P.W.Royce

no, I have always liked the Old macross toys more than yamato. 381347[/snapback] I hear ya. The nostalgic apeal of classic toys can never realy be matched by new releases. I would own more of them if I could. The hands are realy great, I had no idea the HCM had hands like that.

That's awesome. Everyone seems to be very interested in classic Macross toys lately. Backlash from all the new Yamato offerings lately?

It's funny this thread got bumped, just yesterday I decided to resurect my friends old Jetfire. He's getting maried soon, and I though I would fix it up and give it back to him on his wedding day. Originaly I was going to use the metal parts to customize a Joons, but now I think I will just leave the Joons how it is, sort of a footnote in the long and storied history of the 1/55. Anyway I was looking for Jetfire parts on ebay and they seem to be selling for quite a bit. Actualy, most Macross products seem to be stupid expensive on ebay right now. Has anyone else noticed this or have I just been away from collecting for to long?

I don't think that these toys will remain valuable like say, a good firearm will. Of course there are other legal aspects to colecting guns vs. toys, but one is definatly built to last longer than the other. The prices that the new Yamato toys are reaching has lead me to question my past buying practices. When I think about what my grandson (if I were to ever have one) would like to inherit from me, I can't help but believe my Ruger 10/22 will be a more prized possession than a plastic VF-0 toy.

Cool, a new valk for the display cases. This will help smooth out the line up. From Banpresto to Yamato in one gradual size transition. I find it a little bit scary that I will justify buying this toy with: It fits inbetween all the OTHER VF-1s that I already own. But the tommy Yune art with the Macross title under it is quite distressing. . .

I was asking myself the same question as I painted the rudder pedals silver. But no, I don't think a 1/72 scale kit is to small to put a little effort into the cockpit area. Hence the felt tip pens, after I sparayed the tub blue-green it only took like 30 mineuts to detail the entire cockpit.

Mig-31, made in the Ukraine by ICM. So far I have only complete the cockpit. The detail on this kit is not great, but hey, it was only $7.00. It has lots of fine panel lines on the exterior, but I don't know if they will survive painting and still be able to take an oil paint wash. We will see. In an atempt to speed things up I rendered the cockpit details with permanent felt tip pens (metalic sharpies rock). I don't think much of this will be visible when the tiny canopy is in place.

Not sure why, but I just had to chose the VF-4. Does anybody even remember Flashback 2012 these days? Who cares, it has a strong lineage, as well as being the original obscure, unobtainable valk. It would be truly impressive in 1/48.

Actualy, as of tonight my work bench is clear. It is a strange sensation, don't really know what to do. . . so confused. Now my closet full of kits whants to know; what to build next? So many choices. . .

Thats funny, I just finished the revell S-37 tonight. I put it in my display case next to my Bandi VF-11. Wierd. So, what does a Vic-Viper made out of a Sukhoi look like anyway?

God is in the details!

Old school Macross box art is great. I recently bought two of the Mikimoto boxed 1/100 scale batroids just for the boxes. The models inside them aren't worth my time but I can remember the box art from when I was a kid, and that was enough of a reason to shell out $5.00 each for them.

Those are slope soarers. Or in the case of the skorpion a PSS (powered slope scale) model. That guy has a nice flying site. . . looks tropical . Spring is on the way, time to dust off the gliders.

I hope this whole thing blows over, model prices are high enough already. Having said that, I did have a little experience with this first hand about a year ago. The small video game company I worked for in San Jose was going to publish a helicopter sim made by Irem of Japan. It was going to be called Apache, or AH-64 Apache or something sence you basically flew an Apache most of the time. Anyway, long story short, I come into work one day and the whole project has been canned because the licensesing fee for the Apache name was so damn high ( the game was planned as a budget title from the start). Oh well, one less military flight sim for the PS2 The game was lots of fun too, Flying around the desert blowing up acurately model com-block hardware, good times!

What ! I just emailed them a few weeks ago and they turned me down flat. 'Said Yamato was out of stock for BP8 and had no plans to make more. Their words exactly. Wierd. I find it hard to believe they are tearing apart their stock to part out valks, but maybe. . . Anyway, I just got back from rafting the Tuolomne river yesterday (a class 5, hard on personnel and gear). As soon as all the cuts and bruises heal I will be back in the shop compleating the first run of replacement parts (probably Monday). I am a little bit hesitant to take people's money untill the part if well sorted and ready to ship, but that could be very soon, end of the week maybe.So don't worry, I'm on it.

Yeah, this makes sense. I mean, the whole reson these planes can fly without an elevator is because of the thrust vectoring feature of the "feet" right?

My monogram viper has been siting on my desk for about four months now Funny, when I started it I was looking for something short and sweet as well, yeah a box stock viper should be perfect. Oh well. If you are even the slightest bit a perfectionist, this kit will take forever to build (lots of naging little flaws in the kit). . . Don't get me wrong though I'm not trying to discourage anyone!

To those who expressed interest in these parts: I have been hard at work producing some nice examples of the hinge. I still need to make a jig to accurately drill the holes in the finished pieces. That will probably get done a work sometime this week. I will be out of town next week, so expect a little more time before the finished pices are ready to go. Thanks.

it becomes aparent in that the piece flexes a little bit. It's actualy pretty strong. I droped the back pack w/FAST packs while transforming and the piece held strong, of course you would have to be more carefull than if the original piece was in place. I also thought about making one out of cast aluminum, but the process of casting a wax piece, investing it, and then vac casting the metal is sort of complex and time consuming. Maybe someday. . .

A view of several castings next to the original

I recently had this piece break on a friends VF-1J. After recieving no help through the official chanels ( HLJ said "Yamato is out of stock on this piece with no plans to reproduce it in the near future"), we decided to take matters into our own hands. Some silicone, resin, and a few weeks latter the end result can be seen belowe installed on the VF-1J. The part is pretty nice, its very close to the size of the original, installs easily, and holds better than the super glue many of us have probably been using. Load it up with some FAST packs thought and the fact that it is resin and not plastic becomes aparent. Still, it's better than nothing. The piece shown installed in the photo is one of the first shots, no paint. I'm having trouble getting one or two stuborn bubbles out of the finished piece. They appear near the circular detail and can be easily fixed with some filler. Which brings me to the point of this topic. Would anyone else be interested in one of these pieces?

But if you positivly must have a green LED in your valk's head. . .

Looking for a BP-8. I broke my friend's super VF-1J, and he just got the damn thing With the demand for this part it looks like I might be making a recast from my Hikaru VF-1A. Plenty of silicone and resin at work. . . I've been away from the boards for a while, so what is the story on getting O.E.M. parts from Yamato these days? Any info would be apreciated. Thanks - J

Yeah he is a good guy, he owns NewType Hobbies near golden gate park, an amazing shop. A nice guy, and an amazing shop, unfirtunatly I think it has gone out of buisness

Parts swaping vs. perfect transformation. An interesting argument. The mechanisms required to make these things work in the real world are so entirely improbable that being able to replicate them in a toy seems like a fools erand. Of course, the fool that figures out how to do this will bring us all a little bit closer to the wonderful fantasy that is macross and make some money in the process. Oh. . wow. . that swing bar could work on a real full size valk. . .right? Simplified transformation satisfies a physical (and economic) need, while perfect transformation satisfies something on a more idealogical level. I think