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Bandai VF-31AX Kairos Plus - Hayate Type


jvmacross

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On 6/24/2023 at 11:57 AM, treatment said:

I don't have a 31AX and not planning on getting one, either, but here's the latest tweet about the re-issue being "properly renovated" than the first edition's ...

(couple of additional pics in the author's tweet-page):

https://twitter.com/muko037/status/1672520077365886976?cxt=HHwWgIDSscSJ_rUuAAAA

FzX8JQbaYAAzHlm.jpeg.f7ced5ccd0b76fd35455e5b606e3634c.jpeg

 

add/edit:

additional tweets and pic from simsim5479:

https://twitter.com/simsim5479/status/1672420882332131332

image.png.8f34082fe0a6295ad82b2a440e416ad8.png

 

https://twitter.com/simsim5479/status/1672529485911171078

 

FzYEsvnaYAAsJ5F.jpeg.3ac996b6630f1c7bbd44d8914a556dfe.jpeg

 

 

This is the only post about the reissue I've seen. It offers only limited hope.

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I'd be curious to see if bent head lasers is a thing now... I suspect the user or the person at the factory who threw it in the tray just had it snag on a hand at some point since, as others have pointed out, not a lot of good places to handle this thing. If we see a rash of them though, we'll know it's manufacturing related. 

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I'm pretty sure the issue MANY people are having is related to the borked up elbow/wrist slide extension.  Finding a place to actually apply pressure to make the arm slide into the proper orientation for fighter mode is not trivial to begin with, and they seem to have slopped glue throughout the mechanism.

Edited by Chronocidal
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On 6/27/2023 at 8:41 PM, Bolt said:

I'm actually curious to know just how bad is the AX run(s). Are we talking 1% or less, coming out so bad or having qc issues? I imagine Bandai doesn't care, if so..

It has to be much larger than that.  The odds of so many of us being part of that 1% is basically impossible.

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It's semantics but I don't think "QC issues" is the right term. QC issues make me think of things being broken or faulty and that's your usually 3-5% of anything manufactured. I think 100% of the AX toys (up until the reissue, the jury is still out there) had bad tolerances that are exascerbated by build quality issues, so some are worse, but even the best one is 'off' because Bandai didn't have the pegs and slots in the perfect locations. 

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I could see how a lot of these issues could get thrown in the QC category from being sub-par parts that got pushed through, but the overwhelming amount of flaws makes me think the majority of the production run was below spec, and they decided to shove through anything that was minimally viable.

Some of the stuff I've seen makes me think the manufacturing of the parts themselves has got some nasty slop in it.  I don't know how the whole assembly and molding process works, but how on earth do you get parts with cockeyed pinholes drilled into them?  I can't imagine that kind of thing is done by hand, and if it's automated, the tooling to drill the hole must have gotten sloppy somehow.

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4 hours ago, jenius said:

It's semantics but I don't think "QC issues" is the right term. QC issues make me think of things being broken or faulty and that's your usually 3-5% of anything manufactured.

What's the proper term? Faulty tooling? Low grade outsourcing? Mold fatigue? I would think that such things would've been noticed along the way. Another question, in comparison to other DX's, how bad is this one?

AND.. has Bandai even addressed or made a peep concerning these Issues.?

Edited by Bolt
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Whatever the cause, these figures cost well over $200 MSRP. It really is incredibly shitty and kind of unconscionable that Bandai see it fit to sell (and knowingly re-release!) an expensive premium product that they’re fully aware is defective, like they just expect collectors to fork over the cash regardless. Really makes me question them as a business tbh.

Edited by autoNamed
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3 hours ago, Bolt said:

What's the proper term? Faulty tooling? Low grade outsourcing? Mold fatigue? I would think that such things would've been noticed along the way. Another question, in comparison to other DX's, how bad is this one?

AND.. has Bandai even addressed or made a peep concerning these Issues.?

The proper term, speaking as a mechanical engineer, is Bad Tolerancing.

With injection molded parts, the variance is low; so the driving factors are the tolerances of the molds themselves, and the shrinkage of the material.

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3 hours ago, autoNamed said:

Whatever the cause, these figures cost well over $200 MSRP. It really is incredibly shitty and kind of unconscionable that Bandai see it fit to sell (and knowingly re-release!) an expensive premium product that they’re fully aware is defective, like they just expect collectors to fork over the cash regardless. Really makes me question them as a business tbh.

^ This. Regardless of the reasons behind it, Bandai is currently crapping out inferior quality products at a higher price than they were just a couple of years ago. Even long-proven toys from way before the pandemic have taken a step down in quality. Sure, the Revival 25 has that nice matte finish now, but it still has the same problems as before (the "improved" joints are a joke) and introduces a few new problems, like the incorrectly painted stripes. Good thing it comes with super parts to cover that up with. :p

I mentioned I wasn't a huge fan of the HMR VF-0S in another thread. Aside from being overpriced for what Bandai is giving you, another major reason is, well, I'll let Rocket handle it:

rocketmeltedicecream.gif.78a1005b93ef119ea2b7784669098052.gif

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After 6 years away from Macross (for various reasons), I'm just stating to get back in and collect some of the toys I missed during my hiatus.

I picked up the VF-31AX Kairos Plus last week and I have to say I'm pretty happy with it.

I haven't transformed it yet, it's staying in Fighter mode so far, but looks great in my opinion. My only complaint so far is the gap behind the cockpit, which can be massaged away to a certain extent, but tends to open up again once you actually pick up and handle the toy.

I love that it is a more heavily armed, combat-oriented version of the VF-31 with micro-missiles instead of drones in the leg bays and larger arm-mounted rail guns and a beam gun mission pack instead of the drone charger.

 

 

Edited by Graham-Is-Back
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9 hours ago, jenius said:

The 0S looks like melted ice cream?

@Lolicon I believe is referring to the lack of details that could've been tastefully added, blunt panel lines that do not convey scale, and the color of the pale plastic used for the entire figure...melted vanilla anyone?:crazy: 

Having said that, I do wish that the upcoming 0D is a better ice cream.

Edited by Angesdad
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I said I wasn't planning on getting this 31AX, but with the favorable exchange-rate and relative cheaper shipping from amz-jp, why not?

So I did.

As such, compared to all various pics of the first-edition I've seen and watched, Bandai seemed to have fixed the side-guns issue:

indeed, the side-guns on my copy of this re-issue are not pointing downwards anymore:
 

dx-vf-31ax-reissue-side-1.jpg.d47e0a6a6e73cdb26d8e750946ffc6b0.jpg

dx-vf-31ax-reissue-side-2.jpg.eae4f1c799ebdc435a4ac36160431ae0.jpg

Unfortunately, the sides and the underside are still quite gappy and non-flushed in places.

Here's a pic of the underside of my copy. Looks like regular panel-lines, but they aren't:
 

dx-vf-31ax-reissue-underside.jpg.7f93666255c8be83cce40cf06ba753c0.jpg

 

add/edit:

 

btw, not sure if anybody mentioned or knew about it already, but the reissue comes in blister instead of the first-ed's styrofoam:

dx-31ax-reissue-plastic-pkg.jpg.86fe0debece5d270c54e365cbd102d13.jpg

 

Edited by treatment
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