Valkyrie

Guess it's about time I chimed in here. Some good points have been made in this thread. Both in favor of and against recasting. And for both sides of the argument, there have been several points I agreed with. But I won't use any of them to justify my actions. I'll just say that morally speaking, my conscience has been clear, because I honestly don't think I've deprived anyone of potential profits. For example, in the case of the VF-4, its maker, Club-M is now defunct. And while technically, it's true that another company could buy the rights to the kit, and re-issue it, I find that to be very unlikely. Such a thing is almost unheard of in the garage kit industry. I can't think of a single case of that happening. It happens fairly frequently in the plastic kit industry (such as when Bandai accuired Imai's kits), but probably almost never with resin kits. And so I see the odds of potential profits being lost as very low. But all the same, this discussion makes me all the more eager to move away from recasting and get going doing what I got into resin casting to do -- scratchbuilding my own original resin kits. I've got my casting technique down rather well, so now all I have to do is hone my sculpting skills

Don't bother re-sizeing or redesigning your designs, guys. Like I said earlier, I'm mainly looking for the design and layout I like best here. When I pick a winner, I'll most likely ask that person to make a few changes. And among those changes will be making the images specific sizes.

Alright guys, after much searching and a few let-downs, I think I've finally found my box. I managed to find a semi-local shipping supply warehouse that'll sell in small quantity (bundles of 25) to the public. The one I'll probably be getting is 14 1/2" x 7 1/4" x 5". In terms of volume, it's about 20% larger than the original box. Which is a good thing, because all those parts just BARELY fit into that box. It's got a flip-up lid with locking tabs, just like the VF-4's. That's the big feature I was holding out for. The alternative was to have a normal box, sealed with tape. And I really didn't want that. Many thanks to everyone who's submitted designs so far. Keep em coming! And BTW, my lack of individual compliments are solely the results of my feeble attempt to remain impartial here

Well based on the I.H.P kits I've seen first hand I say I.H.P is a much better kit maker then he is a mold maker. I was told he brought 8 kits to sell at the WF these were offered at and to my knowledge those are the only ones he's made. It was more a matter of mold quality that lead to the molds' quich demise. Not excessive casting. First, the quality of the mold material seems to be rather low. I found a decent sized chunk of the stuff in one of the parts. It was a rather hard silicone (I'd venture to guess a 50A durometer rating), and it seemed to be rather prone to tearing. Also, I'm guessing that because of the molds' rather poor design, there were a lot of botched casts (which go a long way in shortening a mold's life). So I'm thinking it's very possible that there really are only 8 of these kits in existance. Which kinda amazes me, considering I have one of them in my basement right now

As far as I know, no Macross 7 ship models were ever made

I've got one of those. Awful recast, cast in horrible resin. It's extremely hard resin, and it's brittle as hell. Avoid it like the plague. The same can probably said about every other resin kit of that site.

Thanks a lot, guys. I'm really glad to see that you all still want this kit as much as I do

LOL! The molds look quite rough to me, actually. Mainly because the layout is so disorderly and I've gotta leave in all the 'sprues' attatched to the parts. But the casts come out clean, and that's all that matters. And I don't have to worry much about mold life at this phase. Edit: BTW, I fixed the broken pic link in the first post. Sorry 'bout that.

You're right, most parts only have one gate, out the top. That's because I made them as vacuum cast molds. Vacuum casting is kinda like fighting inside the Matrix... Some rules (of conventional casting) can be bent. Others can be broken

And while I'm at it, I've gotta ask.... I'm wondering how much interest in this kit has waned in light of the news that Yamato may have a Koenig of thier own in the works. http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=6736 Of all you who are on 'the list', will you still want to order a VB-6 recast even if Yamato DOES make a toy of it? It's looking like it might actually happen. But I'm thinking if it does, it'll either be very large (1/100 or bigger) and be much more expensive than the kit. Or it'll be a smaller scale (1/144 maybe?), and the kit will be bigger and therefore bettter

