brouken

Haha, I guess you weren't at the VF-25S renewal preorder madness?

Wait a minute, so nobody from MW got to score one?

Haha! Pre-orders closed!

Good luck guys! :-D

Just a quick question: is the Arcadia YF-19 in high demand now? I know its practically sold out and not even Mandarake has any for sale. But it isn't in the same "got to have" status as the VF-25S Ozma before right? Guess I'm trying to convince myself that this'll be easier than my first time. Hehe!

This is essentially my second attempt to secure a bandai valk at pre-order. Wasn't so successful the first time during the VF-25S Re-issue. Good thing NY had a lot of stock. But I can't deny that joining the pre-order madness is exciting and exhilarating in a twisted sort of way. I'm already tempering my expectations however and am prepared to pay a little extra from NY (again) if I miss out from Ami-ami. Hopefully, they will have an abundant stock for this as well.

So no placeholder yet for NY and HLJ?

I'm hoping that Arcadia will re-issue this one day in Hikaru's Skull Squadron color scheme from Macross Flashback...I can dream right? Congratulations Saburo for getting one!

Oh no! Its the dreaded VF-13 Chupacabra!

The RVF-171 is pictured with the armor parts during the Macross X Tamashii Nations Superdimensional Chogokin Exhibit: But I'm assuming that these came from the armor parts for the VF-171 plus and Alto EX versions. Does the RVF-171's wings already have the hard points for the missiles of the armor parts?

This is the money shot right here. And to think Saburo didn't even use his photo booth or any post processing for this!

Oh my, this just got bumped onto the number one spot of my 2015 valk want list. :-) But that release date...so close to the Koenig Renewal and the Armored VF-1J...

Okay, I've made a photo collage of the damaged hole as well as the repair that I made. Hopefully, this will help others who might experience the same problem. Here is a wide angle shot of the damaged hole for the shoulder joint: As you can see in this close-up photo, the hole got eaten away even more after I tried putting in some Tamiya Cement (the non-ABS one). As I mentioned in my earlier post: DO NOT USE TAMIYA CEMENT FOR THIS REPAIR. Here is the photo of the arm assembly. The arrow points to the part where the screw goes in to join with the hole in the previous pics: Enter JB Weld's Kwikweld Steel Reinforced Epoxy! Bought from ACE Hardware. It's fortunate that it cures in the same color as the plastic in my valk. Here is the pic of the repair (compared to the unbroken hole on the right). I only used small beads of the epoxy mix to first cover up the hole using a paper clip tip and a toothpick. After letting it dry up a bit, I used the paper clip to make a new slightly smaller hole. It looks kind of messy, but this is the best I can work with using the material and tools that I have. After letting the epoxy dry for a few more minutes, I re-assembled the shoulder joint and put in the screw, slowly tightening it so that it will make new threads in the epoxy. I didn't tighten it all the way in yet. I just want the screw to go in just enough so that the epoxy will cure around it. The instructions say that it will fully cure in 4 to 6 hours, so I'll know by then if my fix worked. I'll provide an update to show the completed repair by then. The epoxy has a working time frame of six minutes. After that, it hardens considerably. It's important to slowly shape the epoxy while its drying. Too early and the epoxy will just stick to your shaping tool (in this case, a paper clip and toothpick). I also cut a bit of flat plastic to help shape the epoxy. Others may want to use a precision flat head screwdriver, but you have to lubricate it first with something so that the epoxy won't stick to it permanently and ruin the tool. I've studied the shoulder mechanism on my valk and observed that the reason why the screw loosened up is because the metal joint that allows for vertical movement of the arm is too tight. I tried to loosen it a bit so that it will not stress the screw hole too much. I also thought about the engineering of this assembly and I honestly think that it could be improved. At first, I thought that the metal part was meant to rotate on the plastic during transformation. But it seems that it doesn't. It's really meant to be fixed in place while another joint of the shoulder does the rotating for the transformation. The problem as I mentioned, is that if the vertical joint is too tight, then it places quite a bit of stress onto the plastic hole where the metal part of the shoulder assembly is screwed in. Anyway, thanks for the inputs guys! Hopefully, the repair will be a success. I'll know for certain in about six hours.

@ArtTem, spaciba for the tip about using ABS Cement my friend. :-) I'll consider this, but I've been having a difficult time getting Tamiya ABS cement as its always out of stock in our local hobby shop. :-( @mechaninac, thanks also for the tip. This will be my backup plan just in case the epoxy filler doesn't work. Step two will be a little difficult though because the screw being used is so darn small. Finding a slightly larger diameter one of the same length and head will be quite a challenge. After going to a nearby ACE Hardware shop, I managed to get some JB Weld KwikWeld Quick Setting Steel reinforced Epoxy rated at 2424 PSI. It also cures at a dark grey color which is the same color as the 29 Ozma. :-) I'm going to perform the operation tomorrow and see if I can fill up the hole enough to make new threads for the existing screw. Hopefully all goes well. :-)

