wm cheng

Great job!! I love the weathering - armour is so rich in textures to detail, and you did a fantastic job bringing them out. Keep posting, I can only get my "fix" living vicariously through you! Keep up the great work. And, yeah... where do you keep it all?

What is the "blue & purple" art book? Is that the same as that small one that came with the DVD? or is there something else out there - I really would like anything there is on their technology mech designs - love the aircrafts!

I've found the exact same thing! it really bugs me too... However, through some trial and error (just my opinion, with no technical knowledge behind what I'm about to say) I found that my cheapo Toshiba Home Theatre in a Box all in one thingy in the bedroom to be much worse at this dialogue being quiet than my basement home theatre with a IMHO fantastic 2nd generation Sony DVD (back then when they cost $600 and weighed 50lbs) and a decent Yamaha amp with a separate DSP decoding the Dolby Digital signal - plus much larger and better speakers. So I would suspect that the el-cheapo HTIB doesn't decode the soundtrack properly or as well as some other systems. What I do is turn up the centre channel - usually you can adjust the volume and delay for the individual speakers to tune it to your room and speaker placement - I found that if you boost the centre channel speakers, the majority of the dialogue comes through this channel (not exclusively, but mostly) and you can also turn down the rear left and right channels if you find the ambient stuff too distracting (this is usually the effects channels). I hate it when there is important dialog going on at a restaurant, and you can hear the nonsense conversations around you almost as well as the main actors. I've been finding that with broadcast TV, the dialog is quiet too, but when the commercials hit - WHAM! its so loud...

No, unfortunately not... it was just too expensive and the proportions were too high. I am hoping that this "re-issue" might address the tall proportions and make it a little more affordable. Any news on the "re-issue" would be appreciated!

Now to finally glue the main launch rail supports to the base section. The Captain had graciously included these tiny brass hex bolts (they're fantastic, I never knew they made them so small!) to attach the main support to the base. I am using them as location pins, but the actual strength will come from 5 minute epoxy cement. The kit has divits where the holes for the brass bolts should be, I just followed them and used my pin vise to create the holes. The holes line up perfectly, but just in case (since I'm pretty paranoid with shrinkage and such) I drilled all the holes on the upper support piece first, fed the brass bolts through, and lined them up to see if they actually land on the divits on the base piece - and of course true to John's fastidious nature, they line up perfectly. However, I would always drill from the top down and proceed around just in case sometimes they don't line up properly due to some warpage or uneven shrinkage in resin - remember resin garage kits aren't always as high quality as John's sculpts (I guess I'm old school and used to some pretty crappy resin offerings in the past) Once its properly located, I rough up the mating surfaces above and below and slather on some 5 minute epoxy cement and glue the two main sections together. That's it for now... (oh, this last batch of photos are not colour correct, they are with my older Nikon990 and have a incandescent colour cast to them)

So I flipped the whole thing around to check on stability. Its really tight and snug - just the way I want it, since its going to be sitting on this launch rail 90% of the time. The gunpod modifications really lock the whole rail thing together. Its starting to come together - I can't wait to start painting this thing! I still need to assemble the entire thing and add a few greebles here and there. Now that its finally together, it has confirmed a sneaking suspicion of mine, its a little too tall and lean. I just wish it was a little lower or squatter - it seems as though the whole thing including the boosters could be 10-15% shorter and 10-15% wider - IMHO it would convey the sense of weight more convincingly and be closer to the lineart. (just my 2 cents - but it does seem to match the Launch Vehicle produced - I wish that was 20% lower and fatter too).

Thanks everybody for your support - it is really muchly appreciated! Okay, where I left off, I pushed the pins enough into the underside of the Booster to scratch the paint - luckily they landed right in the middle of the circular indents - that's where I drilled the corresponding holes to receive the pins. I just used a pin-vise (much more accurate than a dremel - they are too fast) with the appropriate bit (I didn't know which one, just started out small and reamed the hole with a larger bit until the pins fit in snug). You can see in the later pictures, the tailfins of the gun pod fits right into the slots I sanded out - it all looks as though it was supposed to be that way! I just had to re-position the end claw piece so that it looks as though its supporting the gunpod.

Thanks, why only one more season? What a jip! What is "Razor"?

Does anyone know when the new season starts to air?

