Chronocidal
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Everything posted by Chronocidal
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I know some people like the BoP and Doublenuts.. but I wish they would have just taken 10 minutes to come up with something that wasn't just sticking different colors of paint in the machine. What it wound up making was neon orange anti-glare panels and thruster vents. I'm holding off buying anything YF-19 related until they make something that can sit next to one of the VF-19s and not look 3 generations behind. But yeah.. I just bought a second Fire Valk with the sound booster, so I guess that means I'm in for two of each of the rest of Sound Force. Bonus points if we get a white/orange trainer schemed VF-17T, because I wil buy that.
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Yeah, it's no surprise the bandai missiles fit on a yamato valk. The problem is that Bandai uses a smaller center pin, and they submerge the hardpoints further, pushing the pylons up into the wing. Unless you make a custom mod of the pylons, they won't be able to attach on the bandai wings.
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They asked for the same thing when I asked if I could get a replacement crotch plate for my VF-25G, so I circled the part in one of the product images from their site, and quoted the name from the instruction manual.
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It's nothing really hard, I just used a small one of those snap-off box-cutter types, and used a traditional "thumb push" method, planting my thumb behind the tab, and shaving a little off the hook to round it off. Basically, I did this: I just rounded off the hook end of the tabs, so there's a slope in both directions. Well, at least that's what I tried to do, but the tabs are too small to get really picky. I just shaved down the sharp edge that way until the shoulders would snap up and down with just my fingers.
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I'll keep ordering Yamatos from HLJ, because those are never a problem there, and seem to go on sale every other month. It's just not worth getting anything made by Bandai there.
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Can take a couple quick shots, but it might not be easy to see exactly what's loose. Best option is to probably put these in a slideshow and watch them back and forth to see the way the pack shifts when I stop holding it in place. These last two show how I kind of fixed the problem.. since the right pack is loose, I can actually push it forward some, which tightens up the mount in its sliding track. If it was tight, there wouldn't be room to push it forward, but it keeps the pack from sagging. All in all, not a huge problem, but annoying that the pack isn't lined up quite right. If you can manage to pry the pack apart without destroying it, it'd probably be easy to fix, but mine has far too much glue used on it to get the halves to separate.
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Well, not a problem anymore, I went and shaved down the tabs on the legs of all my VF-19s that were tough to lift. Fortunately it's an easy mod, invisible (unless you're clumsy with the blade and gouge the legs), and works like a charm. Unfortunately, out of the three new 19s I picked up this month, each of them have at least one ankle joint with the staying power of jello. They're so loose I can spin the feet like a propeller. Good thing I got them for fighter mode anyway.
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You know. The thing I will always appreciate about the VF-4.. it pretty much looks nothing like it should transform. The fighter is so clean, there is absolutely no sign of any kind of robot anywhere. Eat your heart out, Takara. This thing is just freaking beautiful, I don't know if I have the heart to transform it at all.
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Finally got my final package, so everything I ordered in December is here at last. Really glad I didn't add anything else to that HLJ box, because that's about the tightest packed shipment I've ever gotten from them.
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Those old AMT kits definitely weren't the best, but man they can look beautiful with the right amount of love. I've got a huge pile of old Trek kits that I haven't built, because I keep entertaining the idea that I'll make the effort to light them up someday.
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Actually, I expect that the reason NY is able to offer pre-orders for longer is specifically because they keep their prices slightly higher. It keeps the scalpers from targeting them as a source, because it eats into the potential profit.
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I might be slightly exaggerating, but that seems akin to asking someone to build you a body kit to upgrade a 1960 Volkswagen Beetle into a 2012 Laborghini. Shapeways isn't cheap, and ordering the number of parts required for that would be more expensive than shelling out to an ebay scalper to get a real one.
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I think the only thing different about them is the size of the center pin. Bandai actually embedded their hardpoints on the 171 further into the wings than Yamato does, having the forward and rear clips tab directly into the wing, but if you lay them side by side, the only apparent difference is that Bandai uses a much smaller center pin. I would bet that Bandai's stuff would clip to Yamato's hardpoints without much trouble, but putting Yamato stuff on a 171 would be tricky, because besides the center post being too big, the shape of the pylons might not fit into the recesses in the wing, and the clips won't be able to engage.
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I had thought Hasegawa released their 1/72 kits of those first, but I could be wrong.
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That's pretty much why I've given up hunting down anything of Bandai's for pre-orer. I only camped the YF-29 re-release because it happened to go up at a reasonably acessible time (11 pm). NY may mark things up slightly, but I think if you can get things at maybe $20-$30 over retail, it's worth the peace of mind not having to deal with this stupid bandai preorder circus.
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Well, assuming by "proper FB2012" you mean overall white, I don't think many people will go to those lengths, unless they never intend to transform it again. On the other hand, I just did a quick photo tweak to Kurisama's fighter mode pic above to turn the control surfaces white, and the nose tan, and it looks plenty awesome that way. You know what occurred to me though? I think this is the first time in history that Yamato has been the first to offer a mass produced version of any Macross fighter. All the other stuff they've made has been produced as at least a non-transforming kit in 1/72 or 1/100. I mean.. has there ever been a VF-4 produced that wasn't some limited production garage kit?
