Chronocidal

So... what happened to the Fine Molds stuff getting sold by Revell? The stuff they have listed is not even remotely similar. Or is that because that's the Revell Germany site? I don't think I've ever seen such a huge pile of livestock defecation masquerading as a product line before.

The plastic/metal combination ball joint isn't the problem, because they can clearly work. The problem is in Arcadia's ability to design and manufacture them correctly, so they do work. I take issue with the entire thing because they clearly knew how to make perfectly good hip joints for the v.1 VF-0. I don't know how you can just forget how to do that.

The irksome thing is really that several of the features on the VF-0D were steps backwards from the old Yamato VF-0s. That just flat out should not happen. The materials used are exponentially better, and the quality of the molding is much higher. But at the same time, they left a few problems from the old design untouched, and even introduced new problems that the original design never had. I can't wrap my head around that one.

If the ankles are anything like the ones on my 0D, I think someone is overcompensating for the non-locking ankles on the early Yamato releases. Those things do not like to extend. Honestly, I feel like the production quality on these is just fine. They look beautiful. It's just the engineering behind all the failing features that seems to be the weak point. It's like a lot of things just weren't thought out very well.

Guess I'm glad the new design does nothing for me then, one less thing to worry about getting a copy of. Hopefully somewhere down the line Disney will just let the companies fend for themselves, and sell where they want.

So I went digging through the old topics, and found a few that might be worthy of addition to the collection of repair topics. Original Yamato VF-0 Nose Droop Fix: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=33217&page=3#entry860058 Old Yamato 1/60 YF-19 Fix Topic: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=21130&page=1 Discussion of broken Yamato YF-19s, but contains some discussion on repairs and Shapeways parts: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=35649&page=1 Veef's Shapeways parts start getting discussed about here: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=35649&page=5#entry1041892 SV-51 Disassembly Photos for accessing wing joints: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=143&page=24#entry867221 I should note, a few of these are individual posts within the larger "What's wrong with my Yamato, Bandai, etc." thread from long ago, and it's worth linking the entire thing here: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=143&page=1 I think what might be useful is actually taking and compiling these individual topics and posts into an easier to search thread so they aren't all scattered around. A lot are within the "What's wrong" thread, but they're scattered, and might not be easy to search for. As far as modifications go though, I've got two, if we want to add them to the list. A slight mod for the v.2 VF-1's fast packs so they don't bend the tails so much, and stay level (slightly destructive to the packs, so you may not want to do this if you plan on ever re-selling them): http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=33306&hl= Also a bit on the destructive side, if you ever felt like experimenting with the old Yamato YF-19's gullet.. http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=38775&hl= Also, while I know there are a lot of assorted Shapeways solutions out there for various valks (notably Veef's shoulders) do we have a full list of all that has been fixed using printed parts?

Fortunately I've never been that interested in the figures (unless they go with a vehicle), and the various exclusive vehicles are generally easy to find on the assorted online shops for the various retailers. I know I got several X-Wings, an A-Wing, and a B-Wing that way. I really would like to see a re-release of the classic B-Wing scheme though, I only was able to get a "dagger squadron" repaint. It's not bad, but I love the classic look.

I know I picked up one or two for about $30 back then. Reshaping the fuselage so they almost don't fit is a problem though. It makes me wonder if they made it narrower to fit the armor pack. Would modifying the ghosts to let the canards fold down further be an option?

The legs dropping is just a repeated issue from the first version, because they never fixed the base issue: the legs just have no solid attachment point to the metal chest plate. And the tolerances between the nose and legs are off just enough that forcing the legs into the chest plate bends it downward. I was really hoping that they would have done something about this on the 0D, but nope. It uses the exact same shape as the original, with the same original problem. The rest of the figure is just built better so it's not such a huge deal, but it's still disappointing.

Just got confirmation on the bandai 1/72 x-wing, y-wing, and normal tie fighter, so those got in under the block I guess. Will have to wait and see if I get charged for Vader's tie, and the 1/48th x-wing kit.

