seti88

Both the Zero-B & C would be cool but personally I'd rather see the C variant.. a single seat delta winged Zero would be pretty sweet!

thats a difficult toss up amongst the variants!....As much as a C variant is nice...I would like the B and swoosh it to the soundtrack of top gun

I've transformed my 0A two times and so far so good. Posed it,tried the leg gimmick and no issues.

Thats good news yet for the 0A and also 0S!

dang....real nice contrast amongst the three 51' s and definately an eye catching collection spanner!

thanks for the eye candy and the nervous twitch for the 51....

First impression -- it's grey.

Molding differences, very minor, but they are there.

The nosecone is indeed removable. There's not much detail inside.

thats a bit weird, in the promo video and efss pics it didnt seem that grey....but from ur close up pics it seems a lot grey-er...

I almost ordered one. Only to realize my son would like the Hikaru VF-1S Strike more than the GBP one. Hopefully after it get released there will be enough to order one.

Hahaha! Just lifting everyone's spirits. And the reason to get insane again to save enough dough for next year's releases.

wow noel, ur magic worked!!!!!

there is a delta announcement coming soon....

https://www.facebook.com/macrossworld/posts/924300130986696

Why is the sculpt so different from the previous shown Regult? The prototype was very close to the 1/60 HDP Yamato Regult.

lets play spot the difference!!

off hand eye looks narrower (is it possible to have a zooming in feature/gimmick)?

mole on top of head is smaller (haha)...

One bet i didnt mind losing! Awesomesauce!

Legs look tight from the jumping pose!

When are the pre-order dates?

There's that ALL JAPAN MODEL & HOBBY SHOW 2015 on Sept 25-27. Hopefully we hear something new. Delta perhaps?

Why it says on the Tamashii date releases it will be on the 19th?

You mentioned Delta? Trying to awaken the thread in the tv show section with some magic here??

If they do it would be great, would they use a toy show to annouce it though...

Anyway will watch this space on those dates for more heavy...opps....i mean hi -metal announcements....cmon glaug! tho my bets on a monster....

those look like shoots for the cover of valkrie illustrated...

if the release differences are a few months apart, they should be annoucing the next release sometime around now?

Is there another upcoming hobby/bandai show in the remaining months this year in JP?

Yamato used to. Even with the screw covers, things weren't too hard to take apart until the VF-19s came out. Up until that point, I don't think they'd ever used those hollow spring pins.

The VF-1 was pretty much as good as it got though, and even that had several large glued-together sections. They just didn't used to glue them so securely that you couldn't pop the parts apart without damaging them.

On the opposite end, the VF-171 is absolutely the worst for this. Bandai glued things, screwed them together, and then covered the seams with another layer of glued-on surface detail. Of course this would be done on their valk most likely to suffer catastrophic damage.

Making it easy to maintain probably would be the last on arcadia's mind, but i would welcome some direction on that point from arcadia. Am not even sure if that would be possible to push through somehow to higher management..

Did Yamato make ease of maintenance a feature or more likely just a by-product of their engineering stand-point at that time? Or perhaps they designed something they could themselves take apart after it was assembled. If so, i would certainly welcome such a feature again..

Yeah if someone could tell me how to remove a hollow pin safely that would be great. If not.....I can live with it.

sorry not too sure on that..i would think tho ur only option would be pushing it somehow (using a similar diameter needle or perhaps a circular brass tube https://www.hlj.com/product/ABEBT132/Sup used in modelling), as gripping it and pulling seems real difficult. Is it clear on the other end?

Since Arcadia has an office in Hong Kong, peeps can actually get replacement parts. Just a heads-up for anyone with problems and for HK forum members.

Last time I used them was when they were Yamato and they replaced the metal swing bar on my 0S years ago.

Thats good to know. Is there a process to contact them or a list of what they can replace?

Am not in HK but can arrange something if need be.

Veef mentioned this in one of his Valkyrie reviews that it would be nice if those toys where constructed in a way that allows for easy maintenance. I second his thought. A toy that could be disassembled in to his parts would greatly help with fixing all the issues that result from mass production. On the other hand this would probably result in less screw hole covers and bigger seam lines.

If they included an easy maintenance feature, I would thk that would be a game changer.

Are there any other toys that do that?

i would not want the durability of the toy to be affected in any way though.

and....he is up! vf-0a steve austin version!

I did a little sanding on the plastic ball, so the metal socket closes more evenly at the ends. The ball ended up with straight corners at some parts...however it helped to fit into the socket easier...