I thought I'd put up a thread with some of the pics I've been taking, to give you all an idea how the project is coming along. First, I got the hardware from McMaster-Carr, with the help of Fulcy. Some of them were perfect, but others weren't. So I'll be putting in a second order and try to get the RIGHT right ones this time Molding is going well. It's pretty slow going, but there've been no mishaps. And I'm burning through mold material a lot faster than I thought I woud be... Here's my new record for my largest mold to date And the parts cast from it two more molds (one half of each) and their casts another mold, awaiting the second RTV pour final mold and casts latest mold finished. I haven't cast from it yet And this is where I am right now. About to pour the second half of this one. Also, I've been doing some experiments, trying to make sure the screw holes in the joints will be as durable as possible. And I think I've got a good start on a solution. The screws get screwed into pilot holes that the kit builder has to drill out. The screws are machine screws, which aren't self-tapping. But if the hole is sized right, they'll still do quite a good job at tapping the holes themselves (by that, I mean they'll cut threads into the hole so they can be screwed in and out) Now, the big factor in how well that all works is the hole size. If the hole is too big, the threads it cuts will be too shallow, and the hole will strip easily. If the hole is too small, it won't be able to screw into it at all. So I think I've come up with a good solution. I'm going to order several differnet precision sized drill bits, and figure out which one is ideal for each size screw. And I'll include one of each of those drill bits in with the kit. Fortunately, they're pretty cheap (about $1 each), and I think they'll go a long way in increasing the finished kit's durability.

I'm pretty skeptical. Especially considering that Yamato's normal monster isn't even out yet. I could see following up the Monster with the Koenig if the sales were good enough, but that's about it. If Yamato DID make the VB-6, it'd have to be a whole lot smaller than 1/60. If it was, it'd prolly cost upwards of $1000. It'd easily triple the parts count of the normal monster. Plus, it'd be a massive pain in the ass to transform at that size The best theory I've hears so far is that it was actually IHP's kit on display, to showcase their sculptor's talent. I'm not finding the indea that Yamato is using IHP's Koenig design for a toy to be too credible. Having the kit in my posession and having worked with many of its parts in great detail already, I can tell you it definitely wouldn't be that easy. The differences between molding resin and injection plastic are like night and day. The majority of the kit's parts would have to be broken down and modified in order to make a toy of it. And even if it was 1/100 scale, like the IHP kit is, the toy would cost a fortune.

Actually, Hobbyfan has a recast of it listed on their site. But the last time I checked, it was out of stock.

Cool! I've never seen that kit before!

It's a VF-0D. Nothing stylized about it.

heh Nope, fraid not.

The Tsukuda kit? Quite possibly. The Club-M? Not a chance

I can think of 4 off the top of my head. 1) a small scale resin kit by Retpuu. TV series design 2) 1/6 scale hard vinyl kit by Tsukuda Hobby. Pretty good looking kit, but the vinyl is a pain to work with. DYRL uniform design. 3) 1/6 wonderfest resin kit by RSB. Very rare. It's of her in her DYRL uniform, similar to the Tsukuda kit. 4) 1/6 scale limited edition Club-M resin kit. Kind of... different pose (she's kinda huddled up, looking all depressed), but it's quite beautiful, I think. Probably the best Misa kit out there. (I have the Club-M and Tsukuda kits, BTW)

Well, the owner did say he probably got one of the last kits from IHP's molds. And I suspect he's correct. But it's not a big deal, really. Overall, the casts are pretty solid, actually. There's lots of air bubbles, many starter holes are fubared, and the nose nozzles are all kinds of F'ed up. But it's not like there's tons of flash, making the parts thicker than they should be. Or worse yet, misaligned mold seams that are almost impossible to correct. I suspect it'll take a lot of work to fix all the kit's problems, but it'll clean up really nice. The final kit will look like this great kit should have always looked Whoever did IHP's molds on this one seems to have used a rather... chaotic moldmaking technique, but it seems to me he knew his stuff. It takes skill to be able to cast like that and not have tons of flash and misalignments.

