Chronocidal

Am I the only one a bit disturbed by the method used to hold on the chest plate?

I'm guessing you haven't extended the knee joints all the way. The VF-0 was made before they started putting the type of sliding joints in the knee that we see in the V.2 VF-1, VF-11, etc. It's actually got a double rotation joint in the knee. The regular knee joint only rotates the legs downward about 60 degrees. After that though, that grey piece will actually pull downward out of the thigh, giving you a total of about 90 degrees of knee bend forward. The pics will probably explain it better. Here's what I'm guessing the legs currently look like, which is as far as the first knee joint will bend. Here's what it looks like when you pull the extension out of the thigh. The big bonus to this extra extension is that it frees up the thigh swivel from the knee cover. Without the extra extension, you can't turn really turn the lower legs outwards because the kneecap catches on the grey piece. I'm working on taking some pictures that show the metal plate I bent to fix the nose droop, I just have to clear my desk off so I have room to take it apart again.

Perhaps. But just because Ford made the Mustang doesn't mean they also didn't make the Pinto. Designed by a masterpiece designer or not, that movie starscream just doesn't look like it was designed with the same market in mind. I mean, while the US did get simplified versions of the Japanese MP Starscream with less markings and such, you can't do that process in reverse and make Leader Starscream worth $100. It's just a completely different approach to what features are important in a figure. The older Starscream has an opening radar, a cockpit with a figure, optional missiles or guns for the wings, opening panels to see the engines, and that sort of thing. In contrast, I see a little kid getting this one and seeing how it has lights and sounds ("Look! It's laser light ups!"), firing missiles via a goofy bulky launcher ("Cool! It really shoots!"), pop out concealed weapons ("Wow, more guns!"), and a nutcracker jaw that opens and shuts when you pull a panel ("Umm... cool?"). I just can't see a figure with these types of kid-oriented gimmicks selling well with the people the Masterpiece line is targeted at. It's like Toynami adding the LED to a Valk's visor.. it'll make kids go "OOH IT LIGHTS UP! COOL!," but the people who are actually interested in a high quality figure will just scoff at how gimmicky it is.

Just a little heads up, I don't know if anyone has noticed this before, but I don't think the clear lenses for the wing lights have actually been glued down on any of my YF-21/VF-22s. I went to pick up my Max the other day, and happened to lift under one of those lights, and it just popped off. After checking those pieces on my M&Ms and YF-21, it looks like none of them have those two clear pieces glued down. I wouldn't call it a problem, since they stay on fine from friction, but they will come out of the wing with the right pressure from above or below. I'd just keep that in mind when handling them, since those pieces would probably be pretty easy to lose.

Well, actually that pic is a little deceiving. The MP Seekers are a good bit larger in fighter mode than a 1/60 VF-1. They're only so close in height here because the MP Seekers have that big sliding joint that shortens the body. Plus, the booster packs make the VF-1 look even bigger. As far as scale goes though, the MP Seekers are also supposed to be 1/60 scale, based on the size of the aircraft mode. A real F-15 is about 63 feet long, and the Seekers are about a foot long, so there you go. In contrast, a 1/60 VF-1 is a little over 9 inches long, so they'd only be about 50 feet long in real life, putting them on the smaller end of military fighters.

I have to say, I was never really interested in this movie to begin with, but after reading that review on io9, I'm tempted, just to see if the reviews hold true. That review was more entertaining than most actual movies I've watched in the past year. I don't know which is the funniest bit.. the absolute wrongness mentioned early on (think the firehose analogy mentioned by Seto, but in a hentai sense), the mentioning of how it seemed the actors had the incredible ability to make you think they were in front of a green screen even while on location, or the bit about how this movie is a reverse MST3K, in that it actually makes fun of the audience for watching it. I had to shut my door at work I was laughing so hard. Oh, and the "We have to make them believe we believe in our beliefs as much as we believe that they believe in their beliefs" bit had me picturing Kamina lecturing them all.. or maybe the version from Eva Abridged: Misato to Shinji before some battle: "You can't believe in the me who believes in you if you can't believe yourself that believes you. But I believe in you, because I believe you can believe in yourself."