I'd hesitate to label that thread as "fixing" a 171 knee, but that's probably the original title. It never actually got fixed, that 171 is still scattered across my office in pieces. I also don't know if this is meant to be focused on just repairs, maintenance, or anything under the sun including mods, but I have a few other sets of disassembly pictures of the old VF-0 and Sv-51, and other things, plus a couple of mods for the v.2 VF-1 and old YF-19 I can dig up later.

Probably not going to get the two out of stock kits I ordered then. Still no payment request on anything either. Maybe in the long run this will actually be a good thing though. If the sales for the domestic crap fall into the toilet compared with under-the-table deals and Ebay sales for foreign products, maybe the local companies will wise-up and actually produce something people will buy. Not holding my breath for it though. The mass market is still going to eat up the massive truckloads of stuff made domestically. It's just going to be the collectible market that gets to sit and spin on a lightsaber.

Did they mold the landing gear doors in different colors than the hinges? Or is one piece painted and the other is bare plastic?

If Revell is truly getting the old Fine Molds kits to sell, it's not all bad. I really prefer Fine Molds' 1/48th x-wing, just because Bandai filled their version with all the electronic stuff, and I'd rather have a cheaper kit without all the extra fluff. The Bandai 1/48th one was marked down to about $50 though, so I put in an order for one each of the Bandai kits at HLJ to see if I can get them. The 1/72 x-wing, y-wing and tie are still in stock, with the tie advanced and 1/48th x-wing are backordered. Whether they'll ever get restocked though...

Those are a pretty good example, but I don't know how many of them were released. The nice thing about the 1/144 ones is that there's a pretty big market for that scale, and you can find a lot of other aircraft to go with them, both die-cast and plastic. Personally, I'd prefer something like 1/72, or even 1/100 though, just for the extra level of features. Missiles and other attachments are really hard to keep track of in 1/144.

I would hope the 0S will all be molded in color, but they seem intent on molding the underside of the backplate in dark gray. That would be fine.... except that means the areas under the wings where the shoulders scrape against winds up painted white, and all we get out of it is a dark panel that isn't even visible in 2/3 of the modes, and I honestly couldn't care less about being a darker color. The old 0S had the entire belly molded in the same color as the rest of the plane, and I don't think anyone ever thought that was a problem. Maybe people in Japan requested the change? I just know that I'd personally prefer a hidden panel molded in the wrong color and left unpainted than have a very visible one that is almost certain to be scratched being molded in the wrong color and painted over to match.

Yamato and Bandai both tried making smaller scale collectable figures, but more like gachapon-style prizes than actual models. I don't know if Bandai ever made any non-fighter ones, but Yamato certainly did. Again though, they wound up in clearance sales at HLJ, just like the GnU-DOU figures. The posable figures, I think I picked up for maybe $8 a piece (list price was 3,000 yen originally), and the collections of 1/200 figures were going for about $12 for a set of 12 figures (originally 6,840 yen). While they weren't bad products, I don't think Yamato could ultimately turn a profit on something that small at that price. They couldn't bring production costs down enough to sell the products at a reasonable price to compete with the rest of the market. Whether they could hit a nice balance of features and cost with 1/100 scale fighter models, I do not know, but with some 1/60th VF-1s still floating about at reasonable prices, would they even be able to compete with their past overproduction? And ultimately, the draw of the toys to many is their perfect transformation. Without that, you may as well build a Hasegawa kit, or even one of the new Bandai ones.

This still smells like something being lost in translation. Did Disney make another deal with other companies to make kits for the rest of the world, or did they just completely screw the pooch, and not realize that Bandai would want to do this? It's not like Star Wars is a nationally recognized property or anything.

Those smaller scale battroid-only figures are fine for what they are, but the target market for them confused me. They weren't overly detailed, and not really that fancy in terms of posability, but they make nice little knick-knacks. The cost for them was really out of proportion with what they were though, either from cost of production, or licensing. I guess it feels to me like while Arcadia seems happy to accept a role in making the higher cost niche items, they're going through a phase where they develop priorities. So far, that seems to be focusing a lot on molding quality, and maybe painting, but I think the overall products are suffering in the design phase. The problems popping up wouldn't be hard to solve, but they have to be caught early. The way things appear to be working now, they aren't getting fixed before the factory starts assembling them, and the design issues are causing a lot of products to be scrapped because they don't meet the expected standards.