Broke the pins opening the thigh up though...just watch for the circled points below...the pin at the lower corner proved to be very annoying holding the halves together...difficult to get leverage while trying not to damage the paint too much..

There is a slight gap on the thigh as expected when closed but probably can be sealed better if i dabbed some glue on the broken pin joints + push the seperate thigh halves in on the metal pin better...for now its down to monitoring the durability, should it hold up then probably will do the closing up work better..

Yeti's guide was helpful enough so steve austin thanks Doc Yeti and also Doc noel for the tightening of the joints pointer!

Arcadia's price is expensive cos it includes maintenance experience (sorry a lil dark humour there)! I wonder if they will release an open hatch version tho, would be interesting to see internals and mechanics...!

@saburo... the 0a looks looks silky smooth. gerwalk mode ftw!..

The Kites also look like stickers though, and all of those have been tampo'd. We can't make a determination either way.

http://ameblo.jp/digitamin/entry-12066449444.html

it was mentioned in translation that the skulls would be pad printed ie tampoed...not sure how accurate it is...

gahhh!!! no way! how cheap were they!

LOL @ lucky jerk! hehe! lucky jerk indeed!

ohoh dont give me a reason to stalk mandarake now...

I wonder if that half plastic ball is intended to create a small amount of internal friction within the joint providing additional tightness and a smooth feel when moving the leg around on that joint? The plastic ball may be more wear resistant than a metal ball and metal on metal may feel quite harsh and wear too quickly and become loose sooner.. I dunno.. this is just a piss in the wind guess..

As mickyg said its puzzling to understand why its actually there seeing that it appears to be a flawed design creating a weak point for the toy..

Plastic on metal provides better friction than metal on metal imho. I expect metal on metal will give you real smooth/floppy joints .

In this 0a case anway, i thk its more a matter of ill fitting plastic bits that caused plastic to stick to metal and for sockets not to close tighter..

The tolerences for ball diameters were exceeded at a very important part increasing the impact of failure significantly...

Played with my 0A and 0D today.

Let's sway.

looks like figure skating valks on ice show...

This really makes all kinds of sense. If the ball socket is molded to fit one size sphere, and then you build the ball joint out of two half-spheres of different sizes.... well, what do you think will happen?

Only a few options really.. and in this case, if the plastic half is bigger than the metal half, it might pretty much explain everything.

1. The plastic half is too big, spreading the joint out and letting the metal half slip out of the socket.

2. Oh no, the metal part isn't staying in! We'll have to glue it into the ball to keep it from slipping out so easily.

3. Oh no, the glue leaked out and now the joints are sticking, and the whole thing is a mess. Oh, and the glue isn't enough to keep the peg in the ball.

Bottom line? All the quality control in the world isn't going to save you if you can't even mold the parts in the correct size.

now that you summarised it, yea it looks like an accident waiting to happen!

BTW, not to freak anyone out but it doesnt mean that all the valks would be affected. So please enjoy your valks responsibly

Picked up a SV-51r Ivanov thanks to MWF member Las Vegas Dad who so thoughtfully decided on selling his! Can't wait!

photo is for illustration purposes only.. mine is yet to arrive.

haha i like the fine print...

I don't understand why it's needed at all. The plastic cap needs no bonding agent to the metal part in any way; the socket should hold the entire assembly together just fine. Boggles my mind.

Although, judging by the pic chaotic yeti posted before, maybe it's that way due to the plastic part being slightly bigger than a hemisphere? But again, why do it that way?

I thk the adhesive was meant to avoid the ball rattling in the metal socket or provide some form of pressure against the half metal ball.

i have updated findings in the maintenance thread, http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=41401&page=2#entry1221873 as not everyone may be interested to read it here.

The plastic ball certainly looks like ill fitting, it looks bigger than the metal half ball and i also had problems getting it to sit flush against the metal half ball.

this would be a continuation from http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=42180&page=55#entry1221859 on the vf-0a fix findings

Evidence of bonding on the metal socket and plastic ball is seen by bare metal marks upon removal of plastic ball with metal socket. Looking at the surface of the ball certain areas the paint from the metal socket had stuck into the plastic causing rough spots on the ball.

There also seem to be adhesive marks on the half metal ball portion of the hip bar which seem to suggest that a form of adhesive was used...

I then proceeded to refit the plastic ball to the metal half ball.

