Hiriyu

Here's my routine for collapsing the MPC's arms together, which seems to work pretty well when transforming back to fighter mode - my blue, red and green versions all respond identically. Open forearm covers ~ 45 degrees (don't want to scratch the paint at the upper end of the forearm cover). Leave hands deployed. Collapse forearm/shoulder assembly - Make sure the two horizontal tabs are engaged into the shoulder unit. Squeeze them together slightly if needed, but be careful. Upper and lower arm sections should fit together pretty cleanly at this stage. As Lynx suggested, make sure that hip joints are in proper lower position. Then compress both legs simultaneously about half way. Engage the locking tab and hole that keep legs locked together in fighter mode. Then finish compressing the legs and make sure that the inner tabs locking the lower legs to the body are engaged. Eyeball the distance required for the tabs at the tip of the forearms to fit cleanly into the mating hole on the upper surface of the legs. When all is right, fit the tabs to the holes, making sure that the arms stay cleanly compressed. Deploy the tail fins, and then fold the hands into the forearms. Lastly, shut the forearm covers*. Rejoice in your alpha's clean lines (well, as viewed from the top at least ). *If the hands are fitted incorrectly, you will simply not be able to close the covers, and will not likely damage the hands in doing so. If the hands are folded in first, they can [and will] obstruct the mid-arm sections from collapsing into the forearms, resulting in unnecessary stress to the hands and failure of the arm units to close completely.

Cue: 'Blue Danube'

Yep Jenius, the diecast 2-changers and the very slightly smaller 3-mode toys are the ones I am referring to as 1/55-ish (not those horrid 1/72 cheapos, although they are marginally cool in that they are the only ones ever produced with the option for a Beta linkup, impossibly pricey though they may be). I too think that the original 1/35 are in a class of their own (I've got one too), but are not really directly comparable to the Toynami pieces either. Rated by size/scale, I stand by my comment

I think that Opus is on to something, with regard to one of his earlier posts in this thread. I believe that the leading cause for damage to the hands is peoples' tendency to try to compress the arms with the hands already folded up inside - the inner arm is pretty crowded, and this may lead to breakage. I've had good luck with compressing the arm first, and then folding the hand in last. None of mine have broken yet, at any rate. Good luck to the original poster on obtaining a replacement!

Owning all 3 of the released versions, I'd say that #2 is closer to the mark. To me, there is no discernable difference in construction or engineering between any of the available models. I think that the "quality" of one or another seems to depend largely upon luck of the draw. That said, I've been lucky with each of mine (all low production numbers), while others seem to have been less lucky. I still think these are a damn sight better than the next most comparable Legioss', those being the Gakken 2 and 3-mode 1/55-ish toys.

Hey TOONZ, Barring sending it in for replacement, you could use a very fine drill (say .090" - .100") and insert a small rod with a suitable interference fit to allow for rotation, without ungluing anything. Good Luck!

Actually, had the Macross not crashed, humankind would still have the Birdman to deal with at some point (whenever humans became a legitimate spacefaring species). No escaping the PC legacy... LMAO zentrandude

I did... Back on page 1

The real issue that most have with the Bangle/BMW relationship, myself included, does not necessarily lie with his overall designs, which would be fine for most any other marque (In fact, I rather liked his controversial early '90s Coupe Fiat design). The real issue for purists is his complete departure from BMWs well founded and traditional simplicity and subtlety in design, in favor of designs which would be perfectly acceptable were they installed on a new Pontiac (which ironically now shares almost the same corporate grille as the newer, morphed BMW fascias). No offense is intended or implied for enthusiasts of classic Pontiacs, which I regard as being quite cool .

YLM, too funny, that's Steve Kupper - I know him too Small world indeed.

