Lynx7725

Y'know, as much as I like the ship design, every time I look at that pic I see a banana-shaped ship. It's like the front and rear are so heavy that it's bending down around the middle. Anyone has that feeling? Not to mention, the thruster design literally looks like someone shoved the engine section up the ship's stern.

Well, the pic looks to be a one seater, and the thread over the other side sez things that go boom are hanging off it, so I'm guessing not exactly elint or medivac... EDIT: Do note the original post over there is from end Jan, so the info is dated already. But the guy said they want to do different versions: Navy, Marine, AF, with different loadouts.

Could be my monitor, but the pics look a bit dark. The good news is, they are all universally dark. DOF effect looks good and bokeh looks nice, but hard to say with one pic. Yeah, sure, why not? Let's see more pics...

Nikon 70-200mm VR? That's a good lens. I have that, and it's really very good. I like its versatility, it can do zoom as well as macros, and the bokeh is beautiful.

Oh, one thing that seems to have been overlooked. If you are going to spend money on a DSLR -- buy a dry box. Fungus is a bad thing to happen to a lens, and a dry box is cheap deterrent.

I second this. Get out to the showrooms and fondle a few cameras to see what fits you better. You'll likely to be lugging a big stack of stuff around, so having a comfortable camera is a good thing. I personally didn't like the Canon UI, particularly in the viewfinder; too busy IMO -- only found out about this after peering through one. And although I liked the D40, after handling one in the local Nikon showroom, I won't use it, as my hands are too big for the camera (I normally shoot wiht a D70, which is significantly bigger).

As a suggestion, maybe you can work in a support for the shoulder? A number of us have cracked shoulders, so having that little bit more support would be reassuring at least.

Apparently.

The "Swine Flu" isn't very deadly on its own. I think the reported lethality rate is what, 2.6% of infected? The danger here isn't the "Swine Flu", but the "Flying Pig Flu". The concern is that the (apparently) human-human communicable "Swine Flu" would meet its old friend the "Avian Flu", have a one-night stand, and the next day the "Flying Pig Flu" is born. Why is that a concern? The "Avian Flu" isn't human-human communicable, and the last outbreak was all fowl-human transmission. But it was a 60% lethality rate amongst the humans (it's apparently 90% amongst the birds). Imagine if the "Flying Pig Flu" has that lethality, PLUS human-human transmission.

Eh? Normally I hear is the opposite way. TV is flushed (blue head) vs. DYRL is recessed/ windowed (white head). EDIT: To add on, given the looks of the two, I'll probably hold off for DYRL CF-1A. Don't like the look on the TV head.

Eh, you really need to brush up on Google skills. Here's Max TV, courtesy of ruskiiVFaussie And here's Max DYRL, courtesy again of ruskiiVFaussie See the difference now? EDIT: In for a penny, in for a pound:

Damn. Missed this. Well, I got a Roy, a CF-1J Production on order (with DYRL FAST packs...). I'm only really interested to get one CF-1A (probably with DYRL FAST again), then a ELINTSeeker to round off the flight. Then that's about it for my 1/60 v2 line, just need to get Roy's arms fixed. EDIT: DYRL or TV CF-1A? Well, I'll really prefer a DYRL CF-1A, but I'm not too sure if Yammie's coming out with one. Decisions, decisions...

Actually, this isn't too bad. Say a full ground crew for Destroids, plus a few for Valks? I'll pick up one for the Spartan, for sure, but that ground crew set would definitely be a big plus point.

So let's talk numbers. How many does Yamato thinks it needs to sell to break even?

Roy delivering SOFT DRINKS?

I suspect it's probably somewhere there. The Destroids are selling, just not that well to justify the expense of developing a whole new Spartan. To be honest, filling the Destroid line is probably second fiddle -- I suspect we'll see 1/60 enemy mecha soon enough.

Gun grips look compatible, you might want to give it a try and swap in the 1/6 MG42 instead. With the loose ammo (would that be 76.2mm rounds in scale to the Brocken?) it would probably look (more) intimidating. (Incidentally, MG42s can't take the 50-round mags -- the capability was deleted from the design, when they upped from MG34.)