If they can manage to look like an actual F-22 (one that isn't smuggling several freight containers worth of kibble under the belly) then I'm all for it. Tattoos need to die a horrible death though. What's funny.. in this case a real F-22 camo scheme would be both good looking AND canon (at least for the first movie, I haven't bothered with the second). Three things I want: - Decent landing gear (plastic circles stuck to a plate don't count) - Removeable missiles/guns like the other MP seekers - Make it look at least as much like a real F-22 as the older seekers look like real F-15s. I've never cared much for how movie Starscream's robot body looks anyway, but if they can finally pull off a decent aircraft mode, I'll get it so I can have an F-22 I can put on my desk. A big reason I want it in real life colors though, I work around a lot of aircraft/military folks, and want to be able to pass it off as an actual F-22 until, SURPRISE! it's a robot! Edit: Wait.. You mean they're reboxing one of the existing Starscreams for release in Japan? There are not enough facepalm images on the internet. Frankly though, this doesn't make any sense to me unless it's a complete resculpt. Why would they even bother?

Yep, the SV-51's stands will set up that pose nicely, but I don't think the feet are quite in the right position to do it. I think that everything besides my YF-21/VF-22s will stand on the engines though, and they're all pretty sturdy that way, even on carpet. Anything with fast packs needs a little rebalancing, but it's just a matter of finding the right angle to position the feet at.

Good point. I was mainly thinking about the rarity of the kit, but I'm also one of those who really prefers the morgan anyway. Oy, I need to get back into CG modeling. There are so many designs I've wanted to build up in the computer, just to work out the finer details.

Actually, it's not so much pushing the legs forward as it is pushing the knee joint down.. you almost need to lift the foot, to force the knee to bend. You kind of want to find a way to push the upper hip joint open one notch, which will pull the knee down, pulling the leg away from the tab. Be really careful though, if these are all as different as you're thinking, your leg holes might be aligned differently, and require a different trick. It's weird, and my 0A doesn't have this issue at all, I can just pop the legs down with a fingernail and no fancy twist. Looking into the slots those tabs go into, it almost looks like the internal parts that they latch onto might be misaligned, but I don't know of a way to get in there without destroying the leg.

I'd recommend getting a different stand entirely if you want to display it in fighter mode. They're decent enough for battroid, but that stand just has no useful support for displaying the fighter.

Darn, all these comments are making me actually consider getting one of these little suckers. Well, I might eventually anyway, just the VF-19S takes precedence, since I already have 5 other Hikaru 1Js in various scales (some in various stages of being built). I wouldn't mind having one of these to sit on my desk at work though.

Yep, considering I keep mine all in fighter mode anyway... Actually, I use the feet quite a bit more than the gear though. I tend to open the feet one notch less than full, angle them slightly down, and pose the valks standing on the engines in fighter mode. Saves a ton of shelf space that way.

Oh, trust me, you haven't seen thorough. I tend to pick things apart piece by piece, and I could here, but the main points are all covered. It comes from being a little OCD about things like mechanical details. One thing I did forget that I should note though, the left foot seems to slip around side-to-side inside the leg a little. It still snaps into the extended position (a little.. the snaps aren't very strong), but looking inside, I can see the piece that slides back and forth when you extend the foot moving out of line. It's not a problem, but again, I'd like to take the leg apart if I could, and see what causes that. Lately, the first thing I do with any new Valk is take it apart as far as I can, just to give it a once over, and loosen up any overly tight joints. The internal mechanisms in these things are just fun to fiddle with.

Well, it's a possibility anyway.. I couldn't say for sure, but it's something that happens over time, and it's more likely than the holes in the metal piece shrinking. As far as filing the tabs down goes though, I wouldn't be too worried about that. The clips already do a decent job of holding the hips in place, and you have the rear tabs helping in fighter mode, so you might only be a little floppy in gerwalk mode. Besides, if the tabs get too small, you can add a little glue to them to build them up again. I know I probably sound like a broken record sometimes touting the usefulness of superglue, but I've used it to fix so many problems I've lost count.

