Chronocidal

Ok, I don't have time to completely take my 0S apart at the moment, but which part of the bar is mounted backwards? For it to work, both the upper bar and the hip crossbar piece should look like this. If both pieces are backwards, it might be a really simple fix. It looks like the main mount to the backplate isn't pinned the same way, and it might come out just by taking apart the wing area (3 main screws, the ones in the wings and one under the swing bar when you swing it toward the nose.. I don't think the two holding the shoulder mounts need to be removed). If the two pieces for the bar are flipped at the lower pin mount though, I think your best bet is just going to be applying VERY LIGHT direct pressure on the pin, maybe with a hammer or mallet. Fortunately, you're dealing with metal parts, so there's a little less to worry about than with plastic, but it can still break. I'd suggest something like a nail setting tool, if you have access to one. Basically, it's a rod with one fine tip and one fat one, used to gently tap nails below the surface. You'll need a REALLY fine one to do this though.. A regular nail might be better to use actually (smaller diameter than the pin) with the tip filed blunt to get solid contact with the pin. Once you've got that, it's just a matter of lining up the nail or nail setter on the pin, and gently tapping the nail until it pushes the pin out. The trick to this though.. it looks like the pin isn't knurled in the middle since it spins with the larger bar, but it might be knurled on one end, and that means you'll have to tap the non-knurled end to get it out. Your guess is as good as mine here, since I can't tell if there's any knurling at all.. but if tapping one end goes nowhere, try the other side and see if it moves. Hope that helps some, and remember be very gentle tapping with that hammer. For stuff like this I usually use a rubber mallet, just to be on the slightly safer side.

But is what's happening now, happening now?

My pair just came in the mail the other day, so I've been picking through the boxes. I'm going to build as far as I can without glue I think, just to get an idea of how much will need to actually be glued together. The paint scratching worries me some, but I think if I stick to high-vis 70's F-14 schemes, the majority of the moving parts will remain white. First things first though, I'm going to detail me some cockpits. Btw funny thing... I noticed they gave us DYRL markings for everything.. but what's with the TV pilot? Although, I suppose that's the perfect opportunity to save myself some money and make my own TV Roy.

Playing around with manual settings can be fun

I'll break this down really simply. I love the VF-25. What Bandai made is not a VF-25. Because if they had made one, I would love it. Just saying. I mean, I like it okay.. but I can say easily that it's the worst representation of any Macross aircraft I own. Honestly, no, it's not a bad toy. It's just poorly designed, not at all well thought out, badly painted, and a very half-assed representation of what it's supposed to be. If I hadn't seen the show, and didn't own the nearly perfect models (that Bandai also makes, funnily enough), I'd think they were great. What I equate it to roughly is if Hasegawa decided to release a VF-11 kit (finally)... but they decided it was too much work to make a good kit, and decided to make a scaled up version of an old badly proportioned 1/144 kit and pass it off with their other valk kits. The end result fills a need.. but is no where near the same quality as anything else in their model kit lineup. It's not terrible per-se.. the problem is that compared with any other valk produced in the past 10 years or so, it is just WAY behind the curve. The stupidest part is, Bandai can obviously do much better, since the VF-27 was such a quantum leap ahead of the VF-25. The Monster looks to be another leap beyond that. Knowing how experienced Bandai is with mecha, I get the impression that they really did just half-ass the VF-25, and figured they could get away with it. Given the difference in quality between the VF-25 and VF-27, I'd guess the design team behind the VF-25 was canned, and people who actually give a flying rat's ass replaced them. Nearly every change in the VF-27 is like Bandai saying "Yeah, we shoulda done it this way from the start..." It just reeks of the idea that Bandai didn't do a lick of research about their most direct competition (Yamato) before deciding on a final design for the VF-25. Long story short... in a world populated by Valks full of realistic detail and features, Bandai went and released something that would have been cool 10 years ago, but now just doesn't hold up. I know I'm being pretty harsh, but I'm really darn picky when it comes to engineering, and the design choices in the VF-25 make me cringe.

