Anasazi37

If it released in Japan in late August, it could arrive at BBTS right before the end of October. That would be two months. As others have said, BBTS is responsive to inquires about arrival times, so I'm sure they'll give you the best estimate they have right now. I'd prepare to hand over $200 before the end of next month, just to be safe.

BBTS estimates for release are usually pretty good, since they've been doing this import thing for a long time. However, they are at the mercy of when the manufacturer puts the items on a ship, how long the ship takes to arrive in the US port, how long it takes to unload the ship and get the items through customs, etc. Assuming 2 months after release in Japan is usually a safe bet. You could try looking at release estimates on other sites like Amazon US (assuming it's being sold there). Odds are good that Amazon will get the item earlier or at the same time as BBTS. For example, Tamashii Nations lists the VF-25G release as 23 September in Japan, Amazon US lists it as 15 November, and BBTS just says November. So, likely sometime in November.

The Hasegawa kits usually cost around ¥3000, so ¥13,000 for an add-on is pretty steep. Experten does great work, so I'm in no way criticizing the quality of it. It's just likely priced out of reach of a lot of people. If what they're selling are the digital files, so you can resin print four copies for the four variants (Regular, Scout, Light Missile, Heavy Missile), that makes the price a bit more reasonable, but most companies don't offer them for sale. It's risky to do that.

I need to get back to this project. I'm a lot smarter about 3D design now and should rework these a bit. The RMS-1 is almost 100% ready to go, but the UUM-7 still needs some tweaking. It mainly comes down to tolerances between parts that have to fit together after printing, but I'd also like to make a pylon to hold two RMS-1, like what we see on Yamato, Arcadia, and Bandai valks.

So far these releases have a much higher production quality standard than I expected. They're nicer than the HMR VF-0S, which I found disappointing. I hope the standard stays high. Lots more valks to make!

And it's not like they don't know how to make it easier. Just look at the all Gundam stuff they produce. Yes, that franchise is orders of magnitude more popular than Macross, so they care about it orders of magnitude more, but they should be able to apply the same business logic to producing Macross stuff. It seems like there's clearly unmet demand that they could meet without flooding the market and making it unprofitable for them. I'm not a fan of artificial scarcity. I buy these toys to enjoy them, not as investments, so I don't need their value to go up over time due to limited supply.

That's my initial reaction to the news as well. The upside is potentially no bots. The downside is potentially entering multiple lotteries across multiple sites in a semi-futile effort to secure a PO. What if you end up "winning" on more than one site? I guess you'd have to buy all of them? In that case, if you limit yourself to one site, you might miss out entirely and then have to deal with the secondary market after release. As much as some folks might not like the following idea, I'm okay with all sites charging the full purchase price up front for POs. The few times I've seen stores do that, their POs were available for a lot longer. Having to put a lot of money on the table seems to be a big discouragement for scalpers.

Usually takes about a week after the domestic PO in Japan for a WWM item to show up on sites like BBTS. Amazon US generally takes longer for some reason.

I'll add the recent DX Angel Birds release to the pile of evidence that points to Bandai consistently making poor design decisions with respect to markings on valks. That gigantic AB logo they created, which isn't canon, stamped all over the valk, is the main reason why I didn't buy one. I was very much looking forward to owning a DX AB, but I just couldn't bring myself to spend money on that atrocity. I personally find it to be a massive eyesore and it destroys what is otherwise a clean and attractive color scheme. Hasegawa and Yamato/Arcadia respected the original scheme in their releases, Bandai did not...for the sake of originality? I'm sure if they were asked, they'd somehow double down on the design decision as being in the best interest of fans. It's not at the same level as the reversed modex numbers and associated gaslighting about how it was done intentionally to maintain visual symmetry, but I'm still disappointed.

It's starting to feel like I wasted a substantial amount of my limited free time on the Yamato 1/48 adapter project to help fellow MW members who have been asking for adapters for several years now, but more intensely since Archi Stands came on the scene. I'm now glad that I hadn't designed or printed anything beyond the prototypes. If Yeti makes his adapters available again in some form, great. He clearly put a ton of thought and effort into those and the community will benefit from having access to them. I'm going to pause my project and wait to see how all of this plays out.

It comes down to how you can print them and what materials you use. It's not hard to design adapters that will snap in place so you can hold the valk upside down (which I did), it's another to be able to print them without going to a commercial provider. Consumer grade additive manufacturing options are more limited and because of how the material is laid down during printing, there is a "grain" to it. Introduce too much stress along the grain, which would happen if you start pushing adapters onto valks, and the adapters break. I went through multiple prototypes that suffered this fate. I also wanted to limit how much the adapters might scratch up paint jobs on custom 1/48s, so I increased tolerances to create cradles instead of snap-on adapters. I still need to complete my Minmay Guard and Blue Roses 002 customs and don't want them getting messed up by display adapters.

Margins? Much like the waterslide decals that I've produced for this community over the past 22 years, I'd be taking a loss if I offered my adapters for sale at a price that collectors would find acceptable (which is what I do). Especially when you factor in the amount of time required to design them, print them, clean them up, and ship them out. Big chunk of the design time was getting everything dialed in, to include recalibrating my printer for the filament I wanted to use and then making tweaks to the designs in order to ensure the prints were as close to the drafted dimensions as possible. I would care enough to print your adapters correctly, but it might be more than I can take on. My day job is...intense. I feel this way about the adapters I just designed for the Yamato 1/48, since they are cradles that don't "clip" onto the valk. Do anything too crazy with them, like a close-to-90-degree banking pose, and the valk might fall out.

