AcroRay

I noticed my reissue Super 1S seems to have shifted a little toward the yellow. It had been on display where there was occasional ambient sunlight. Now its in my living room in similar conditions. Not enough to say its actually yellowing, but you do notice it doesn't look absolutely 'new'.

If you need someone to clean-up & straighten raw scans, I'll volunteer.

Really - this is educational AND inspiring. (A serious build, with kids around!) Thanks for sharing!

Sound like a nice fandom artifact! If you can get it apart & scan it, please try to share the files via Rapidshare, or with the help of one of the Macrossworld servers.

I think I might like to pick up a CM or MH Ride Armor - if I can find one cheap or pre-owned. It'll go nicely with my Matchbox Invid toys, and sort of crossover into my Microman/Micronauts collection. Maybe when people start shedding them in disappointment after the Beagle/Toynami is released...

I really enjoyed the podcast, guys! My wife got me an Ipod Nano G3 - my first ever ipod - and this was my first real travelling podcast listen with my virgin hardware. Perfect length for my commute home, and sounded quite nice over my car's speakers. I've only seen part 1 of Dynamite. I enjoyed it - in so far as it gave a good look at another part of the Macross universe. Basara was the least-appealing part of the episode... Like taking a trip someplace really cool with someone you don't really care to carpool with. (Which is how I feel about most of Mac7.) But - Good work, guys. You've motivated me to get the rest of it and make myself a nice little DVD to watch with my kids.

Wow - that does sound very interesting. Thanks for posting that, Rog.

Idea: What kind of metal is it? Would it respond to a couple of Rare Earth magnets mod'ed into the mechs? That would sure keep everything attached pretty solidly. (Apologies if this has already been suggested.)

Yeperoonie....

I find that really good to know - and thanks for noting it. I was very disappointed in the milky film the previous versions were printed on, which I think really detracted from the Alpha's look.

I doubt within this decade, unless Studio HalfEye wants to make a Legioss/Tlead kit. I wouldn't overestimate the current popularity of Mospeada. I think its just part of a current trend toward nostalgia for the 'formative' decade of a number of toy/licensed-product industry professionals in power right now. The same thing happened here in the US a few years ago, resulting in a huge swell of product from all sorts of toy & licensed product stuff from Tron to H.R. Puffnstuff, to Thundercats to SCTV. Much of it died away within a year or so. I don't want to compare Mospeada to much of that sort of stuff, but I think Mospeada in Japan has benefited from much the same sort of tide. Once those waters recede within the next 12 months, I don't think we'll see much if any new Mospeada product... or Dorvack, Orguss & numerous other series that have suddenly started receiving new licensed product development 20+ years after they originally aired.

Not at all. But I actually think Toynami's Legioss/Alpha is a wonderful design for the scale. I just believe that it would benefit from slower production time - allowing workers to spend more time on each unit, assembling more carefully and allowing paints and glues to cure more properly between successive assembly stages - and possibly a couple of small materials changes. To do that - eliminating the 'fast' choice - Toynami would probably have to lower production quantities or push back the release date. Of course, all of this is dependent upon a manufacturing contractor who is trustworthy and can be relied upon to adhere to agreed-upon quality control assurances and hasn't deliberately taken on the job without being able to successfully accomplish that. I worked on a line of very complicated diecast & plastic SF toys that were handled by a manufacturing facility that normally did wonderful work - particularly as evidenced in early test shots and their final Quality Assurance samples. But they had undertaken a job we later realized was beyond their capability and fell far, far behind schedule and subsequently ignored QC assurance agreements and clandestinely farmed out much of the actual manufacturing to a subcontractor who completely botched the job. The results were cases of toys with any combination of malformed parts, that were broken in their packaging, had paint flaking off of them, were packed upside-down, assembled with odd wrong-colored parts, etc, etc. The QC failure rate was as high as 45% in some estimates. Really, some of the stuff looked like it had been purchased from a yard sale's well-worn 25-cent box and repackaged for sale. But I digress...

You're welcome. I think all of the Alpha's various problems boil down to QC issues (apart from a couple of materials choices or painting-vs-cast-in-color choices). Its virtually impossible for them to keep up the quality control needed to reliably produce such a complex product in whatever budget, facility or timetable they've been working in. You know the rules... Pick only 2: 1. Fast 2. Cheap 3. Good

Ah. I guess then its the sort of thing where sunlight could feature the same warning as well....

That's REALLY disturbing. I'd wanted a set of those mugs to actually drink out of. Now I absolutely think I'll pass...

