David Hingtgen

Summary of a thread I'm reading on another forum: The key to China is the ocean. The Himalayas both protect them from attack, and make it hard for them to attack anyone else on land. And there's little point/interest in going after Russia anyways. (that'd just help the US's position) China imports so much oil, and we buy so much stuff from them---their entire economy and life-line is the sea, and frankly the US controls those sea lanes. They couldn't even invade Taiwan without control of the Strait, and the US could fairly easily deny that. US subs are basically the great equalizer here. They don't rely on satellite communication, navigation, or anything. They are quite independent, since they were designed to operate cut-off from the rest of the world. And they could easily sink every ship heading to or from China if needed. China couldn't do much against a dedicated embargo etc enforced by US subs. Even our boomers could be sent to hunt tankers or even warships if needed. And there's plenty of "all-purpose" cruise missiles on the attack subs. And mines. And, there's plenty of choke-points etc where US ships could be stationed to enforce an embargo hundreds, if not thousands of miles from China, where they have little to no capability to strike back. In other words--the US Navy could pretty easily deal severe blows, even if it's only economic, without taking a scratch. All the money and building in the world won't allow you to just leap-frog past a few decades of naval development, and get the training and experience necessary to come even close to any large, modern navy.

Or how about just using more locks to keep things together, instead of one or two mega-tight locks? I mean, even with half the parts removed, and the other half sanded down to less than one-half size, the forward fuselage still stays locked together tighter than a 1/48. And yet, the upper half is a floppy mess in battroid mode. I think Yamato mis-interpreted our requests for "tighter fighter modes" by making the few locks there super-tight, instead of adding more locks.

I saw it, and was waiting for someone to comment! Best scene: "Flying man, WHOOOOOSH!" "Could you keep it down?" "wooooosh"

I just had my -19 apart doing the main gear mod (annoyingly, Yamato has the wheel offset from the strut so far, that when you angle the gear out correctly the wheel touches the gear door). The wheel can be removed from the axle, but even if you sanded down the metal strut itself, I don't know how you could stop the wheel from still going to the end of the axle. Maybe ultra-micro washers, but even my coupler height washers for model trains are too big. Anyways, I also thought the "insides of the calves" may be the problem, and was thinking about thinning them. Also, the shoulder seems almost impossible to get apart, and the risk of breaking it is high, so I was looking for an alternate mod to lower the shoulders. When I first got it I thought the calves were the problem, so now I plan to go back to them. I'm saving the gunpod for last I think, seems to be the most complex/3D problem, with probably a combination of issues causing the problem. Question to everyone: anyone found a fix for the rear tab on the right wing constantly popping out of the leg in fighter mode? I currently think it's actually caused by the wing's forward tab being under stress, so I'm gradually sanding it down, but I'm having trouble determining WHERE to sand. (Don't want to sand too much, or the front one will be loose, and then there'll be even more problems)

I'm not getting this "broken back" thing. Most fighters I can think of DO have the lowest spot right in the middle, with the nose and engines raised above. F-14, 15, 16, 22, 23, Flanker, and according to the art, Sv-51. It's called area-ruling, it's on purpose for lower drag at transonic speeds. I'm not seeing a "bent angle", I'm just seeing the nose and engines being higher than the middle of the plane due to their curvature and placement.

...but you'll have to pay for one anyways! As for the nosegear. Two things I can think of: 1. The canopy is opaque because there is no cockpit, and the gear folds up inside it. 2. The gear can fold BACKWARDS in battroid mode, so there's basically a double-length gear well. In fighter mode the gear folds foward like it should, but for battroid another door/panel opens up behind the gear so the gear can fold backwards into the fuselage, and the nose goes into the forward nosegear bay.

Yeesh, that's gotta be a record--we skipped CAD and resin, and went straight to painted! It could be OUT by March at this rate...

Graham--I have owned/transformed nearly every Transformer made from 1984-1988, entire collections of recent Transformers lines, and every Yamato except the VF-0. Plus various Bandai stuff. I consider myself pretty experienced with plastic transforming toys. And the YF-19's forward fuselage would NOT separate, even with half of the neck parts removed and sitting in my lap, with only one of the tabs even locked in at that point. I have read every thread, and watched your video many times. I tried EVERYTHING, and it wouldn't budge, even when prying with screwdrivers. Finally--- I've had it to battroid mode and back, I've had it apart (both on purpose and "exploding"), and know EXACTLY how the parts should and shouldn't move, and have held each piece of the neck in my hands and looked carefully (and sanded down) the locks and tabs that keep the neck together. And I'm transforming it now exactly how I did the very first time. If I was doing something wrong the first time, I think I would have realized what the problem was on subsequent transformations, or after I had it apart and was looking at all the hinges and tabs. I spent literally over an hour on the neck---re-reading threads, re-watching the video to try to figure out what was going on. I spent less time on my 1st-gen YF-19 years ago! (and use less effort) It just wouldn't budge. I didn't "try for 5 seconds then resort to brute force". I tried for an hour--every direction, twisting, pulling, compressing, applying as much force as I dared---I bent the plastic many times, I greatly feared cracking it in half with as hard as I pulled. With my fingers, with my hands, with screwdrivers wedged between the tabs. It was the final effort, after an hour of attempts (the "it'll let go now or it'll NEVER let go" effort) that succeeded in separating the neck---only because the last remaining grey part broke out of the neck, and there was then NOTHING that the tabs could even hold onto. One single tab, holding onto an un-glued and un-screwed grey block, could still resist that much. I wonder if I could have the opposite effect as Wicked Ace--give me a second one to open, and I bet it'll transform just fine...

