Valkyrie

Actually, that's another design challenge I need to overcome... The original kit includes a resin insert with a nut embedded in it, which goes inside the backpack part of the super/strike valkyrie kit. You'd drill a hole in the backpack, and secure the backpack and boosters to the launch arm with a screw. That'd be fine if it wasn't for the fact that the connection between the backpack and the rest of the valkyrie is very weak. It's just two small glued joints that hold it all together. Certainly not enough to support the valkyrie while suspended by the boosters. So I've gotta come up with something better. It'll most likely involve that screw coming from the launch arm, extending through the top and bottom of the backpack, and being secured to the valkyrie through a hole drilled in the upper fuselage. Or something like that. The magnet idea is also a posibility, but the backpack would have to be secured to the fuselage with a screw, and also have a cutouts in the top of the resin backpack inserts for the magnets to go.... In fact, I'm liking that idea better

It's a bit daunting only because I'm still rather inexperienced at scratchbuilding :/ My design involves splitting the arm into 3 parts. This will both let me pressure cast them to eliminate air bubbles (by making the molds small enough to fit into my pressure chamber), and also make the metal insert work better. The middle part will have a section of the rod sticking out of each end, which will mate with the two end pieces. And AF... no. It's only for the 1/72 Hasegawa VF-1. Any VF-1 toy would be far too heavy for it.

That'd be me, actually. I've got an original, on loan from Noel. It's taken longer than I would have liked because, frankly speaking, the original kit sucks. The casting job is pretty shoddy, and the arm itself is horrible. They tried to cast the arm with an aluminum rod for an insert, which was a good idea, but they went about it all wrong, and the results were pretty disarterous. I've come up with a much more effective design, but I've gotta scratch-build the arm part to do it. And I have yet to get around to doing it (aside from one failed attempt). Also, Noel's pics of the finish kit at Wonderfest show it with some parts that aren't included in the kit. Namely, two hydrolic actuators and a cowel of sorts at the base. I'm going to machine the actuators on my lathe, since the kit really does need them. But I'm still not sure what to do for the base....

Seems like everyone's forgotten about the new Area 88 series. Episode 1 aired almost a week ago. And it's finally been fansubbed Go check it out at your favorite bittorrent site, or Anime-Kraze's homepage.

Nope... But I did find this auction the other day. http://page6.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/f14734690 59 pages of mechanical design line art! It's at $100 now, with 36 hours left on it. What a time to be broke Anyone want to go in on it with me?

I'm not seeing the point in this project... Yamato is making clear versions of those select parts so you can see the underlying detail normally concealed by those parts. So they serve a purpose. But to make the rest of the fast pack set clear also... What's the point? Just to make it clear for the sake of being clear? And why stop there? Why not make the Valkyrie itself clear as well?

Hahahahahahahahahaha no. Sadly, I don't have $1300 to buy the SHE Blazer. So the Tect kit will have to do

Yea, I was pretty positive it's supposed to come with a pilot as well. And I'm thinking about scratch-building my own weapon set to take care of the lack of missiles

The Club-M 1/72 VF-4G resin kit comes with a gunpod, but as far as I know, it's entirely unofficial. I've never seen it appear in any official source material. And it really wouldn't be necessary at all, considering a VF-4 battroid has weapons in both its forearms and shoulders.

Sorry, I don't have either of those kits right now. Next up will probably be either the VF-11B fighter with gunpod and booster rockets, or the VF-19F/S Blazer Valkyrie fighter. And while I'm at it, one more progress pic

Wow... That's amazing. FYI, here's the kit he used. Very rare, and rather pricey. http://www.hlj.com/cgi-perl/hljpage.cgi?VOL032 And here's a recast of it. Notice that it costs almost as much as the original http://www.hobbyfan.com/product_info.php/c...roducts_id/1646 But it's out of stock.

Sorry, decals aren't exactly my area of expertise yet. I haven't even gotten as far as to buy the Alps printer I'd need yet. But fortunately, Hasegawa seems to have pretty much all the decals you'll need for a VF-4.