The problem is probably that the inner torso isn't collapsing together enough (which causes the 'banana' shape problem, I believe), or that the upper and lower legs aren't collapsing together enough, and are jamming up when they slide together. To secure the fighter form, you have to get the tabs on the thing's "groin" to lock into the slots behind the collapsed knees, and for the arms to lock into the little sockets on the leg surfaces. My Rook Alpha had the same issue with the left-side leg & shoulder jamming up, so I took the Rook's left leg apart to find out what the deal was: On the interior surface of the halves of the lower left leg (and presumably the shoulder), I found a channel where the upper leg travels, sliding with a poly-cap. One of the halves' poly cap and channel was gummed up with some stray paint or some glue (I forget which), so I had to clean it up carefully a bit with a hobby knife. To get the leg apart you have to leaver out a couple of plugs which hide the screws. It wasn't a problem on mine to do it with a fresh, sharp hobby knife blade but it did leave a tiny bit of a blemish on one. Your mileage may vary depending on how well your's is assembled. (When you put them back in, be careful with the one on the lower most area of the leg. I think its angled to fit in flush a certain way, iirc.) Its a little tricky, so be careful keeping all of your dis-assembled parts straight. I've done this sort of thing to tweak a lot of transforming toys over the year, from TF's to Yamato Valks. I found a similar issue seems to occur with the way the bicep telescopes out of the Alpha's shoulder. But in that case I think its just that the tolerances on the joint is just universally tight in the toy's design. The shoulder is glued together, if I recall. (I'm at work now, so no handy reference). My advice is to just firmly grasp the shoulder with one hand and the uppermost portion of the bicep with the other hand, and carefully extend it as far as it will go (us a picture on-line, or compare to the other shoulder's extension), and maybe do it a couple of times to wear some play into the slider. Your concerns there are to not inadvertently damage the swing-bar and hinge that connects the arm assembly to the torso/fuselage, and to not strain or break the mid-bicep swivel joint. Another issue you might want to be careful with is the hatches on the leg missile bays. Their joints tend to get painted closed, and can break easily (well, I had one that did) because they're a tiny snap-together part, and both the door and hinge are molded in transparent plastic and painted (probably the same tooling set as the canopy parts). Why? The transparent plastic tends to be very rigid and holds the very fine tolerances for the part through demolding rather well, but the transparent plastic also tends to be brittle and will snap easily. So many teenie parts make up this thing! I'd venture to say that the telescoping limb elements and center torso block are the most likely source of challenges with the Legioss design. If any single one doesn't work, the whole thing is affected. That's the big difference between the Legioss and the typical Valkyrie, I think. The Valkyrie is made up of folds and hinges - rather like a piece of origami. The Legioss is made from telescoping parts and hinges - more like a photography tripod. If you've ever wrestled with a complex tripod (like a heavier Vinten or Sachler cinematography tripod and head) that's jamming up or failing to lock anywhere in its structure, you know what a huge pain-in-the-a55 it can be to set up or stow away. You can say "Oh, these sticks are crap." but you still have to get them to do their job. Sounds like your Sterling Alpha is buggy typical of an Alpha MPC. I've had that landing gear issue on a wheel or two on my Alphas (and on a Yamato Valk or two.) Mine are usually in Soldier, Diver or 'Stalking Fighter' mode, so I haven't had the motivation to debug them of it. My suspicion is that its a poly-cap issue again. That maybe the axle pin in the strut is glued into the poly cap in a closed position, so the cap's natural elasticity wants to pull the axle and strut back to a closed position. Or alternately that the poly cap isn't giving enough resistance to keep it from folding in on itself under the weight of the jet. I'd say just buy a Flexi-Display stand for it. They take up a lot of shelf-space in jet mode. If its in the air, you can display more stuff around it!

You've got a couple of those Robotech Pepsi glasses from Argentina, don't you? Now those are awful-looking, but cool.

Looks like the neck is 2 parts - right & left - so the screw would need to be on the side. A simple plug would have solved the cosmetic problem, though. Perhaps one will come with the final version? Or a sticker to cover it? (As is done in some of Bandai's SOCs.)

Both aren't as spot-on as I'd like. But I like the Toynami version head sculpt. A little more colorful. In either case, at least you know who it is! You gotta wonder who's inside the old Gakken one...

Too true! Lots of nice art you can't find anywhere else, or in such large formats. Question: Which Mac7 album has the song Millia sang in "Encore: Who Do You Love?"

I only have one LP - TV BGM vol 1, which I got from Books Nippan way back in about '86. Best thing about it is Mari autographed it for me! Back then - and even now - I'd never have believed I would ever get to meet her, let alone have her show up in Pittsburgh PA... which she did at Tekkoshocon a couple of years ago. I missed her solo concert at the convention (I had a live event to produce elsewhere), but managed to make it for her Sunday panel and autograph session. This old bit of vinyl will always be an extra special part of my collection.

Nice stuff! I think these days art books for anime shows are extremely lacking. :-(

Nope - Its an scale-up of the Takatoku 1/100 VF-1S. Actually the quality isn't too shabby, and it goes pretty nicely with the Matchbox original Destroid toys in both scale and materials quality. I got a couple about 3 years ago. Haven't seen them since. I recall seeing maybe one image of the LED bootleg, and I don't recall the scale or which Valk toy it was based off of, unfortunately. I think we should do a breakout thread on Valk bootlegs. I've got a number of them in several scales. They're a sub-interest in my collection. (When I can get them cheap.)

Me too! I loved that dub! (Wish I could find a better copy than my 3rd generation, SLP mode VHS one from '87.) "Johnny.... WINTERS, you say? Nooooo.... I don't think I've seen him!" Good LA talent in that one. I heard that Carl Macek was involved in that one.

Nostalgia... That's what a lot of my Macross collection is about. I like surfing YahooJP for things that I couldn't get back in the 80s - like candy toys, the vinyl toys, Ohsato's fun stuff like menko cards & whatnot. I'm also lucky enough to still have things that survived from the 80s, in spite of moves, sales and purges. Here's a couple I added to Flickr last week: My Zentraedi ships, purchased from Galactic Trade Commission and built back about 1985: ...Some MOC Convertors edition Paro Valkyries in the background. While I had a couple back in 'the day', these are relatively recent re-acquisitions. My still-surviving first Destroid Tomahawk, built long before I bothered with seam filling: ...There's an original first-run DYRL theater ticket there behind it. No, I didn't get to attend. Just picked up the ticket on eBay a couple years back for like $5. My anime book collection circa 1986 or so (only a couple of models & toys are pictured here): ...That's a lot of hard-won stuff there for a kid in a little rural town, thanks primarily to mail order from Books Nippan, Bud Plant, and a very rare visit or two to Eides Entertainment in Pittsburgh, PA during a school field trip.