Hello everyone! It's my first post here so forgive me for raising this topic from the dead - I didn't feel comfortable with starting a new one just to ask a few questions.
Anyway - I'm a long time Macross (Robotech as a kid) fan from Montenegro (currently living in Serbia) and one of the things I had always dreamed of was a perfectly transformable VF-1 valk. My dream came true about a month ago when I got my Arcadia 1/60 Roy from my girlfriend as the best birthday present ever. Since it's almost impossible (or just incredibly expensive) to get anything of this sort in this neck of the woods, she grabbed the opportunity when one of our friends who lives in Japan was coming over unexpectedly and ordered it for me. Long story short - I'm a fan, not a collector and I wanted this to be able to handle it, play with it, pose it, take pictures, brag to my friends... Roy has been a source of joy for me (and envy for others) ever since I got him.
I've read a lot about the various issues Yamato and others had with the various releases of the VF-1 toys, but I haven't seen comparisons with the one Arcadia release, so I thought I'd share some of my own (mis)adventures with my specimen...
First of all - right out of the box, as I was handling the jet for the first time, a small piece fell out of it. Turned out to be a small piece of the engine detail in the foot:
It's molded separately and upon close examination, it looked as if it was never glued in at all. I put a tiny dab of basic universal glue on it and put it back in its place.
Pretty soon afterwards, the seat on the neck cover gimmick separated from the base (I didn't take pictures of this, it's self explanatory). Again, tiny dab of glue and it's back on.
These two occurrences made me think that perhaps whoever was putting these tiny cosmetic bits together perhaps missed a few spots, which is something to think about, but certainly not that big of a deal overall.
Then just yesterday, after more than a month of owning it, I had two problems: first a piece of one of the bottom fins fell off (I was very lucky to catch this, it's tiny!)
Looking at it, it didn't break, but just fell off. As it's a fully painted piece, as it fell off, its paint stayed glued firmly to the base, and just the plastic detached! As you can see, it's back on, but I figure this could be an issue specific to the VF-1 as one hald of the landing gear bay door hits this piece of the fin as it opens and puts pressure on it when open, all the time. Other owners should take note, as this is an easy little thing to overlook and lose.
Finally, the big problem:
This is the side that rubs against the other shoulder when the arms are "packed in" in fighter mode. Am I doing it wrong somehow? Because no matter how I do it, it's such a tight fit and the shoulder pads rub against eachother when I pull them out or in. I must say, the paint job on the entire toy is impeccable, except for the shoulders, so I'm a bit disappointed at how easily a highly visible part is damaged. I've temporarily dabbed it a bit with a Sharpie so as it's not an eyesore, but I'm open to suggestions and advice.