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mechaninac

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Everything posted by mechaninac

  1. Plastic Weld is a plastic solvent that chemically melts plastic in order to fuse pieces that are to be bonded together; it basically makes two parts become one, with the join being just about as strong as the rest of the part. What is usually referred to model glue/cement is plastic weld for Styrene (Testor's tube and liquid cement, for example); for the type of plastics used in the average toy (ABS, Acrylic, etc.), a professional grade welder such as Ambroid Pro Weld, Tenax 7R, and others is preferred as the hobby variety isn't strong enough to bond anything other than styrene and soft ABS. One thing that can't be stressed enough is to NEVER use Super Glue (cyanoacrylate), hot glue, or two part epoxy on your toys unless it's meant as filler/strengthener to bolster ribs and screw bosses inside parts where the sloppy results won't be visible; otherwise, you're asking for failure The Styrene rout would require shaping a replacement part by machining or by hand. You'll need to bond a stack of styrene sheets together to achieve the correct thickness or start with a extruded square section solid rod to carve down to the correct shape, and you will also need to drill holes for the hinge pins. Since styrene sheet or stock are available in white you won't need to paint, but the white won't exactly match. Shapeways is a 3D printing service where you can upload a 3D mesh model (usually in STL format) to have it grown for you in a range of materials -- including a white strong type would be ideal for toy part replacement. Many members here have used shapeways to offer replacement and accessory parts for the community. Of course, in order to take advantage of this possibility, you need to model a part in a 3D modeling program (or have someone do it for you), upload it to have it vetted by Shapeways, wait for the part to be made and shipped to you... none of this comes cheap.
  2. ABS is a type of Styrene (Acetyl Butyl Styrene). Even milder solvents like Testor's model cement will work on most ABS grades used in model kits (Gundam, etc) and toys, but always test first on a spare part or an unobtrusive spot to see if it will work.
  3. The satin/matte finish is so much more attractive and scale friendly than the semi-gloss/gloss of all the other Macross DXs... Keeping my copy sitting in HLJ's PW is going to take a lot of willpower...
  4. That's two-part epoxy... definitely NOT what you want. These are the sort of things you want to look for: Somewhere to look
  5. Chronocidal is right, if the assembly can be take apart, that part looks to be easily repairable with plastic weld, or easily replaced with a substitute carved out of styrene block, or swapped with a Shapeways facsimile. Still sucks that it sheared right at the hinge pin like that... yet one more thing to keep an eye out for with these Bandai DXs.
  6. I know it's just trading one sex toy innuendo for another, but wouldn't that be more accurately described as a gag-ball than a butt-plug? Unless... oh, never mind...
  7. Payment upfront sucks, but less than $170 shipped is pretty damned good; and since the invoice was in USD, no PayPal and Bill-Me-Later option is available, for which I opted. Thanks for posting the link. Now to decide if I should pay for the one I have with N-Y when they request payment or if I just let that slip in lieu of requesting a cancellation... still have not decided if I wont to get two or not, but now I have the luxury of time.
  8. That's effin brilliant! Do the wings rotate at all within their gloves or are they fixed? My only criticism, and it's a really insignificant nitpick at that, is that you should have installed 2 hard points per wing as opposed to just one, and instead of adding the ones to the wing gloves... looks nice but may interfere with mounting the Super pack. Note to Bandai: Look at what Bravo5 has created, take inspiration from it, and start working on a mass produced version.
  9. All Valkyries are planes that transform into robots; they are ALL really dumb and really silly looking in their own particular ways... and I love'em all.
  10. Got my payment request from HLJ. I'll likely drop it in the PW for at least a month in order to have time to contemplate if I want to add anything else for combined shipping... I'll definitely be vicariously admiring the thing through all the pictures and reviews posted here, but I can wait to have mine in my hands. Now, Bandai, bring on the alternate color schemes!...
  11. Nice comparison pictures... the SV-51 is such a beast.
  12. I'll admit the the first one was at least mildly entertaining, but since I have ZERO nostalgia attached to TMNT, cartoon(s) or movies, I think they were all garbage, more so for the second movie which was Guyver LAM silly, and specially the third which was unwatchable. No. Just NO!
  13. Ditto. Except, they didn't have to refund me anything since I chose my CC for payment.
  14. I saw that, but I just couldn't find an easy way to cancel without emailing them the request, and for some reason the last part didn't register the first time around... thought that maybe I was missing something. Anyway, I sent them a cancellation request; if successful, great; if not, I'll have two copies on hand (couldn't pass up on HLJ's much better price so I placed a pre-order with them).
  15. How do you cancel an order with CDJ?
  16. Yes, it has. They completely dropped their usual MO of incremental increases for each subsequent preorder posting after the first batch; this time around they went straight from app. $138 to about $176, and there, surprisingly, it has stayed.
  17. As far as I know, added costs? No. Added shipping charges? Yes. If you order multiple items from the same store within the Mandarake site, you can combine shipping; whereas, multiple items from different locations will incur individual shipping charge from each source.
  18. Yup! Annoys the hell out of me too, but that's the Internet...
  19. Err.. see post above...
  20. Still available at CDJ. They haven't charged my CC yet... hope there are no hiccups in processing.
  21. Let's face it, the three original movies for the '90s were utter crap, but they had one redeeming quality: The titled characters looked like themselves, or at least very close to their depiction in the cartoon of the period -- to familiar with how they were drawn in the comics. Bay's reboot turtles look like ogres... excluding the trumpet ears and bulbous nose, and the inclusion of the shells, they all look like Shrek!
  22. They're legit... opportunistic bastards when it comes to high demand items like the VF-25S, but legit. They are the go-to place for Tamashii exclusives, and almost always seem to be able to get stock for stuff that's sold-out everywhere else (at a price, so they tend to be an outlet of last resort after their initial listings sell out), and I've never known them to not deliver on what the sell... you may experience delays on occasion, YF-29 Ozma comes to mind, but you'll get the item in the end, and usually well packaged.
  23. Reason, Arcadia don' need no stink'n reason?... They might use $5-$10 worth of content -- they have in the past -- as a pretext for charging $50-$60+ extra, though.
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