Unfortunately, mine definitely suffers from this droppy problem - its fine if you have the landing gears deployed and have it sit on the ground - the weight of the plane corrects the drop, but if you lift it off the ground, the forward fuselage droops at the top of the heatshield joint. (most suffer from this I believe)

THANKS! I can't believe I missed this - when was it? Was it last year when my baby was being born?!

After sleeping on it for a few days... (I guess the advantage of not having a solid stretch of time to work on this) - I thought up a much simpler solution to the forward arm being located to hold the gunpod. Instead of setting the entire arm "down" a bit to allow for the added depth to the Valkyrie due to the gunpod now, why not just take some material away from the forward arm and notch the "hinge-like thingy" to allow the gunpod fin to slip inside of it. This allows the forward arm to sit in its originally designed location (much closer to lineart) and allows another glue attachment point to secure this arm in place. So after numerous test fittings, I measured and measured again and started to sand away the material I thought was in the way of the gunpod. Its just a trial and error process - you keep taking a little away a bit at a time until you get there... its always better to take too little away then have to build it back up again... So of course the end tip grapply thingy also has to be modified, its pretty easy, just take a bit of the hinge part off.

Even though its a nice snug fit with the gunpod locking into the main rail's little notch, I don't want that as the sole means of support for the Valkyrie with Boosters (its quite a big chunk of resin in the end and very bottom heavy). So will attempt to pin it. I realize that the kit provides for some very nice brass screws with hex ends to attach the main rails to the structure, but I found that the structure didn't quite exactly line up with the main rail circular nubs - plus having a screw through at so many attachment points (X10) would probably permanently attach my Valk & Booster to the rails. If any of the corresponding holes in the Booster was just a little bit off, then it would bind with the launch rails. So I just opted for only two pins at the top - combined with the notch for the gunpod tail and the weight of the Booster itself, I think its pretty safe for the two pins to hold up the Valk with Booster. Plus it so much easier to line up just two corresponding holes and makes it easily detachable so I can zoom it around the room! I used a pinvise to drill the holes in the main rail first and used a thick paperclip (usually what I pin resin kits with, unless its real heavy duty, then I cut a piece of coat-hanger wire for that). Once they were located, I then pressed it with the launch rail against the underside of the Booster, the sharp pins digs into the resin and scratches my paint job locating them. As you can see, they locate themselves quite well right in the centre of the circular divits at one end (they start to go off a little towards the rear of the Booster - could be resin shrinkage). Then I use the same pinvise and drill into the resin Atmospheric Booster for the corresponding holes. Of course I also drilled through to the structure part so the pin ties all three parts together, the structure, the main rail and the booster (which will be detachable). I use 5min Epoxy for the actual attachment - I always use 5min epoxy for anything that requires strength. Once the rail is attached, I glue this entire assembly to the main support again via 5min epoxy. The captain has engineered an ingenious way of pining everything through each other at this critical connection - but I chose to just use a strong glue and I'll re=drill through if necessary, its a bit easier in terms of lining everything up and the resin will break before the 5min epoxy gives (as long as you rough up the mating surfaces first and make sure that it was washed thoroughly so there is no remaining release agents).

Unfortunately the main rail cylindrical nubs didn't line up perfectly with the circular divits provided in the underside of the Booster. I thought it would click in like lego. But with the notch cut out of the main rail section - it seats the rear of the gunpod quite well and allows me to have the entire assembly turned right-side-up and see the launchrail/stand support the Valk with Booster! Now what concerns me is the forward arm with the holes in it. It needs to be dropped so that the little end grappling unit looks like its holding onto the gunpod instead of seating hard up against the Valkryie itself. However, it seems a little separated from the main launch rail unit (I'll address this later...) - I could always "gak" it up to close up the gap.

Hey HWR MKII - did you get and build the LV? I'd love to see it - did I miss a build up or photos here? Ok, back to the problem at hand. One tragic flaw, I built my Valk with the gunpod in place! I didn't realize, but the launch rail is made to hold the Valk without a gunpod in place. In fact (now that I look closely at the lineart) they were right... the Valks attached to the Atmospheric Boosters have no gunpods - ARGH! I can't really send my Valk up naked... so I decided to see what I can do to modify the launch rails to accept a Valk with the gunpod attached. You can see that essentially the main rail ends at where the underside of the Booster ends and connects to the rear of the folded arms in the Valk. Its not too bad... I could go without the main rail, and just use the structure and attach it that way - but I'd like to use everything the Captain has sculpted. So I decided to just notch back the main rail to accept the tail piece of the gun pod - not a lot of material that needs to be removed in the end.