Well, I finally got the kit. And it was well worth the wait. Now, as promised, a bit of a review and project analysis; For the time being, I can't comment much on the parts' fit, transformation, etc, since that would involve cutting up the original quite a bit. And it's my goal to keep it unaltered as much as possible. That'll have to wait until the first set of molds is finished, and I have some of my own casts I can mess around with. First of all, the sculpt looks really good! There's evidence that some of the parts were CNC machined, and based on the all-CG instructions, I'd venture to guess that the vast majority of the kit was, at the very least, roughed out with a CNC machine. That's a very good thing, as it all but guarantees good symmetry. The casting job is better than I expected in some ways, and worse in others. It's better in that most of the flash is nothing too significant. But it's worse in that the molds were obviously damaged in many places. This pic shows the worst of the flash problems. He managed to F something up pretty good there, but i have no idea what... Now, transformable kits like this require you to drill holes in many locations. The parts will have the hole starter holes for you, maybe 1mm deep. Just enough to show you where to start drilling, and keep your hole centered. Now, a little moldmaking background. Those starter holes show up in the molds' surfaces as the exact opposite - small, cylindrical rubber pegs. Raised details like that are the first to get damaged when the molds start deteriorating. The rubber starts becoming brittle, and the details begin breaking off. And whenever a piece of rubber breaks off, solid resin of the same shape will take its place in every casting made from that mold from that point on. That's what happened with a LOT of those starter holes on the kit. And most of them weren’t clean breaks, as the starter holes have been replaced with raised blobs of resin where the holes should be. That makes things hard, because now the center points of those holes aren't as clearly defined. But, of course, I'll be repairing all of them. Here's one example of what I'm talking about: Here, a cavity to house a nut was partially filled in when its mold was damaged A damaged mold royally screwed up the nose in the same way as the starter holes, only much worse. The nose has 8 small vernier nozzles on it, and EVERY ONE of them is filled solid with a mass of resin. There's no good way to repair them. I'll have to drill out the nozzles from their ports and replace them with Wave parts or something. Hopefully I already have the same parts IHP used. In any case, the nose promises to be a huge pain in my ass >_< Lastly, there are quite a few more air bubbles in the casts than I had anticipated. But most of them lie underneath a very thin skin of resin, so I'm hoping that'll minimize how much the little ones show up in molds. But with the bigger ones, they'll be needing a good deal of repair work no matter what. But I did find one thing that's going to make the project a bit easier than I expected. About half of the kit's parts are duplicates. For example, the two feet are the exact same part - they're not mirrored. Because of that, I'll only have to make clean-up molds for ~50 parts instead of ~100. That'll save me some time and money. But I'll have to make two of each of those molds for the final molds. Because if I only made one of each, they would have half the life of the rest of the molds, because I'd have to cast from them twice as often. Here's pics of all the parts I've found so far that are duplicates. With the help of Fulcy, I've found all the screws needed at McMaster-Carr. A couple of them aren't EXACTLY what the instructions call for. But they're pretty damn close, so they should be fine. The cost for one kit's worth of screws looks to be about $10, which is just about what I was anticipating. And yes, they'll be included with the kit for no extra cost. I've got some concerns about the strength of the joints. There are no Wave or Kotobukiya joints used at all. It's just screws. 124 of them by my count, and only 14 nuts. That means the majority of them will be screwing directly into resin. I'm worried that the resin stripping out over time. So I'm toying with a few ideas that'd make it stronger. Among them are switching to a denser resin. Some experimenting will be necessary, but I'll make it as strong as I possibly can. The tentative price remains at $250. It may end up being a bit less, but it definitely won't be more. Well, that's about all I can think of. If you've got any questions about the kit or the project (no questions about ordering details here, please), ask away. I shall begin making molds tonight, and I shall also be opening up pre-orders tonight. I'll probably only be taking 4 or 5 pre-orders, with $100 pre-payment. In return, you'll be guaranteed one of the first kits cast from the molds, plus another special, mystery bonus They'll be first come, first served. So if you wanna get in on it, watch for it!

Very nice, VF-22! Keep em coming! And I'd like to note that the designs don't have to be perfectly refined upon submission. Details like text placement and wording can be perfected later on the winning entry.

Quick update; As of tuesday, the monster is on its way! According to UPS, I should have it on monday. Expect a thorough review and project analysis monday night

I'm all for someone else recasting the VF-4, as long as they can do a good job at it. Is there any way you can post pics of some of your friend's casts? Preferably some small, thin parts, since the VF-4 has them in abundance.

Nope, we're still far from having a final box art. There's a contest thread pinned in the Fan Works forum, but it hasn't gotten a whole lot of attention so far

Thanks, Melissa! Well, first of all, I don't yet have a box for the project, so I don't have any dimension guidelines to give just yet. But if I can get a large enough box from my current supplier, it should be similar to my VF-4 box, shown below (rectangular and front-opening) I'll also post text guidelines in the near future also, but the obvious includes "VB-6 König Monster", "1/100 scale resin cast model kit", "Fully variable" (or something similar, etc. You might also get some text ideas from The Compendium. Grayscale and color art are both acceptable. Lineart is pretty plentiful, but I know of few good color pics (one in the VF-X2 gallery comes to mind...). I have no pics to offer right now, but there's a wealth of lineart on pages 141 - 143 of Design Works. I'm sure this will probably go without saying, but what I really want above all for this box art is a good, attractive design and layout. Just a bunch of cool pics isn't gonna win it For a bit of comparison, below is the VF-4 box art that Nanashi designed for me a few months back. I think it's a very good, and rather classy design. He did a great job with it, I think. You may choose to do something that's also simple and elegent, or something a little (or a lot) flashier. There isn't any one thing I'm looking for. So let's see what your imaginations can come up with And while I'm at it, the original IHP box