I agree completely about Bangle, A7, though he was not directly responsible for the new 6's styling (though he was responsible for the IMHO ghastly looking E65/E66 and E60 cars). He's been bumped up the corporate ladder a bit, so his own "handiwork" may be a thing of BMWs past - though he will still have control over the direction of BMW styling. Not to defend the new Six, but the grille treatment in that picture was perpetrated after the fact . I'll happily keep my grey-market '79 635CSi, thank you very much. I've also got a few 2002s, and a couple E21 323i cars, one of which is a very rare Baur TC Cabrio. I don't need no stinkin' Bangles

Good thread idea, A7. I am a confirmed and professional car whore . I really dug the Porshe exhibit this year - not only did I get to check out the GT, but they had a very nice '69ish 911T, a 550 Spyder and a 959 on display. Did you happen to see the silver Volvo S40 T5 Evolve during your stay at the show? I helped with a fair amount of its design and construction, mainly relating to suspension, brake, chassis and turbo integration.

Just a little bit of info... Prior to his death, in an interview DNA stated that the movie would cover the story in the first book only, and scolded the internet public for making up rumours that it would be a condensed account of the five book 'trilogy'. Also, he said that like all other incarnations of the Hitchhiker's Guide, the movie would be in direct contradiction to the earlier works. What the upshot of all of this is, is that we'll just have to wait and see the movie before making any judgement... Though in my experience, rarely does a film adaptation come close to the original work - I think King & Kubrick's original "The Shining" is a lonely example of good fidelity to the original.

Yeah, I've been eyeing that car in the showroom - I live around the corner and down Orange Grove from Rusnak. Pretty car, but I'd rather have an Elise

Another instance of photo theft from the Valkyrie Factory, this time on one of the small Gakken Mospeadas. Guy's item description states an outright lie about origin of the pics. Price is cheap, but beware, item for sale is not item pictured. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...5947381747&rd=1

Wotta deal. I remember buying mine back in the 80's for about $6-7 each (that's about all they were worth too). Wish I still had them now though.

Hehehehehe.... Masterpiece indeed. Good one Anubis.

Well, lets see.... Sounds enticing... Nah, It's a chick ride. I only commute 30 miles, so folding to work is kind of overkill. Plus, I only have street parking outside my apartment building. Parallel parking's gotta be a bitch. This does appeal to me, and a GBP battroid would be great fun to have at work... but the damn thing won't fit into a drive-through and thus doesn't satisfy the "Lunch Run" requirement. Now if there's one thing that really bugs me, it's those guys who cruise around bumpin' their sound systems at obscenely loud levels. Natch. Won't work. I don't start thinking until at least 9:00 am and my second cup of coffee, so I'd never get to work. I probably wouldn't get home either, even if I did make it in. So, nope. I'll take my VF-1D (second seat comes in handy) in standard low-viz gray, Thank You. *edit: fixed beer-induced text

Even though I'm not a huge fan of Yamato's 1/48 line, I'd still buy at least one CF if they built it. Unfortunately, it seems the Low-Viz is as CF as it's gonna get.

One more tip for a great semi-modern jet fighting sim would be EF2000 v2.0 by DID (R.I.P. ). Great sim, but doesn't work well with current computer systems. Last time I tried to fire it up on my P4 Win2K rig, I experienced a total lack of aerodynamic modelling - planes couldn't take off from the ground, and fell like a brick if started in flight. Still, if you have an old Win98 machine sitting around, it is well worth the purchase or download (EF2000 is now abandonware, and can be dl'd from Home of the Underdogs free).

Ditto that, in it's entirety. The IL2 series is great.

Now thats just fruity This just made me cry. Sounds like a Sirius Cybernetics Corp tagline.... Marvin would be proud.

The Toynami stickers are nowhere near as abysmal as those supplied with Yamato product - they are much thinner in comparison and will apply a bit flatter, and have less untrimmed excess. However, they do still have a little too much extra trim for my tastes. I usually use an exacto to reduce the border trim, and then use a plastic squeegee to help flatten them out and press them into the panel lines. Still nowhere as good as decals, but hey, these are Toynamis we're talking about .

Si, Senor Lucky. Tequila? What's that? Is it like beer?

I just received my Rook today (#00971) and have not noted any issues with it yet, with the possible exception of tailfins that don't seem to want to stay 'canted out' in fighter mode as easily as they do on my Bernard model. Anyone else notice this?