mechaninac
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Everything posted by mechaninac
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I really wanted to like this new toy of such a venerable 80's mecha; alas, I think the old Imai 1/40 kit looks way better proportioned... that cockpit looks 2 sizes too small, and that's just one of many minor flaws. Ultimately, price will be the determining factor if this piece will be a buy or a skip, but it doesn't look promising.
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Worst Science Fiction Film of All Time II: The Quickening
mechaninac replied to areaseven's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
More like Pyroclastic floater... and I don't mean pumice. -
Bandai, Yamato/Arcadia, Toynami, Takara, etc... pretty much all the same standard toy industry plastics used (there is some variability between grades used by each company and on each production run, even for the same company, the triangle NUNS pieces on the VF-171EX Alto vs. VF-171 CF, for example) -- predominantly, ABS. Any plastic welder that specifically states that it works on ABS will work of any toy, from any manufacturer. But if you want a brand, I've had good results with Ambroid Pro-Weld; it's readily available at most well-stocked hobby shops.
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Plastic Weld is a plastic solvent that chemically melts plastic in order to fuse pieces that are to be bonded together; it basically makes two parts become one, with the join being just about as strong as the rest of the part. What is usually referred to model glue/cement is plastic weld for Styrene (Testor's tube and liquid cement, for example); for the type of plastics used in the average toy (ABS, Acrylic, etc.), a professional grade welder such as Ambroid Pro Weld, Tenax 7R, and others is preferred as the hobby variety isn't strong enough to bond anything other than styrene and soft ABS. One thing that can't be stressed enough is to NEVER use Super Glue (cyanoacrylate), hot glue, or two part epoxy on your toys unless it's meant as filler/strengthener to bolster ribs and screw bosses inside parts where the sloppy results won't be visible; otherwise, you're asking for failure The Styrene rout would require shaping a replacement part by machining or by hand. You'll need to bond a stack of styrene sheets together to achieve the correct thickness or start with a extruded square section solid rod to carve down to the correct shape, and you will also need to drill holes for the hinge pins. Since styrene sheet or stock are available in white you won't need to paint, but the white won't exactly match. Shapeways is a 3D printing service where you can upload a 3D mesh model (usually in STL format) to have it grown for you in a range of materials -- including a white strong type would be ideal for toy part replacement. Many members here have used shapeways to offer replacement and accessory parts for the community. Of course, in order to take advantage of this possibility, you need to model a part in a 3D modeling program (or have someone do it for you), upload it to have it vetted by Shapeways, wait for the part to be made and shipped to you... none of this comes cheap.
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ABS is a type of Styrene (Acetyl Butyl Styrene). Even milder solvents like Testor's model cement will work on most ABS grades used in model kits (Gundam, etc) and toys, but always test first on a spare part or an unobtrusive spot to see if it will work.
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Or your fingers are getting slippy...
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The satin/matte finish is so much more attractive and scale friendly than the semi-gloss/gloss of all the other Macross DXs... Keeping my copy sitting in HLJ's PW is going to take a lot of willpower...
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That's two-part epoxy... definitely NOT what you want. These are the sort of things you want to look for: Somewhere to look
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Worst Science Fiction Film of All Time II: The Quickening
mechaninac replied to areaseven's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
Shyamalan-ma-ding-dong has ridden his one good movie, arguably, into directing a string of ever-worse garbage... and Signs isn't even close to his worst effort. -
Chronocidal is right, if the assembly can be take apart, that part looks to be easily repairable with plastic weld, or easily replaced with a substitute carved out of styrene block, or swapped with a Shapeways facsimile. Still sucks that it sheared right at the hinge pin like that... yet one more thing to keep an eye out for with these Bandai DXs.
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I know it's just trading one sex toy innuendo for another, but wouldn't that be more accurately described as a gag-ball than a butt-plug? Unless... oh, never mind...
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Payment upfront sucks, but less than $170 shipped is pretty damned good; and since the invoice was in USD, no PayPal and Bill-Me-Later option is available, for which I opted. Thanks for posting the link. Now to decide if I should pay for the one I have with N-Y when they request payment or if I just let that slip in lieu of requesting a cancellation... still have not decided if I wont to get two or not, but now I have the luxury of time.
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That's effin brilliant! Do the wings rotate at all within their gloves or are they fixed? My only criticism, and it's a really insignificant nitpick at that, is that you should have installed 2 hard points per wing as opposed to just one, and instead of adding the ones to the wing gloves... looks nice but may interfere with mounting the Super pack. Note to Bandai: Look at what Bravo5 has created, take inspiration from it, and start working on a mass produced version.
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All Valkyries are planes that transform into robots; they are ALL really dumb and really silly looking in their own particular ways... and I love'em all.
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Got my payment request from HLJ. I'll likely drop it in the PW for at least a month in order to have time to contemplate if I want to add anything else for combined shipping... I'll definitely be vicariously admiring the thing through all the pictures and reviews posted here, but I can wait to have mine in my hands. Now, Bandai, bring on the alternate color schemes!...
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Nice comparison pictures... the SV-51 is such a beast.
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I'll admit the the first one was at least mildly entertaining, but since I have ZERO nostalgia attached to TMNT, cartoon(s) or movies, I think they were all garbage, more so for the second movie which was Guyver LAM silly, and specially the third which was unwatchable. No. Just NO!
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Ditto. Except, they didn't have to refund me anything since I chose my CC for payment.
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I saw that, but I just couldn't find an easy way to cancel without emailing them the request, and for some reason the last part didn't register the first time around... thought that maybe I was missing something. Anyway, I sent them a cancellation request; if successful, great; if not, I'll have two copies on hand (couldn't pass up on HLJ's much better price so I placed a pre-order with them).
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How do you cancel an order with CDJ?
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Yes, it has. They completely dropped their usual MO of incremental increases for each subsequent preorder posting after the first batch; this time around they went straight from app. $138 to about $176, and there, surprisingly, it has stayed.
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As far as I know, added costs? No. Added shipping charges? Yes. If you order multiple items from the same store within the Mandarake site, you can combine shipping; whereas, multiple items from different locations will incur individual shipping charge from each source.
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Yup! Annoys the hell out of me too, but that's the Internet...
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Err.. see post above...
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Still available at CDJ. They haven't charged my CC yet... hope there are no hiccups in processing.