A Tomahawk, a Defender and a Phalanx shares roughly the same legs, so development costs are reduced; a Spartan would need to be developed separately, and has very few similar parts to the "Big Three", so it's not surprising that it's unlikely to be produced even if the other Destroids are selling like hot cakes. And if the Spartan's not likely, to say less of a Monster...

No. More parts to jam, more parts to rust. Just keep it simple will be good enough.

With a dremel, everything's sandable. It works out ok because you just need to take a bit off, a tungsten carbide cutter does the trick fine. Gotta be careful to keep it even though. The detents, I suspect is related to the extent to which you screwed the retaining pins in. Too slack and there's no detent. Too tight and it's ALL detent. Hard to get it just right.

So anyhow, I got along to fixing my broken Roy Right Shoulder. (The broken Roy Left Shoulder has been long since fixed.) I was transforming to battroid when the latch caught the weakened shoulder. That twisted the hinge part, meaning I can no longer ignore it. So I stripped the valk apart. Turns out, I couldn't quite get the part to simple glue back together, because of a couple of reasons: The blurr in the pin at this point was clearly too big for the hole. This is something Yamato claim to be fixing. The second part is that there apparently a mold line on the swing arm portion which will agitate the hole area whenever you swing the shoulder out. This I don't think has been discussed previously, so you guys might want to keep an eye out for it. Long story short, I dremeled the pin down, AND I dremeled the swing arm down too. That made it possible to reglue the hinge in and now everything seems to be ok. I'm not going to include pics because I think some of us can't stomach the thought of dremeling into such an expensive toy -- but due to the too-perfect fit for these moving parts, I think a little bit of filing in that area doesn't hurt for this situation.

I think the biggest thing I have against later Valkyrie designs is twofold -- one, they started looking too super-robotist, with faces and boobies.. I mean, these are war machines, they aren't meant for show biz, give me milspec and I'm happy. Second, I really dislike that post-SDF1, almost all the designs try too hard. VF-1 is a very simple design; single-seater, variable sweep, folding torso transformable mecha. The current models? Multi-segmented, rotating, move-here-click-there-fold-don't-know-where-that-goes. Even the YF-21, in its simple design, doesn't quite come close to the VF-1 in simplicity and elegance. Complexity in military equipment isn't a good thing, because they are often operated by idiots. Something as complex as a VF-25 is more likely a hanger queen than an actual fighter IMO.

I think my front cowling is a one-off QC; looks to be the metal plate in the cowling might be not glued at the right angle. Either that or the internal magnet in the head is off. I fixed it with a bit of rubber steel shims, closes off the gap without introducing a wobble. Good enough! Do agree that the joints are (thus far) sturdy, though one feet is a little too tight for my liking. I don't agree about it being fun to transform though, as the thin joints is particularly worrisome. Still, a good toy, especially if you take care and is willing to tinker a bit with it.

Well, I meant to figure out how to transform it. Yamato products tended to have a learning curve... ... as things went, not so bad. The partsformer nature bugs me; I think a larger scale would have allowed a more perfect transformation, without having to apply too much pressure here and there. Wish Yamato had included a tab on the upper arm, would make transforming back to bike mode much easier. Legs and feet also need to be done just right to get the fuel tank and engine together again. Flappy mirrors, have to be careful there. Handlebars doesn't quite have clearance for the hands to grip easily, might want to think of a mod there. Front shield magnet not aligned properly, might do a tweak to get it right. Wheels tend to go out of alignment vertically easily, so will need to tweak constantly. In a way feels like a 1/60 YF-21, things have to be just right to get the mode right. The small scale works against the joints here; too many rotating joints and thin parts. It's not a bad toy, it's even good for all its faults, but not quite in the great category.

Different pads, but EXO's suggestion worked; it's a lot tighter now, so I'm happy with it. Now to work on the Motoslave...