Thanks for the replies! The screw hole location is on the plastic part that connects to the die-cast part of the left arm assembly to the main body of the valk (i.e. the shoulder part). I'll try to take a clear pic of it for reference. As an update and a warning: DO NOT USE TAMIYA PLASTIC CEMENT TO FIX A PROBLEM LIKE THIS. I didn't read the instructions on the bottle clearly and apparently Tamiya Cement uses a solvent to bond plastic. So what happened was that the cement actually dissolved the plastic in the hole, making the problem worse. So now my only recourse is to refill the hole up with plastic repair putty and just carefully drill in a new hole for the screw. I guess I'm off to the hardware store to look for a suitable putty. Oh, and I did try using a piece of plastic bag wrapped around the thread of the screw. But the screw is so small that the plastic bag just keeps slipping off. As for Loctite or CA glue, I'm hesitant to use them because they might melt the plastic further. I think I'll just fill up the hole with some epoxy filler for plastic.

Hi MWers! I've tried searching the threads, but was not able to find a topic/solution regarding this. I noticed that one of the screws on my DX Chogokin YF-29 Ozma was loose. I tried tightening it, but apparently, the plastic hole was stripped and the screw wouldn't tighten in anymore. I tried dropping in a dab of Tamiya plastic cement in the hole to try and tighten it up. But the screw just won't bite. Any suggestions on what to do? Is there some kind of putty that I can use to fill up the hole so that the screw can tighten? Any help would be most appreciated. Thanks!

Yes I remember the RPN-9 airing of the Pinoy-dubbed Macross. It was the first time that I saw (and fell in love with) Macross. If I remember correctly, this was the first time Macross was shown in the Philippines. The dub, op and closing credits were done by a Filipino company. The opening music was taken from the Harmony Gold english dub of the first few episodes of Macross (before they made it into Robotech), while the ending music was an original piece. Ichijo was indeed named Ricky Hunter, while Minmay was named Maria Lynn. This was way before the Robotech series was shown in Channel 2. It was shown every Sunday in the afternoon (4 pm?).

Thanks for sharing this. I didn't know that NY actually was buying stock from other retailers in Japan. Kind of reminds me of when I was buying some jade jewelry from a store in Yangon. The stall I was buying from didn't have enough stock, but told me to wait. They went to another stall and got some of their stock and sold it to me. I guess this is a normal thing in business. :-) Oh, and please don't misunderstand me. I'm not bashing NY at all. In fact, I get most of my toys from them! I used to order regularly from HLJ, but it seems that as far as having stock of the latest releases go, NY has an edge over them nowadays. I thank MW because it was here that I found out about NY. The others do have a point about NY's prices though. They tend to mark-up very quickly depending on the demand. But that's just the nature of business. No need to get personal about it right? It would be quite hypocritical for a collector like me to accuse others of greed when the very nature of collecting involves the desire for the (never-ending) accumulation of what can be generally classified as material wealth.

Well, given NY's business model, it may be that they paid Bandai an extra sum to be given priority for stock of the VF-25S. They still win the end though because they're probably earning about 20 to 30 dollars markup on each one sold right now. :-) They probably (and correctly) forecast that a valk that used to sell for USD300 to 400 will sell easy at USD 160 to 170. At least for the first couple weeks of production until stocks are more widely available. That's assuming that more stocks are forthcoming. Otherwise, we can expect the prices to slowly creep back up. :-P

Thank God I did this too! When NY opened their second round of pre-orders I took a chance and got a pre-order in. Good thing I didn't cancel it! My shipment is currently stuck with customs however. I wonder how much they'll charge me for this one...

Anyone else still haven't received their payment notification for their Ozma 25S from HLJ? Its been four days since release and I haven't received any news from them. My orders page still lists my order as being processed. :-(

Thanks Saburo! Sorry if I sounded a bit demanding. I'd try to take the photo myself but my 25S hasn't arrived yet and your photography skills clearly blow mine out of the water.

Awesome shots of Ozma's ride Saburo! Perfect to whet up the appetite of us MWer's who are waiting for our 25S' to arrive. BTW, you still owe me a shot of Ozma's Armored 25S and Super 29S side by side with missile launchers fully deployed. Come on, I know you'll pull off a great shot of that! Here's a proposed theme to help you set up the shot: "Bring on the rain."

Please don't ask. I'm still trying to get over it. What really gets to me though is that I'm technically supposed to be tax and duty free (I work for a diplomatic establishment). And I thought Philippine Customs was bad. I didn't know you were born in the Philippines, Saburo! I agree with Abaddon that you owe it to yourself (and your Filipino heritage!) to watch Voltes V (preferably the English dubbed version that was done by Filipinos in the 80's! ) Voltes V had such a huge influence on our generation of Filipinos. It's what got me into Japanese pop culture (and toy collecting) in the first place!

Hehe, sorry! I think that as long as you can get if for under USD200, its a good deal. I got mine from Mandarake where quite a few are being sold for that price. For me, the Yamato/Argo ranks right up there with Voltes V and Daimos as far as 80's era anime nostalgia is concerned.