Just received my 0S from HLJ, and it's not without defects, but fortunately they're minor, and I think mostly able to be fixed. Overall quality is very good, a little paint overspray on the head I think, but looks very pretty. All the skulls are straight too. As for the arms (and other various joint pieces), the material used there seems a bit better. The plastic isn't free from stress marks, but there are no spiderweb crack patterns like I saw before, and the quality of the plastic seems much less... well, rough. It still has a potential to be stressed though, so I've loosened the screws in the shoulders. One thing I did notice was that I think the rubbery friction caps from the 0A have been relocated, and placed in other positions within the joint, possibly to relieve stress on the screws. With regard to the legs, I've noticed a few things. First, the tabs that hold the back of the calves in fighter mode seem to lock much more tightly. I don't know if this is due to internal component changes, but I've found I do have to rotate the toes outward a bit, and push the legs forward to release the legs without stressing the tabs. The right upper leg section tends to pop open when the hip joint is pushed all the way open, just from a lack of glue there I think. Now, one thing I did notice right away was that the nose still droops, much more so than my 0A. In fact, the slot in the side of the fuselage was actually visible almost fully below the grey extensions from the front of the intake. There's also a noticeable gap between the back top of the cockpit shield and the chestplate. While this doesn't bother me terribly, I decided to investigate it a bit. In the end I wound up performing surgery on the entire nose section, which fortunately was not glued together. The culprit in the nose droop is the big metal plate that the nose slides on. Quite simply, it's warped. The center portion on mine is bent down so that it falls between the intake plates. If it was truly straight, it would be parallel, making the nose slide alongside those plates. So, I'm going to see about bending that plate upwards a little. By the way... I got past my fear of filing/sanding/cutting/gluing my Valks a long time ago, and it's given me some opportunities to fix some big problems. It scared me at first, but I realized that even if I do sell them someday, I'd rather sell them in better condition than I bought them. Be aware this fix will require some pretty hefty disassembly of the nose, and won't work if you've stickered it up (another reason I don't ever use the stickers.. much harder to fix things if they break without destroying your markings). ------------------------------------ Okay, it's done, and it works perfectly. I just bent that plate level with the force of my fingers, and now the nose holds nice and level without even having the intakes attached, and the heatshield gap is just about non-existent. My guess is that plate has a tendency to warp during the cooling process, since it is cast metal. I think I lucked out, and they didn't glue most of my nose section together. All that was holding it was two screws (one inside the door for the hip bar, the other inside the landing gear well), and a small piece of adhesive tape under the cockpit, which was rather gooey, and pulled loose easily. So, if your VF-0 nose droops, my guess is that that is part of the problem. It's not the only cause I'm sure, because adding bulk to the intake tabs with superglue on my VF-0A had roughly the same effect, but it's intake plates were already in line with the nose, so the plate may be less bent there. Now, all that's left is to add a little glue to those tabs near the feet that go into the backpack, and she's good to go. Honestly.. I wish they hadn't become obsessed with plugging screw holes up with covers on the Mac0 releases. It makes them so hard to work on. I'd love to take apart the legs and fiddle with them too, but I can't even open them up.

Got it, and while it's not perfect, it's a huge improvement over the old releases in a few ways. I'll put the overall comparison in that other VF-0 topic that was started. There are still some problems, but after some serious surgery, I might know how to correct some of the lingering issues.

Looking at those pictures, I'd think it would really just be a waste to use a Falken kit to make a Morgan.. the only parts they really share are the wings and tails, and maybe the intakes. The rest of the Falken is much more angular and boxy than anything on the Morgan, especially in the engine area. And that's not even touching the forward fuselage (which actually looks sort of like a blending between an F-16 and MiG-29). That being said, I'd love to see a kit of this, but I'd probably have to put my own tweaks to it.. I love the creativity behind some of the Ace Combat superplanes, but some just have several features that just make no aerodynamic sense, even if they look fun or different. Personally, I always thought the fuselage surface should have extended back further between the engines to form a reverse arrowhead shape on both the Falken and Morgan.

I'm not saying it's re-released, what I'm saying is that these VF-1Ds are ones that came out of the mold later. Whether they're called a "re-release" or not, they're from later production runs. The longer you produce things out of the same mold, the more problems those molds are going to have. HLJ has run out of stock of the VF-1D several times, and has been restocked. Call it an assumption if you like, but unless Yamato is sending out restocks in an order that doesn't match the production order, the ones people bought recently came out of the molds later than the previous restocks did. That puts mold degradation high on the list of probable causes for this problem. We've already seen this happen with Yamato on other toys over time, so it's by no means a stretch to think it could happen again. I would agree with the measuring the tabs, although according to what's been said, they might be pre-damaged from the factory assembly. Someone mentioned that when they finally managed to pry their intakes loose, they noticed the tabs were misshapen, as if they had been forced into a hole that was too small. Some pictures of those tabs would be very helpful for comparison. I don't want to start a panic either, but I guess my thought is that the last time we panicked, it had a good effect, and Yamato took notice. In the end, we got a nice batch of shiny new shoulder hinges, and Yamato redoubled their efforts to make sure the shoulders were assembled with the right parts. It might not be anything they can fix this time around, but it would be nice to hear an official word from them about what causes this issue. At the very least, they might amend their instructions to change how it says to detach the intakes, or add a warning to mention how the tabs can break if handled too roughly. In the meantime, I'd say if the intakes don't disengage easily by the normal method, the best course is to lift up the chest plate, and use some tool to push the intake tabs down from above. It may take some disassembly to get at them, I haven't tried it myself. Once they're out, filing down either the tabs or the inside edges of the holes should help a lot. Also, for those afraid of filing the tabs too much and making the intakes loose, remember they're still held on by the underside clips, which should be plenty (gerwalk might be a little floppy, but fighter should hold fine from the other tabs). And if you make them too small, remember, you can always beef the tabs back up again with something like a thick superglue that you can sand to shape once it dries. It might take some trial and error, but you can make it work.