So a few weeks ago I was about to finally buy myself a better camera (upgrading from a 6 mp HP thing with a disgusting macro). Was planning on getting a Canon SX20IS, mainly for the all-in-one-ness of a superzoom, and with the intention of using it to learn the basics. I nearly hit the "buy" button about half a dozen times on Amazon, but I held off for.. who knows why, but it paid off, because they just came out with the SX30IS. Amazon said it wasn't released yet, so I waited... Walked into my local wallyworld sunday, and had to pull my jaw off my shoes, because they already had it. I live in the middle of nowhere practically (north of Edwards AFB about an hour), and this particular walmart seems to be getting a nice supply of camera-related goods. I got to play around with the Canon and Nikon DSLRs they had on display a bit (which was a nice intro to how they work), and finally walked out of the store with the SX30 ($430) and about $50 worth of assorted camera-related goods. Obviously this thing is no DSLR, but it's got a nice set of features that should keep my occupied learning to use them. I tried a few shots in the automatic modes, and portrait isn't bad, but I've been having fun playing with the full manual mode. The zoom on the thing is crazy (35x, sheesh), the 35mm equiv is roughly 24-840mm. I've mostly been focusing on macro shots though. Shutter speed goes between 15" and 1/3200, aperture from F2.7 to F8.0 (I think, I've been re-reading this thread all week to get a grasp on terminology). The manual focus mode is interesting, still need to get the hang of it. I may yet get a Nikon or Canon DSLR in the future, but I'd rather learn on something a little less fragile/expensive first, and not have to worry about wearing the camera out taking practice shots. For now though I have to go recharge the battery, I completely drained it fiddling around with the settings.

I'd have to agree, though I did buy my pair when they were on sale. It's one of the most problem free valks Yamato has come out with, if not the most.

It does look absolutely awesome, but I have to agree about the nose looking a bit.. weird. It's like it's too long and not drooped quite enough. Still beautiful though, and the droop might be a transformation issue. I do like the way they incorporated both the standard and EX version cockpits too, though I think the nose was reshaped more to use the bubble canopy on the EX.. that canopy looked quite a bit narrower than the standard one seen at the beginning of the series. Now they just need to make the extra weapons pack for it.

Looking good Micky, you're gonna inspire me to experiment with my own soon.. didn't realize the kits were so cheap on HLJ, so I just ordered two myself. Been meaning to grab a couple more tamiya paints too, so it was a good time to do it. So, now my v.2 VF-1 collection is up to 12... oy. I'll probably take a good long time to build them though.. probably half deciding how I want to paint them. I'll probably do one as either a pure 1970s VF-1 CAG scheme or a VF-142 one (I don't know why, but I love that paintscheme). The other I don't know about, but given my current location, I might do a modern VX-9 scheme, or possibly the old VX-4 "Vandy 1." We're talking pure US Navy markings too (no kites or SPACY) so I can sneak it in among the other real aircraft I keep on my desk. Actually, I'm still not sure.. I mean, I still have a couple 1/48 Hasegawa kits to play with, so I'll probably keep the complicated schemes there since they don't transform. Ideally, I'd like to actually make one scheme that's pure white to minimize the painting, so I might make one in the old Super Tomcat prototype scheme with the red stripes, or possibly the old F-18 prototype markings that the YF-19 supernova schemes were based on. So many possibilities.. I just wish I could get different heads with the kit, because now I've got a disproportionate number of S's for my little squadron. Oh well, they're easy enough to swap at least.

I think the collecting has subsided for a while.. it's been a few months since I got a new Valk. Totals now: 25 overall... yeesh. And I still need a decent place to display them. They're sitting all over my room. 1/48 1x VF-1J 1/60: 23 total 10x v.2 VF-1 1x YF-19 1x YF-21 1x VF-11B 1x VF-11C 2x VF-22S 2x SV-51 2x VF-0 2x VF-25 1x VF-27 1/100 Hi-Metal Fire Valk Once that 1/60 VF-19 comes out, I'm gonna be in trouble, I may buy half a dozen of those (depending on repaints)... and I might need to start thinking about getting a Bandai Monster.

Someone request some of that good old TIE Fighter happy funtime missile spam hot rod? Courtesy of the X-Wing Alliance Upgrade project:

Seconded, thirded, etc. I have two DX VF-25s, and I don't really regret getting them, but there really is no excuse for how crappy they are compared with anything else made this century. No research, lousy engineering, failtacular design choices, and paint that comes off if you breathe sideways.