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Yeah, I tried that. Wasn't enough leverage to get the tabs to disengage, at least not before I decided that that much creaking sound couldn't be good for the shoulders. I mean, I guess it's really no reason to freak out, since once they're up, it's pretty simple to fix. Its just that you might find yourself having to chase down the shoulder covers if they fly off, and glue them back down. What concerns me is that this sort of thing just indicates that the molds are deteriorating. The shoulders have gotten harder to pop up on every new release, and when I finally did get mine to lift, the tabs had flash all over them.
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The only other possible way I could find to pry the shoulders up was by taking a screwdriver, and inserting it in the gap that shows above the arms when you remove the shield. You just have to accept that you're going to be damaging the arms while doing it. If you do that first though, you can shave down the tabs to let them release easier.
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Be really careful with the 19P's shoulders.. they can be a problem to unlock from the legs. Also, a bit jealous.. I got to the FedEx office literally 2 minutes after they closed, and couldn't pick up my HLJ shipment. So, my VF-4s will have to wait another day.
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That's just the thing though.. The shoulders would not lift. With my 19S, I was able to pop the shoulders up from the legs with a plastic spoon (didn't want to rip fingernails off trying it that way). When I tried that on the P, the spoon snapped in half, and all it did was break loose the right shoulder cover. It shouldn't do it anymore because I hacked off a portion of the clips with a razor blade, but those clips on the legs were holding WAY too tightly to the shoulders.
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Had the same thing happen with AmiAmi, and finally got my shipment from them yesterday, but I'm getting to where I just shell out for FedEx when I can, since HLJ offers that. The route from Japan to SoCal generally goes from Narita to Anchorage, then to Oakland, and finishes in Ontario CA, so you can bypass the mess of shipments going through L.A.
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Well there's two ways to look at this... On the one hand, yes, they're hiking the prices up according to demand. On the other, they still have them in stock, because people aren't so quick to grab them up at those prices. As long as they're better than ebay, I'll keep going there. The situation does make the entire "demand" thing seem a bit false though. I don't think the actual demand is anywhere near what it looks like from the pre-order sellout. It's just an illusion perpetrated by the scalpers who buy up the cheap ones quickly, hoping to resell them for a profit. They're not interested in owning the product at all, or there wouldn't be any left anywhere. Once the price hits a certain point, and their profit margin drops, they don't bother snapping them up, which leaves the people who actually want the items to pick up the crumbs. It's turning into a really weird study of economics and human greed. People are playing the collectors market like they do with stocks, hoping to buy low and sell high, and creating a false sense of scarcity, while Bandai sits up in it's fancy headquarters watching the markets scramble and fight over whatever number of products they decided to produce (reminds me of John Cleese's part in that movie Rat Race ). Unfortunately, we just happen to be the end users of an item that seems incredibly rare, but probably isn't, while scalpers attempt to profit off of the false sense of demand they've created. And sadly, it's probably working wonderfully.
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Sure, I can glue the shoulder back down again, but there's nothing to stop the glue from breaking loose again. It doesn't want to actually fit now, and has a tendency to pop up on its own. Problem is, there's nothing holding it down to the internal part of the shoulder, and the only surface available to lift the shoulder with is that upper piece. It needs that hinge pin in the tip so there's something solid actually keeping those pieces together.
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Well... speaking of design flaws.. I may drill out the shoulder pivots on my 19P so I can pin them like the fire valk... not so they open.. but so I don't send the freaking shoulders flying across the room trying to pull them up. <.< Yeah, I had to do some minor surgery on my 19P out of the box. The shoulders would NOT open. I know I recommended using a plastic spoon before.. yeah, that spoon snapped trying to pry up the shoulders on this one. I also am pissed that they cut corners and removed the actual hinge from the shoulder, because that metal pin would have done a great deal to keep the upper halves of the shoulders attached when I was trying to pry up the shoulders by them. My right shoulder top is now completely loose, because I popped the glue. I finally got them open by prying with a screwdriver on the back inside of the shoulders, pressing against the upper arms, which now have a big gouge where the tip pressed. I promptly shaved off most of those stupid tabs on the legs, which seem to have gotten bigger with each successive release. Now the shoulders actually open without tools.
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Well, I gouged the heck out of the underside of the right pack trying to pry it apart, but no sucess. Those suckers are glued shut like crazy at the rear. You can tighten it up a little by sliding the pack forward some, but it shouldn't be able to do that. It only works because that sliding plate is loose. Also noticed while pulling the thing apart though... the "screw" holding the plate into its track isn't a screw... it's like a flat headed metal pin. So, I don't know if there's any way to tighten it anyway. It looks threaded into the plate, but there's no way to turn it.
