ago, wm cheng said:

Wow, Feb/Mar that late after Japan PO?  There's no worry about it not being able to order in Feb/Mar MWW release??  I'm hoping this is my first foray into this new convenient/civilized world of ordering as long as I don't get screwed. 😬

We've seen WWM overseas POs become available as early as a week after Japan POs. I think it depends a lot on the store, and perhaps the item. Sometimes Amazon is sluggish, taking a few weeks to a month to list something, but smaller sites like BBTS usually get stuff listed much faster. 

7 hours ago, Zeliard said:

Sorry I don't understand. If it's not a Tamashi exclusive, and can be made available for worldwide release, why is there a marked up price, and not 35 as stipulated?

This has been discussed, and speculated about, extensively in other threads. The ¥35,000 price is for the Japanese domestic market. Bandai is free to charge overseas customers more for WWM items when purchased through an overseas retailer, and they do. No one is sure why, but three popular theories are: (1) more profit from collectors willing to pay, (2) to cover the additional financial risk of producing more toys than the domestic market needs, (3) to compensate for a weak Yen exchange rate. Overseas retailers pass the higher prices onto us, which is why you see consistently high prices for WWM items at every single overseas retailer. They aren't setting the high prices--Bandai is (or at the very least, their distributors). There will be some variation due to promotional discounts, coupons, free shipping, etc., but to my knowledge we've yet to see overseas retailers offering Japan domestic market prices for WWM items. They'd lose money. It sounds like Bandai does this for Gundam, too, and probably other franchises. Other companies like Goodsmile don't mark up their prices for overseas customers as much, if at all.

7 hours ago, wm cheng said:

$100 mark up?!?!  Wow, that's a lot.  But do you think that would include shipping?  I can easily pay $60cdn for shipping and $40 for customs and duties (I'm in Canada ) 

I think I paid around $380cdn for the last VF-31AX shipped and customs charges all in (we get pretty hosed up here!)

As long as I'm guaranteed to get one from WWM Amazon.com I think I'll pay the markup since I have a Amazon.com Gift card I should use up that's not transferable to Amazon.ca.

WWM releases, across all product lines, seem to have at least a 55% markup on Japan MSRP, so that would be ¥54,250 or roughly $385 US at the current exchange rate, which is right in line with @Lolicon's estimate. We're all hoping that Bandai doesn't go that high for this release, given how expensive it already is, but it's Bandai, so they probably will. Shipping from a US retailer to Canada will probably cost you a bit more since US retailers offering free shipping are doing so domestically. Based on my limited experience, USPS package shipping to Canada is not cheap...or particularly fast.

46 minutes ago, jenius said:

Oh where was that for sale? I forgot about it 

Tamashii Store Exclusive

1 hour ago, Sildani said:

Is it December 31st or January 10th? And will it still be PO hell, or more calm?

Japan PO Madness on 10 Jan. Best guess is that US retailers will start their WWM POs about a week later.

1 hour ago, Sildani said:

So this won’t be a WWM release?

The YF-19 reissue (not Full Set) is WWM, so I think this will be, too. Bandai's only restricted to domestic releases for SDFM and DYRL. Be prepared for a 60% markup on MSRP, though. That seems to be standard these days.

1 hour ago, Duymon said:

~250 USD is a pretty steep price to pay to complete the pair 🫠

All of that excessive tampo printing won't pay for itself! 

4 hours ago, wmkjr said:

Interesting. I had it originally at 2.0mm but it wouldn't fit so I made it 1.75mm. Did you print it horizontally or vertically? Horizontally the peg was too loose but vertically like you suggested worked for me. I might have to get some clear filament. It looks nicer with the clear. 

 

 

Vertically this time around, and I stuck with 0.05mm layer height, which is probably why the 2.0mm peg size worked since the end result was 2.0 +/- 0.05. I've also found that the clear filament I'm using for display adapters is a lot more precise than what I normally use for everything else (Hatchbox), especially after calibration, so printed parts tend to be a lot closer to digital size. I ended up switching back to vertical because the pegs snapped off my horizontal print when I tried to remove it from the valk. Too much strain. Not an issue with a vertical print.

Ended up ditching all of my modifications except the one where the little pegs at the back are now 2.0mm instead of 1.75mm. It's snug, and takes a few seconds to get everything into place, but it fits:

Reporting back on my experiment. The new adapter printed well, but ended up being just as loose-fitting as the one I printed with the 0.2 nozzle. I pulled out my digital calipers and compared the original Bandai adapter to what I printed. The two pegs that attach to the arms were too thin, front to back (1.9mm when 2.1mm is needed), so there was no friction fit in the holes, and the spacing between the pegs and the lip towards the front was too long (24.25mm when 23.5mm is needed). I'm chalking it up to my horizontal print orientation, my PLA filament selection (SUNLU Clear), and my Orca Slicer P1S calibration for the filament. At this scale small differences add up and individual print setups really do matter, as you say. I made some slight adjustments to the part and am printing a prototype right now. Assuming it's a better fit on my end, I'll post the STL here in case folks want to give it a try.