They still haven't announced a release date for episode 4

Uhmm... That's not what 'Sentou Yousei' means.

I downloaded the last 4 HK subbed episodes a while back. The subs were simply god-awful, but otherwise, the episodes were incredible. Though a bit confusing at times... By the end, the Laughing Man story was wrapped up, and the Tachikomas had most definitely redeemed themselves!

Thanks a lot guys Hikuro, yes, it does come with instructions. They're untranslated, but they're still pretty clear. And Godfather, I don't have a problem getting you a box and gunpod, but I think it'll have to wait til I'm a little less busy.... like after the Full Armor VF-11 is done. And while I'm at it, here's one more pic of the box

Well, the final pieces are in place, so the Club-M 1/72 VF-4G fighter mode recasts are now available once again! This time with a few improvements. First, the standard fighter mode kit now comes with the gunpod, not just the gerwalk mode option parts. And best of all (in my mind, anyway) it now comes with a box! It's something I've been wanting to include for a while, but only recently was I able to source a good quality box at a good price. This is very nicely complimented by box art designed by Windjammer (thanks again!) The price is the same as always, $50 each, plus $5 shipping for any number of kits. Optional parts to build it in gerwalk mode are also availabe for $10. Questions and comments are quite welcome in this thread, but e-mail me at valkyrie@attbi.com for ordering info. Here's links to a few old pics of the kit, plus I'm attatching a pic of the box because I can't seem to get into my FTP now <_< http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/auct...tion/vf-4-2.jpg http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/auct...tion/vf-4-3.jpg http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/auction/vf4.jpg

The 4 SAL packages I've gotten from HLJ have all taken right around 10 days to get to me in Chicago. Each time the boxes were beat to hell, but the contents were undamaged.

Wow, some really nice variations on the Mave! Me like!

Thin sections of resin can also be re-shaped with hot (near boiling) water. I've gotten many resin kit with bent wings, landing gears, etc, and I've been able to fix them all with this trick. Just heat up a cup of water in a microwave, grab the part with a pair of tweezers or something, and hold it in the water for a few seconds. The part will be flexible for as long as it's hot, but it'll still retain it's general shape (it won't turn into goo on you). You can also use a lighter instead of hot water in a pinch. Just be sure to hold the part well above the flame, or you'll run the risk of singeing or even burning the part.

Yep, that would be me. I recasted all of the smaller pieces of the launch arm already, but the original arm itself was, frankly speaking, a piece of crap. I'm going to be building a new one from scratch. I tried scratch-building a new one once, and it didn't turn out all that great. I still intend to finish the project sometime in the (hopefully) near future, but I'm not sure when that will be. I get sidetracked easily ;; And Noyhauser, if you mean to ask which kits I've already recast, those would be the Club-M 1/72 VF-4G and the Retpuu 1/100 VF-11MAXL fighter.

I counted up the parts, and I think there's 55 total. The same number of parts as the VF-4G, oddly enough. But I'm trying to keep it cheap. Right now it's looking like it'll be about $35 each. By the way, the pics you might notice some big, nasty seam lines in the boosters. That's because the mold was semi-botched, so I'll be making a new one. No huge flaws like that will be going into any of my kits And also, I've got a few more of the Tect kits lined up for recasting after this one. All of which will be much cheaper than this one

D'oh!!

Pic 2

Just thought I'd give you all a little taste of what I'll have available in a week or so. I've been cleaning up and recasting a 1/144 Tect Full Armor VF-11C conversion kit (for the Bandai 1/144 VF-11C injection plastic kit). It's another of those projects I've been wanting to do for quite a while now. And it's a good thing I didn't do it sooner, because it wasn't nearly as simple as I anticipated! Big thanks to Sully for loaning me the kit!! Here's a couple quick pics of one of my VF-11 kits with the parts that I've recast so far slapped onto it. I built the stock kit a few weeks ago, and it's slowly been becoming a Full Armor. It's done quite well in keeping me motivated