Yes, even just selling personal use versions of the designs through a site like Cults 3D and letting people print them as needed would be extremely helpful to this community. I just spent several weekends designing new adapters for the Yamato 1/48. It was a time consuming and frustrating process. I was working on a plan to make the adapters available to people, but now maybe I'll stop....

It might require some modifications. Good thing I have a VF-1J suited up and ready for testing.

Took a week longer than anticipated, but I finished up all four adapters for the Yamato 1/48: Battroid, Gerwalk, Fighter, and Fighter with Super/Strike Parts. The Battroid and Gerwalk adapters work with or without the Super/Strike Parts attached, but separate ones were needed for both Fighter mode variants so you don't end up with a lot of empty space under the gunpod. I printed them in some white PLA that I had on hand because it was much faster for prototyping and tweaking the designs, but grey ABS would be my choice for actual use. I'm still making some small adjustments, but they're looking pretty good now. My goal was to make them as low profile as possible, so you barely know they are there. They are also best thought of cradles because the valk rests in them, but isn't locked into place. You can do some pretty extreme banking poses, though.

End of week update for the Yamato 1/48 adapter project. I've been tweaking the design a little bit each evening, printing multiple prototypes along the way. I think it's pretty close now. Here's the latest version. It takes advantage of the original adapter design and uses it as a low profile anchor point behind the head, but also redistributes the weight of the valk further back (right behind the shoulders) in a way that holds the valk snugly in place without having to do any kind of snap fitting. It simply rests in the adapter. I wouldn't flip it upside down and expect it to stay in place, but other than that, you can do some extreme banking in the display stand and it seems to be rock solid. The tab at the bottom is moved just far enough back from the edge so the front of the adapter sits flush with the Arcadia A adapter when attached. I've been printing the prototypes in ABS for added strength, but you could probably get away with PLA since the adapter isn't subjected to a lot of pressure. I'm thinking about making a shorter version for a valk that doesn't have the armor attached. Adapters for Gerwalk and Battroid are also in the works.

Haven't thought that far ahead yet. For now, I'm just trying to get the designs right. Rest assured, they will be available to the community in some form.

As a fun weekend project, I created an adapter for the Yamato 1/48. It closely mirrors the original design. I wanted to start with that and see how it looked. Works well, but the one drawback is that you can't mount the gunpod--it runs smack into the Arcadia A adapter on the stand. I'll spend some time next weekend extending the design to allow for the gunpod in both regular Fighter and Super/Strike. Will also look at making a Battroid adapter. I'm not going to copy Yeti's designs, for the reasons already outlined above, but space and valk part constraints will lead to me making very similar choices. There are only so many ways to make an adapter.... A few design notes. The prototype is printed in PLA, which is not very sturdy. End goal is to print in ABS, but my new printer is being really temperamental about that material and I don't have it dialed in yet. Lots of failures yesterday. Much like Yeti's adapter, I chose to do a straight vertical slot for holding the hip bar in place instead of one that "snaps" the bar in place by closing around it. The latter puts too much strain on the printed adapter. There's just enough friction, based on the slot width I selected, to hold the bar in place, but I'd still avoid barrel rolls. Last, this adapter requires the use of supports when printing, so I tried to orient the part so you won't see the impacted areas. I only did a quick cleanup for this prototype, but you'll see impacted areas in the pictures below.

Yep, this was an insta-buy for me. Took care of my PO first thing this morning. It will be nice to have all four variants at the same scale in a modern, well-made form. Looking at you Bandai, with your still-unreleased HM-R Scout that was teased in prototype form at an event several years ago.

...to encourage people to buy what Bandai thinks will be a less popular item? I hope it sells well, because I'd like to complete the squadron in 1/48, too.

Just checked the Wayback Machine and it didn't capture anything beyond high-level product links and some images. Can't even get to the 1/48 adapter entry. It's a shame that he didn't post his adapter files somewhere for purchase online. Even if he never plans to make more stands or adapters, keeping those adapter designs locked away is a real shame. Now they have to be reinvented...again. There might be some images of the 1/48 adapters in the YetiStand thread, but it's 80+ pages long and I don't have time to go through all of that today.

I dug out the box for my Yamato display stand and I think this is the one you're looking for. I'd have to add it to my project backlog, but it wouldn't be difficult to recreate it for 3D printing in a durable material like ABS.

I don't mind, but I'd be sure to mention that the extra care AE takes in packing is what saved my VF-25F from being completely destroyed. They bubble wrap every item and custom fit every shipping box so items don't slide around in transit. What happened to me is entirely DHL's fault.

Appreciate the heads up. If it looks like the slippage might become an issue, I have TPU filament on hand and could try printing some thin washers, but if the bolt length then becomes an issue I might source some slightly longer bolts online.

So is the lack of printed washers better or worse? I can't quite tell from your comment. Asking because I just ordered six of these stands and have both a filament and resin printer. Much appreciated! Now I have to either dig out my original adapters or track down STL files for replacements online that I can 3D print.