Fantastic work!! Don't rush it... so what if you don't make it for the competition - at least its gotten you off your butt and started on this amazing bird. Looking great so far, have fun with it - I'll definitely be watching with great interest. I've always love this design - I just wish the nose was less needle-like and more like the Hasegawa VF-1's with that characteristic droop. I wish Hasegawa would make this kit! But its looking like your model is giving them a run for their money! Keep up the great work! Wm

Another tool that's very useful is a Pin Vise, basically a small drill bit on the end of what looks like an exacto blade handle. You twist it in your fingers to drill very tiny and precise holes. I'm just drilling out some extra resin for the pin of the stand to seat into. Make sure when you cut parts off sprue, that you leave a good chunk of resin still bonded to the part, you can file and sand it down to the actual part later, but resin is more brittle than styrene, so if you cut/trim too close to the part, you risk snapping or cracking a piece of the part away (and its a little more difficult to fill resin parts then with styrene). Of course, you dry fit all the parts so you get an understanding of where work has to go into clean-up (which there is very little on this kit) and how all the various pieces relate to each other so you can devise a painting plan - so you won't necessarily follow the order of the provided instructions explicitly because it may be easier to paint certain pieces separately and assemble them only after painting.

It would be really helpful to have a bunch of jeweller's files - they are pretty cheap, I just buy the cheapo made in China ones, you usually get about a dozen in a pack for $8 and they come in various profiles. Cheap is fine since you're only ever filing down plastics or resin so they don't wear down. But look for ones that have a variety of sections like flat, rectangles, flat with curved face, circular and the like, its really helpful when cutting openings or filing down excess pour stubs. I've spent the next little while filing down the extra resin stubs where the resin was poured into the molds. Its a good idea to wear a breathing mask, since the file does produce really fine resin particles and I don't think its too healthy to breathe this stuff in. Its a good idea to get rid of all the seam lines you can find now too.

Hi all, Been really busy couple of months... finally my lovely daughter is growing up and in daycare now (man how time flys!) and there are the occassional few hours in the night when I'm just merely tired and not drop dead exhausted Any new father knows what I'm talking about. Without this launch rail stand, my Atmospheric Booster has nothing to rest upon (thats dangerous since whatever you model sits on for a long time has the chance of the paint wearing off or worst, getting stuck to that surface and flaking off when you go to pick up the model - believe me I have it from personal experience that its something you don't want to happen to you). This thread will just deal with the amazing launch rail kit that the Captain has mastered for us - for the Vf-1S and the Atmospheric Booster, please refer to my earlier thread here: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=11976 I just couldn't afford the Captain's Launch vehicle (which by the way I would always gladly accept donations!! ) - does anyone here have it? Does anyone have pictures of it built? I'd love to see it finished. Anyways... on to this launch rail kit (it may be slow going since I can only sporadically find time here and there). I started the kit back in August, so I can back date the entries. First off is to lay out all the parts and check them against the provided instructions to make sure that all the pieces are there. The molding is extremely crisp and of high quality. I spent the next hour basically scrubbing all the pieces under a tap with a old toothbrush and comet to make sure that all the release agents are cleaned off the resin. This is always an essential task for any resin kit - if there is any release agents present or left, when it comes time to painting, the paint will often bead up into little bubbles or worst yet, adhere to the thin coat of film (release agent) and then flake off when the release agent gets rubbed off. So a patience and a lot of scrubbing now saves a lot of headaches later on. I've tried all sorts of soaps, and "rub-free" cleansers that claim that you can soak it overnight and it dissolves the release agents automatically - none of that works as well as just comet and elbow grease! I've laid it out onto a paper towel to allow to dry overnight.

Did Graham do his official review and transformation process and I missed it somewhere?

