mickyg

That shipping price is a monumentally better alternative! Thanks a million!

Man that Bandai adapter is an eyesore! Yeti, I haven't gone through the cart process yet but what's the shipping rate like to overseas customers for the new adapter setup you've just posted? The "use your own Bandai base" one?

Finally sold enough on eBay to pay for my HLJ private warehouse shipping fee. What a terrible spot to be stuck in! Thanks for all the pics to tide me over until it arrives!

Seconded! Buried threads are aplenty here. Which is of course, a compliment to how active this place is.

Love those swoosh! I think it looks like a half gerwalk, half battroid. A battroid with wings. A gertroid! I'm gonna go with that.

Awesome. Can't wait for next chapter!

A sticky would do it. Very good idea, since most toys seem to have some issue that an enterprising individual has figured a way to remedy.

Those are very nice! While I liked the reflection your pics have always had, the shadow is very nice too. Looks classy.

Very, very nice. The weathering looks great at this stage!

Yeah it is! We rarely see temps that warm in the summer but when we do, we generally get a cooler night for some reprieve from the heat. Nothing above 16 (Celsius/60F) for the rest of the week here in cloudy Melbourne. Still love seeing the VF-0D pics guys. I doubt I'll ever own one so it's nice to live vicariously through all the pics.

No retractable wing gimmick on the Yamato (or Arcadia) offerings. I like the way it looks and it's the first thing that jumped out on me on these new images.

That's great news, Valhary! Good look with the recovery effort.

All added to shipment from private warehouse at hlj, and of course, I'm short a few dollars to ship it... Ah the joys of having a dedicated hobby account that relies solely on PayPal funds. More eBay sales to top up PayPal!

All paid here too! HLJ came through this time.

C-5. What the?

I'm not seeing the paint chipping. If you're talking about the three little white marks, those are position indicators for the canards. Here's a shot of something similar from a real life example (though this one is red and there are more of them):

Very nice saburo! First full frame for you?

That review was great and really gets my excitement levels up! I am a very late convert to the YF/VF-19 but I can see this becoming my favourite.

Thanks wmkjr - I had completely forgotten about that topic (even though I posted in it multiple times!).

I've provided a bit of a review HERE for these parts. Really nice parts that will address this toy's most glaring issue.

I've looked at his photos and I'm confused - are you sure that's the Bandai version he's comparing? Look at the fighter mode pics. White landing gear on both "YF" versions, very little tampo. This looks more like a comparison between the Yamato and Arcadia versions and not a Bandai to Arcadia comparison. EDIT: Wait... First image is not from the same series as the second. And the Battroid on the left in both images is not the same. Gotcha.

OOOOOOooooh!!! What'd you get, what'd you get, what'd you get?

As mentioned previously, I did have some pics of the steps required to install the replacement parts, as well as some comparison pics between the original and the replacement triangles. The first step is to remove the shoulder covers. These are held in place via a ball joint, with the ball being part of the die-cast shoulder assembly, which is part of the arm, and the socket, which is integral to the explodium triangle (and given its constant state of pressure, it's surprising that it seems to hold up just fine, while the rest of the part crumbles). Pulling the cover off should be as simple as applying the right amount of force away from the ball joint. Be careful if your triangle parts are not broken, as this may cause more damage than it's worth. Here's both removed, with the left (lower) one my repair and the right (upper) one the part that's still intact. If you can get the screw cover off, it helps disassemble the covers. If you can't, the triangle can be extracted by prying open the cover around where the triangle pegs in. Here's a look at the part disassembled. This is a good one. You can see there's a lot of structural supports built in. Any place there's a change in thickness, there's always a chance for material stress to happen on that "joint" and as you can see, there's a lot there. No idea why I didn't turn the top part over, so you could see the inside of it, like the rest. Here's a comparison between the original and replacement. There are minor differences in dimensions, but the only thing that's really noticeable is the angle at the back of the part. The original is steeper, while the replacement has a shallower transition. With the part fitted, here's a comparison between the two. The gap is because the post hasn't been trimmed and it's likely bottoming out in the hole. Trimming a few mm off the post that holds it all together, will sort out the gap without any issues. The only real criticism I have is apparent if you look at the left side. That shallow angle I mentioned before, it's now a bit more obvious that there's a slight gap when viewed at this angle. It's much more obvious with the white part. When painted black, I doubt it'd be anywhere near as visible. I hope that fills in some blanks and makes it a bit more obvious how these fit and how they look. I still think these are fantastic value for fixing up a really amazing toy!

Yeah, for some reason, the EX has had much, much better reliability than the cannon fodder variant. I'd love to know how that ended up being the case, given the EX was released first.

I jumped today when I got a payment processed from them via billing agreement with PayPal. Unfortunately, it was just a VF-11B and YF-19 hasegawa model kit that has come back into stock.