I really miss the old Wing Commander games. I'm still itching to see someone attempt a complete remake of 1-3 (and possibly 4 and 5) in a new engine, using all computer cinematics (more like Mass Effect). I made a few WC ships for X-Wing Alliance back in high school, and still love those designs. Despite the obvious polygon-ality of the designs from 3, and the gaudy colors from 1-2, I always loved some of those designs (and really hated a couple others ). I love the Panther and Vampire from Prophecy too. Just for fun, here's some rendered cinematic versions that smooth out the hard polygon edges. I also always loved the Excalibur, boxy brute that it was. I've got a soft spot for a few SW designs too, mostly the X-Wing, no matter how impractical it is. To me, nothing from the prequels even comes close to approaching the designs in the original trilogy. After modding X-Wing Alliance for several years, some of my favorites are ones I wound up making up myself. I always released everything open-source, and it always cracks me up when I find one of my designs ported to another game. This one, sadly, never got made, but was designed to fit into the WC: Prophecy era. The one I had the most success with started as this: And after getting ported from X-Wing Alliance to Freelancer, ended up like this: I forget when I made it, but I'd never seen Babylon 5 at the time, and people only pointed out how much it resembles the Thunderbolt years later.

Yeah, that's that one that someone found on a random wall in a public restroom I think

The 1/60 VF-25 doesn't need any help looking ugly. But yes, I can't wait to see what happens with this design.

Lol... all this talk of the AT-AT is making me want to look for videos of little dogs and cats (better yet, puppies and kittens) attacking it out of fear. Only recent transformer I have is a MP Skywarp, and mine's been good so far, but I do tend to leave him in fighter mode most of the time. I did wind up getting 3 Bandai MF Valks (Michael, Movie Alto, and Brera), and while I wouldn't necessarily say I regret getting them (especially the VF-27, since it's pretty darn awesome), the quality of the engineering behind the VF-25 toys makes me cringe. I mean, I look at the models, and imagine what could have been, and just get sad. I was tempted to grab an armored Ozma, but after hearing the stress problems those have, I decided to just grab the model instead at some point. Anywho, back on topic somewhat... To be very fair, despite how nasty some of the flaws have been in Yamato's valks, we need to remember this wouldn't be as big an issue if we lived in Japan. Let's face it, we're out of their market area, they can't cater to our needs, and I think a large majority of us wouldn't even worry about broken parts if we could just call Yamato's hotline, and have spare parts on our doorstep within the week. As annoying as it is to have to replace broken parts, at least for me, the major hassle is in the distance/shipping/waiting, rather than the actual problems. Not to say Yamato can't improve their engineering so things don't happen as often, but if we could walk into our local store and exchange a broken valk for a new one off the shelves on the same day we bought it, I'd bet a lot of us wouldn't be nearly as concerned.

Well, if they actually do offer to replace the broken piece, take that option (duh ). It wasn't that painful to take apart. The only question is how much of the figure you might get attached to that piece. Odds are, you might get new arms and wings. You will have to reassemble the plane by reattaching the nose section, but aside from the small parts, it's not a difficult thing to do. When I took mine apart, the only hinge pins I had to fiddle with were the ones that hold the nose to the chest, and those are a free-spinning type with no friction, so don't worry about any stress from that. They just slip through big loops on the nose piece, and get sandwiched in a slot between the halves of the chest. The arms have the potential to be a little tricky, but only because the shoulder pads get in the way. If you tweak them enough, you can unscrew the arms at the shoulders without a huge amount of trouble. You just wind up having to reassemble the thing, which can be annoying because of the small parts. If you have to replace just the lower arms, things are much easier. I'll be glad to help out where I can, but I'm going on a business trip for 2 weeks to vegas, so I won't have my SV-51 with me to provide any pics of assembly or anything.

Well, on the plus side, if you do wind up getting a brand new one without having to send the broken one back, you've got a hefty stash of spare parts to use if something else breaks in the future. Actually.. does that broken one stay together in fighter at all? While I doubt that hinge would be really fixable, you could always glue the whole thing in fighter mode, and customize it at will, with no fear of scratching the paint during transformation. Sort of sad to make it fighter only, but I suppose it's better to have a nice fighter for display than a pile of spare parts.