That's all well and good, but that's not my point. Just because you have not witnessed an issue personally does not mean it doesn't exist. First off, the crotch has never been a reliable indicator of release date as far as I know. I have early releases with it, and recent releases without it. The crotch fix hasn't been consistently implemented. No one is asking you to make assumptions. You've already stated that you don't have any problem with the VF-1D, and neither do I. But this does not change the fact that some people DO have problems with them, regardless of what the ultimate cause of the problem is. It could be molding problems, it could be too much paint, it could even be clumsy people on the assembly line mashing the pegs up. In any case, HLJ has been shipping replacement legs out, so it's at least fixable. I just hope we don't see any more reports like this. If it is a molding problem, that doesn't bode well for any more V.2 reissues. Now, this whole topic should probably be moved to the other discussions on this subject so we can get back to drooling over the stuff we've ordered. In my case, I'm picking up my VF-0S after work today, so I'll have a fresh report on how the new reissue stock compares to the old VF-0A.

That's kind of what I've suspected might be the problem. If the intake molds have degraded, they're going to get sloppy in areas like that tab, and the tabs are going to grow. Even if the metal plate doesn't change, those tabs are going to get bigger and bigger over time, and the tabs will always give way more than that metal plate, which is why they can still manage to mash the tabs into their slots. You had the right idea pressing the tabs down from above the intake plate, that's probably the only way to pop the legs out without snapping off the tabs. The issue is a difference in the direction of force on the tabs.. pushing the intakes upward into the plate is just direct pressure on the tab, but the method of rotating the legs inward to pop those tabs loose puts a twisting and shearing force on the tab, which is much more nasty on the plastic. The only way to ensure they don't get stressed is putting pressure on the tabs from directly above, using some kind of tool to press the pegs out directly through the metal plate.

I think you're continuing to miss the point they're making about the recent batch. Just because the ones you bought in the past don't have any issues does not mean issues will not develop in the future, and this is what they are concerned with. THE MOST RECENT RE-RELEASE VF-1D COULD BE FLAWED. Whether it's due to decaying molds, too much paint, or whatever else you can come up with, the intake tabs ARE A PROBLEM FOR MULTIPLE VF-1Ds. Angling the intake just right and filing down the tab will not help jack squat if the tab breaks on the first time you pull the leg loose, which is what has been happening. I myself noticed my intakes on my VF-1D were very tight to begin with, and it took some care to pop them loose. If the molds for the intakes have degraded, those tabs could have gotten bigger over time, which would explain this issue.

Heh, glad I got an old one then, even if the shoulders did go kablooie. Those Wolfpack markings are awesome. And yep, the molds used on the VF-0 shouldn't make that much difference. The problem was the plastic itself. It was just a bad mixture or something, and actually seemed to form fault lines within the plastic. There were clear stress marks running through it, straight out of the mold. Suppose it could have been a problem with cooling the finished pieces too.

Yeesh.. yep, those first pics are the same place my YF-19's arms failed, straight out of the box. That arm design just sucks. Judging by the texture of that plastic, it's the same explodium as the VF-0's arms, and there is just not enough structure there to hold a screw. What I wound up doing was just gluing the entire upper arm together around the screw. I sincerely hope Yamato remakes the YF-19, it just doesn't hold a candle to any of the recent stuff they have in terms of engineering.

I still don't understand why no one has the sense to package VF-1s in their smallest configuration, with the tails folded and the wings swept back. Depending on the overall design, you can sometimes get even smaller by folding up the backpack and putting the wings all the way together (this doesn't always work, since the wings sometimes hit the tops of the legs). Bandai had the right idea to start with the old chunky packaging, and did the same thing with the VF-25 packing foam, so why the sudden waste of space? Aside from the packaging though.. now that I see the fully painted version, the stripes on this one have me wondering.. what's the canon marking scheme for the chest plate? Yamato's valks always have the chest stripes painted in a double angle, but this one has the front stripe segment horizontal, like they used to be on the chunkies, JMs, and other older toys. Is there any clear reference in the animation as to which it is, or is this one of those markings that tended to morph between animation cels?