Well, since weathering on real planes often is "paint peeling to reveal the metal beneath", a metallic effect is usually seen as good. Also, most of the darker streaks you see on a plane? It's dark because of all the graphite used for lubricating the hinges. Nothing makes a plane look like it's got graphite streaks than real graphite. Hydraulic fluid is red, but the streaking is dark because of the graphite.

More explanation please, I so want to do that. Getting the shoulders DOWN is the most important thing to me, the forward/aft gap isn't as important.

It's easy--the gear should have the wheels straight. If the gear is straight, the wheels are obviously off-kilter. When the gear is angled outwards the proper amount, the wheels are straight and "look right". Just look at it from head-on.

They need fuel for the verniers, only the main engines are nuclear.

G1 seekers were sleeker, more accurate F-15's than Movie SS is an F-22. 20 years, and we've gone downhill. I've always thought the F-22 would be one of the easiest planes to make a TF---big flat boxy belly, you could pack it full of parts. IDW sure figured out a nice transformation for it.

Then your YF-19 is very different than mine. I folded down the nosecone, unscrewed the grey hinge blocks---and it held together with more force than I could apply. I couldn't pry it apart with a screwdriver. (I tried). Even with one grey hinge eventually removed--it was still so tightly held together by the one remaining block it still wouldn't budge. Also, my grey hinge blocks were glued in place with a very strong glue. When the forward fuselage finally "exploded" apart---one grey hinge was still there, in place, holding down the neck's "hinge" by one end. The other end was flung across the room, but the grey hinge wouldn't give up its death grip on the other. But at least the tabs were exposed by then. That's what I'm saying--even removing every screw and piece possible in the forward fuselage, it still held itself together so tightly, that I could not perform the "sand down the tabs" mod, as they were still locked into the grey hinge blocks. If mine just "fell into pieces" when removing the screws, I wouldn't have had any problems. ::thinking:: While I didn't notice any, I wonder if my tabs were glued in place accidently? Because my grey hinge was glued in place, when other people's don't seem to be.

Ok, less general statement: Big gimmicky/functional weapons, are the most common thing you'll find in a TF in the last 15 years that messes up robot mode. I really hate it when an otherwise cool sculpt (or "it could have been cool") has giant immoble hands, or "no arm" or "half the alt mode permanently attached to his forearm" to fit some 3-inch long transparent "energy blast" piece of plastic and a spring inside it. Leave the spring-loaded gimmicks in the weapons, not the robot.

prometheum5---as I said earlier--I *tried* to sand down the tabs. I had read about them, and planned to sand them down first thing, before even transforming it once. But I couldn't, as it was so tight I couldn't open it up at all to sand down the tabs! And as I said---unscrewing the grey pieces wasn't enough, nor was removing a grey piece---it still wouldn't budge! I couldn't access the tabs to sand them down until it literally exploded into pieces and the remaining grey piece broke itself out of the fuselage. So what would you recommend I do in that situation? You can't sand down the tabs at all when the fuselage is still in fighter mode, locked tight. Sanding the tabs down only makes it easier for subsequent times when you can at least somehow transform it in the first place---if it absolutely refuses to do so without breaking (like mine and Wicked Ace's)----it's not going to work as they're not going to be accessible to sand.

I can confirm the hinge will still come apart with one piece still glued in...

Great, now I'm wondering if my slight fuselage gap is normal, or "caused by extra-difficult transformation" and other people have seamless ones. Can someone post good side views of the forward fuselage in fighter mode?

We do have a thread like that, in the Customization forum.

No chance of that IMHO. Every TF since Headmasters has had "weapon gimmicks that ruin robot mode". With rare exceptions.

I had the screws completely removed, and it still wouldn't transform. I later also had one grey piece removed (after it snapped the glue weld)--and it still wouldn't transform. How can you sand them down, if you can't get it apart in the first place? You have to transform it at least once to be able to access the tabs, but that first time can break it. __________________________ Wicked Ace---your experience shows that there is variation--some are much harder to transform than others. I apparently had a VERY hard one, as is your 2nd one. Perhaps take the ENTIRE forward fuselage apart, to get it apart? I would seriously recommend doing it prior to the first time. Also---I have major stress marks right where yours cracked--and they were there before I ever even TRIED to transform it. The first thing I ever did with my new YF-19 was opening the "gullet" piece---and I looked inside and saw those grey pieces and they had big white stress marks. _____________________________________ do not disturb--regardless of what you call it, the launch bar is not for towing the plane. I put up pics showing both launch and tow bars. The launch bar is for launching, the tow bar is for towing. No valk has come with a tow bar yet. (they're generic, there is no specific towbar for a specific plane) My point is, the launch bar is only for catapult operations, not towing it around the deck or an airfield. ______________________________________ prometheum5---the original YF-19 Yamato made had a rock-solid GERWALK. But that was due to slots in the chest---I'm guessing it was purely cosmetic reasons that the new one doesn't. I might try something like do not disturb suggested---kinda like the original YF-19 had.

I plan to spend hours investingating/testing, but not today. Based on how it only becomes misaligned in that last little bit of putting the arms together (you can have them 90% connected and the gunpod still straight) it has to be just a TINY little thing that is in the way---so IMHO no need to cut off an entire peg. More like shave off .1mm of one side of a peg. Just have to figure out which one, and where--otherwise you'll end up sanding/shaving all over, and eventually just have a loose, floppy gunpod.

That's my "last resort" option. It holds fine with just one peg, but when they're TOGETHER you see problems.

If you look at the gunpod head-on, is the grip angled off to one side? Pretty minor, and don't think it's really an issue, but it's something to look at. Also, to me, the lower hole on the grip seems "not perfectly circular". Another thing to investigate.

If you take the shield off, and put the arms together--the pegs line up perfectly. At least that's what I recall when I first transformed it.