Shoot, looks like I'll have to grab one of these at some point, it looks awesome with that mouth on it. The thing that always bugged me though about the Koenig.. why on earth does the nose have to fold for gerwalk mode? I mean, other than making it look like the original destroid? It looks goofy just hanging there like a.... nosecone. I'd probably keep it in shuttle mode, since I really do like that design, but I want to see what gerwalk mode looks like the with the nose still attached.

Frankly, considering how fragile the SV-51 looks (and actually IS), I'm kind of amazed it has such a relatively good reputation for quality (compared to things like the VF-1's shoulders). I mean, the main body is fine, but the arms, tails, and wings are all connected by such a complicated system of joints that look really prone to failure.. I'm amazed we haven't seen failures backed up in a mile high pile. Course.. on the other hand, I suppose you could attribute that partially to being an enemy valk.. I mean, if they don't sell well, no one's going to care if it breaks. The glued parts are a real issue though. I mean, I don't mind things being glued to be stronger.. but it makes repairing things yourself nearly impossible.

Ok, The good news is, you don't need an entirely new valk. But for all the parts swapping you'll need to do to replace the broken piece, you almost may as well get a new one. To start off, you need to work on this in some place you're not going to lose small pieces. I found this out the hard way.. when I got the screws out, little bits started dropping all over the place. I'd recommend a drop cloth or something. The first thing to do is pull the legs off. Well, maybe. I'm not sure you have to, but it helped me to see better what I was doing, and made the plane easier to deal with while fiddling. Second, look underneath the plate where your hinge cracked, and you should see two small screws. Take those out. You shouldn't lose any pieces here. The magic happens when you take out a third larger screw that is underneath the pink plate that supports the head. You'll probably have to partially transform the torso before you can fold the head at an angle that will let you see it. Remove that screw, and the whole thing should come apart. What happens is, this releases the upper chest plate. This plate holds down the pins that support the nose section rotation, as well as the small flaps plastic flaps on the shoulders that move around, and the silver gun barrels. When you remove the nose, you should be left with the following pieces. What you'll see is pretty much a mess. You've got the three screws, the two metal pins for the nose section, the two gun barrels, and the two plastic flaps. Now, as far as the repair is concerned, my best guess is that you need to replace... well.. everything that isn't the nose section or legs. Technically, yes, you can take apart this section further.. but all it amounts to is disconnecting the arms from the shoulders, and the wings from their hinges. For all intents and purposes, the section that holds together the wings, arms, and head is one big unit. At the bare minimum, you're going to need to replace the main plate that the head hinges are connected to, which will include the head (since it's prety much permanently attached to that plate), the shoulders (since they are attached by a press-fitted pin that you do not want to remove), and the plates with the blue lights that the wings attach to. If you know what you're doing, you might be able to transplant the arms starting at the second shoulder joint, but there's no clear division in sections until you get to the elbow, and a sinle screw that holds the lower arm to the upper shoulder (actually, the third screw up, starting at the hand). In any case, it's ugly. I get the feeling that this entire assembly might be treated as a single part in the assembly line at Yamato, similar to how ordering a new set of shoulder hinges for a VF-1 got you the full arm assembly. At the very least, you need that lower half of the chest plate, and any pieces permanently attached, which will include the upper shoulders, and anything up to the screw joint on the wing plates (the ones with blue transparent lights). I honestly don't know what Yamato would replace in this case.

Ouch.. I was hoping it was something further down the wing linkage. My CF-51 had a cracked area on the plastic piece on the other end of the metal plate, but it looks like your break happened before that metal piece. Yeah, I don't know about that one. I never took anything apart past that metal piece. I'll take a look at it later, but the big problem with fixing the SV-51 yourself is that most of it is glued together, so you can't really take it apart to replace anything that far into the structure. I'd start looking for any clear part divisions around that broken joint as a start, but that break looks serious enough that you might be better off just getting a replacement.

Any pictures available? I've taken mine apart quite a bit to tighten the wings, and it'll really depend on which hinge broke.

Nice, actual ball joints? I do wish they were a little thicker though, those don't look anything like actual exhaust ducts. Hope they're metal too, I'd really love to be able to twist the feet all over the place. I'm liking the head mechanism too, looks like the panels to the sides of the head fold up to let it pass without removing any of the head pieces.

Ok, apologies beforehand, because I'm not sure if this counts as "appreciation"... but I saw this episode recently, and could not stop this from popping into my head.