I'd agree with that idea (the sticking to niche designs Bandai doesn't want to do part, I mean), but also don't want to be flooded by Bandai versions of valks Arcadia and Yamato have already made, if Bandai picks up the licenses. If anything, I wish Bandai would try and mimic Yamato and Arcadia more in terms of design style, because the list of reasons I prefer them over Bandai is getting smaller all the time. If Bandai gave more than a half-assed attempt at landing gear and weapons, I'd probably ignore Arcadia now. These new releases just aren't impressing me with their designs.

I do wonder if the vehicle is actually in true 1/12, or if they're doing a little internal shenanigans to get a 1/12 figure into a 1/18th or 1/24th vehicle. That's the way the old FX-scale X-wing did it. If they're really making 1/12 vehicles, my living space may be in serious trouble.

See.. this is really what irritates the daylights out of me. It's a transforming toy. Mold the freaking thing in color for goodness sake, and stop molding things in the entirely wrong color, and painting over the entire part. I've been sick of Bandai doing that for years, and now Arcadia too? And really.. in all the years I've had my Yamato VF-0s, this was never a problem. The paint on my Shin is still solid as a rock. I really don't get it. What does it take for the designers to understand that, if you have this many moving parts with really tight tolerances, you neeeeeeed to build the paint thickness into those tolerances? I can understand a little bit of rubbing, and the 0D has a complicated paint scheme that's really not going to survive. But molding something in the wrong color and then painting over it has no excuse, especially when you're already molding parts in the color it should be. And no, being on different molds doesn't count, because that's just lack of foresight. If you're planning an entire lineup of products with varying colors and designs, you have to do that sort of planning from the start, or you wind up with things like Ozma's VF-25 renewal (painted the entire underside of the wing glove instead of molding it), or worse yet the v.1 VF-25s which weren't even designed to mount the super packs. Bleh.. sorry to rant, but it is getting beyond frustrating seeing how many times things like this pop up. I don't understand what is so hard about designing things to last, or actually designing them while taking future product requirements into account. Makes me wonder how much of that factory failure rate for these is due to people ruining the paint during assembly. If people can't even handle them casually without taking chunks out of the paint, I can't even imagine assembling one.

Just curious, is the belly molded in dark gray, and painted over in light gray like the VF-0D?

Hmm, was thinking those wing lights still looked like a separate piece, but I guess not. Think I still like the darker gray of the original better, but the light color isn't bad.

A lot of very good points in here, and while I personally think the amount of scrapped parts is ridiculous, I do have to say that the resulting quality shows in the few Arcadia valks I've purchased. I think though, while the quality of the products may be phenomenal, people might also be missing the elephant kicking back on the couch. If the quality control is truly that tight, then why are there so many problems that we see repeatedly? People like to cry "Bad QC!" when things break, or fall apart, and it's not entirely off the mark, because these issues could theoretically be caught. But things like limp noodle ankles, loose joints, paint scratches and limbs falling off? When you see them this often, there's a much harder to solve problem. I truly wonder what the root cause of the scrapped product rate is. What process is so destructive to the end product to cause that many copies to be considered failures? Are they truly unable to consistently print tampo? Then someone overdesigned the process. This might be exactly why they stopped printing so much. But what if they're simply over-designing the products to the point that the average assembly worker cannot produce a workable product? How many pieces are left on the floor broken because the parts just failed, or were assembled wrong, and couldn't be fixed? In short, how many of these issues ultimately work out to just being poorly thought out, or badly designed? The VF-19 ankles are a mess, as are the new VF-0 hip joints. What went wrong there? And how much paint scratching is really just because parts aren't toleranced correctly, or molded in a color that would simplify the painting? I don't know. I like to harp on Bandai's designs for being needlessly complex, and it feels like Arcadia is going down the exact same rabbit hole. I would absolutely love them to go back to making designs simple enough that they could sell an unassembled kit, but we're way past that now, it seems.