Hi guys, It just arrived an hour ago!! and wanted to contribute my first impressions... To my fellow Canadians, who may appreciate a timeline from HLJ to Toronto and pricing info. I ordered it on Aug 31 online (from HLJ, I know its not the cheapest, but its in the ballpark and if there are any replacement parts officially issued by Yamato for any acknowledged flaws, then its a lot easier to get them sent to me by HLJ if I bought from them in the first place.), received order confirmation Sep 02, received shipping confirmation Sep 09 (which they also charged my credit card then) and finally today, Sep 13 (four days after shipping) it arrived at my door! Total of 13 days from online click to arrive at my doorstep - pretty good I think! Now the bad part... it cost 4,700yens for EMS shipping and I was charged GST and PST plus a handling fee of $8 for a total of $35.93cdn by customs & duty for a package that apparently had no duty nor excise tax by Canada Post. So that brings the grand total of just under $300 Canadian for this toy to arrive in my hands. Anyone know of a local shop in town that can do it substantially cheaper, please let me know - as far as I know, no local shop in town has it yet either. Ok, that out of the way... first impressions when I held the box in my hand: hmmm... the HLJ carton seems small and feels light for this toy - everyone says its huge?! The HLJ carton is exactly the same size but a little thicker - so some of the corner dings transferred through the carton onto the Yamato box unfortunately (for those who care about pristine boxes). From all the reviews here, I was expecting a slightly larger and heavier box but its exactly the same size box and just as light - I guess the plane is packed tighter. Loved the paint finish - love the two tone black scheme and all the tempo printing. Unfortunately, I do have the two right hinge problem and suffer from floppy wings. I wasn't a fan of the design of this bird initially, and only decided to purchase this after seeing Swoosh's great photos and review, but seeing it and holding the plane in person is quite different than the pictures and its much better in 3D than I ever thought (definitely worth it - even with the minor wing problems). It seems quite solid in plane mode (with exception to the wings which I'll fix) but boy the transformation is really intimidating - this is not a kid's toy. I'm awaiting Graham's step by step transformation guide before attempting mine. Basically, it took an hour of my time just opening the toy and inspecting and playing with delight before I could force myself back to work. These new generation of transforming toys may be a little too complicated to be practical - they feel a little over engineered to be a toy - they are definitely something that are played with in a certain mode and displayed (they are beautiful, either as a design faithfully reproduced in 3D, or a miniaturized engineering marvel) occasionally transformed, but not a durable kid's toy (but that's not their market). The included display stand is definitely a bonus (it was actually the deal-breaker, I'm a sucker for displays) - simple but effective. That's it for now... hope everyone will enjoy theirs as much as I will in the following weeks. p.s. now anyone with an extra set of 1/72 Flanker stencil/data decals lying about?! hehe

Thanks for the excellent tip dojumpjump! What is the Yamato Wing Fixer? Did they issue an official fix?

I for one is very grateful to see this built - thanks for posting cool8or! Yes, its not a great kit by todays standards, but it is anime accurate as far as the older ARII or Imai kits and to the lineart - I think you did a great job with what you had. We can all thank Hasegawa for finally raising the bar on Macross kits! It seems like everybody buys up these kits but nobody builds them! or at least post pics of any of them built! I love seeing them whenever they get built!!

Oh!, maybe I have it wrong then... This is what I understood as the problem and solution in the photos that were posted. Could you correct me please? It seems that the hinges have a flat side and a recessed side at the smaller plastic pivot side (yeah, I don't know what its called either) which determines whether they are right or left. In the second photo, it seems as though a bit of this plastic is hacked off to make it appear like the other side's recess - at least this is what I understood from the photos. Hmm, it this guy in HK and Swoosh both have this hinge problem, then we are 2 for 2 so far - anyone else?

Thanks Swoosh! Awesome pictures! I never really liked this mech, too gangly for my taste, but having seen your pictures - I just have to break down and get one (the same went for the VF-0A+Ghost, I wasn't getting one until I saw the pictures here! argh!) Yamato should pay royalities I really appreciate you posting them, thanks. That fix you guys illustrated is very helpful - but if I understand it correctly, aren't you shaving off some of the plastic holding the thicker hinge pin? If so, aren't you reducing the thickness of the plastic holding the wing on, in essence weakening the joint further? Lastly, does Swoosh's toy also have the 2 right hinge? Does everyone who have their SV-51s have only a right hinge or is this just an isolated incident. Graham, did they just design one hinge thinking that it would work for both sides or is this just a case of a careless assembly worker on a Friday? Could we get a informal poll here of everyone who has one of these beauties to check in please? Thanks, p.s. I love the dark colours and the two-tone grey/blacks! - despite its shape, its a remarkable feat of toy engineering! p.p.s Anybody trying to pick this baby up locally at a shop in Toronto, Canada? Any suggestions? or go with HLJ?