It seemed that the ball was not a best fit, altough i tried many many angles. I couldnt get the ball to sit flush against the metal ball portion, it seemed the hollowed out plastic ball was not deep enough to fit the protuting metal square of the metal hip. This pic was the tightest friction fit i could have gotten and there was a noticible gap between the surfaces of the metal hip and ball.

All this lead me to believe an adhesive spillage affected the ball to stick to the socket. Likely, insufficient surface contact allowed access fluid to leak out into the surrounding ball/socket wall areas.

Am not sure why adhesive was used, but it could be to provide sufficient push back to avoid loose joints when both the plastic ball and metal half were enclosed in the socket.

A check with masking tape along the ridges of the socket seem to show the half plastic/metal ball being past the socket line. However as with yeti's pic above the socket is unable to fully close, since the diameter of the plastic ball also seems to be larger.

You can tell from the pic that the plastic ball seems to be larger.

After test closing it the socket still has a slight gap. Will see if i can sand paper the ball down to fit. The socket does seem to hold ok if i tighten the socket screws very very tightly, however that would seem back to square one and would like to do something to improve on the fit..

thats all for now...thanks for reading.....

Glad you finally got it apart. Glue in the socket is what caused my issues as well.

mind boggling...then i realised they may have assembled the hip to the metal rod by dabbing a bit of bonding agent and pressing the 'completed closed leg' to the metal rod....

i dont thk this problem would happen if they bonded the plastic piece first to the rod (let it cure) and then closed up the leg.

I couldnt see it as part of their process explanation, but quite literally thats one of the way to get overspill of bonding agent into the socket area...

just like squishing a sandwhich together ur bound to get juice running out...

Looks like you have a broken peg from one of the thigh halves. That happened to me too on my VF-0D. By the way, while you're at it, tighten also the knee swivel joint since the thigh halves are already open just in case for the future. To prevent the VF-0 doing uncontrollable splits.

I guess i dont have surgeon hands or the patience and i went rambo on it.

i couldnt quite tell where some of the pins where especially for the front of the thigh.

Perhaps as further info, will mark it out once i got everything sorted out.

now i got it revealed i can do the maintenance stuff like you said...

after few more tries...

never tot i would go this far, at least to dissamble a valk. A new experience for me..and..upon examination of the metal socket, the plastic bit is absolutely bonded into the socket wall. No leeway to move at all..I tried giving it a few knocks but it doesnt seem to budge.

Will have a look at it later again.....

*gently turn the thigh halves...*

been stuck on it for half an hour.....time to rest....

The sight of the VF-1 on the runaway taking off always made a bad day good. and the song at the end of macross really had a melancholy affect on me... macross always has had that emotional hold on me up to this day ....

Around that time too bulletin boards and yahoo ruled the web. The first things i tried to search for were 'macross' 'valkyrie' etc etc. Any sighting would drive me crazy! i so elated and would make sure i saved that image on my floppy thinking i got a hard to find treasure..heh...

However that first anime pic always goes to my crush at the time nausicca...

It is also worth mentioning that the half metal half plastic ball-joint is also present on all the Bandai Valkyries from the YF-29 onwards and I never heard of a problem with them other than they are too loose.

Here is an image of the VF-25F Renewal hip joint (hint hint I'm still looking for a replacement part ) and you can see that the design of the hip joint is similar:

I think the reason why it is implemented that way is to increase the tension of the joint. The way the parts are coated probably would lead to less friction on a metal on metal connection.

I heard of appying future polish coats to increase the tightness or reduce the gaps between ball and socket. Would that work?

in the vf-0a case, could it be the adhesive used to bond the plastic ball and metal also didnt have sufficient time to cure? I heard that plastics to metal need a long cure time. But i can see that if we didnt have the half/half solution, shearing of the rod from the plastic wouldnt even be a factor..

Well, as a counterpoint I'd say that the things are overengineered because collectors want cool features and gimmicks. Over at the Hi-Metal thread, people have been talking about how they want integrated landing gears and integrated heat shield.... on a 1/100 scale toy! I'm sure it's possible to pull such a thing off, but good luck doing it in a manner that is not prone failures.

The more moving parts there are, the more points of failure. It's an inevitable trade-off. I'm not saying that I don't wish Arcadia products didn't fail or break as much as they currently do. I just question how realistic it is to expect better given the complexity.

I suppose what am getting at is to prioritise 'quality/correct engineering' vs 'over-engineering'.