Chronocidal

I'm talking about the YF-21, since that's what the original "floppy wings" comment was about. Those pins don't come out unless you take the entire wing apart, and you're more likely to destroy it than do any good. Same for the outer pins on the Sv-51, they're sandwiched between the two halves of the wing, and those sliding pins don't always do such a great job.. mine just collapse anyway. The inner ones you might get out, but I usually just drip some runny glue into the joint and work it back and forth as it dries. Easier than forcing the pins out.

Long as they fix the major issues, I might preorder a couple of these.. Well, at least one, depending on price. I would like to know why those feet are on it though. If they didn't actually protrude, it wouldn't look so bad, but having the VF-1 style pointed feet stick out just looks ugly. If they do wind up going with those, I hope you can just push them all the way inside the legs.

Umm... I'd suggest doing some research before recommending fixes, unless you've done them yourself.. The YF-21 (and the Sv-51 as well for that matter) doesn't have pins in the wings that you can pop out. It does have pins you can put glue/etc. on, but popping them out would likely require you to break the wings entirely, since they're sandwiched between glued layers of wing. In any case, I definitely agree with Graham. There're a lot of other VFs that deserve attention before we get another YF-21... ESPECIALLY the YF-19. I mean, the current YF-19 is already at least a generation behind the quality of the current YF-21. Can you imagine how sad it would be to display it next to one developed 6 years later?

Well, where to trim will take some really close inspection. I looked under the wing, and there was some excess plastic on the underside of the wing glove, right next to where the large hinge was. I trimmed it with a small hobby knife, because I couldn't get a file into a space that small. Thing is, there could be mold leftovers practically anywhere in that area, and anything out of the ordinary could cause the wings to not sit right. You'll need to inspect each piece involved, and compare it to the piece on the opposite side to see if any of them could be the cause. I'd recommend a very small file if you can get one, since there's less chance of gouging chunks out of the plastic (or your fingers), but it may not be an option depending on how much room you have to get to the problematic piece. Just look really carefully for what is causing it before you start cutting, and you'll be good.

I remember seeing someone with this problem before, and I'm not sure they were ever able to fix it. The way the swing bar is assembled can make it impossible to get out from what I remember them saying. They just couldn't push the pin out to get the bar detached to flip it around. Taking a look at mine.. you have to remove the three screws holding the backplate on. Looks like you've already done that from your photos. What you need to do is find a way to get the swingbar to pop out of the slot it's in on the back side of the lower back plate. This is where I remember another person giving up, because they could not get that pin to pop out of the place it sits. It's in there good, and you might need to chip away at some of the surrounding plastic to let it free. Then you'd need to push the pin out somehow, pull the swingbar back through the hole, flip it around, re-insert the pin, and then put everything back together. What might be easier to do, but I don't know if it would work... you could just flip around the lower segment of the swing bar. The section of the bar that the hips are attached to is offset a little on that lower pivot point, so flipping that over may be all you need to get it to latch into the nose.

Hopefully it's nothing more than a little excess plastic in the wing hinge. Mine had that, and I was able to trim it on the backside of the backplate, so it'll never show. Mine wasn't a bad gap to begin with though, so I hope it's not a serious problem.

Dunno about you, but I'm enjoying reading the cooking discussion that started midway through the YF-19 topic. Lots of fun tips for how to enhance the taste and/or nutritional value of instant noodles, for all those heavy valk-buying months. http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=19382&view=findpost&p=421176 With the way prices are going, it's becoming more and more relevant.

Well, the stupidest part... there IS a mold using the correct color. The nosecone, the underside of the fuselage, the landing gear doors, various pieces througout the valk are the correct color. Someone just dropped the ball arranging the molds. Funny to think they actually got the color breakdown better on the first version. Suppose you're right though, it doesn't do any good to gripe. At least with Yamato we've got a chance to be heard, but griping at Bandai seems to be about as useful as yelling at your house because you don't like the color of the walls.

That's the problem. Even though it's two separate pieces, they were still molded the same color on the Ozma, and they painted the entire lower half. If that's a foretaste of what's to come on Michael and Luca, we can expect the entire lower wing glove to be painted. Michael's will be a particularly bad case, because it will be white over dark blue plastic.

I just hope they had the foresight to do the same for the version 2, and make it in a different color plastic.

And... the batty's back!

I know exactly how I feel about it.. that was a stupid design choice. They could have molded it in color, saved money on the painting process, and saved us all a lot of frustration from scratched paint further down the road. As many improvements as they've made, it still baffles me why they would choose to mold a single color piece in the wrong color, and then paint over it. If it's a case of the parts being cast from the same mold, it's just terrible planning and lack of foresight.. or possibly cutting corners cost-wise so they don't need separate molds. Either way, it sucks. It also concerns me that when we get to Michael's, we'll have even worse problems with paint, because they will have molded the entire thing in blue, and painted all the white over it, including the whole freakin' lower wing glove. At least with Ozma, the entire thing is shades of gray. You can get away with that on a display model, but painting entire major sections of a transforming toy is just asking for that paint to be destroyed. The hand touch-ups would go a long way to explain why I've got so many uneven shades of the same color though.

Not in terms of mechanical complexity. The Sv-51 has the most ridiculously complex shoulder mechanism I've ever seen. It works well, but there are just so many ways you can move them... As far as a new YF-21 goes though.. yes, improvements would be nice, especially the gear locking, and maybe getting the belly plates to work better... but they will have to pull off something miraculous before I drop any money on more of them. I've got 3 already, and I'm plenty happy with them, so unless they figure out a way to make the wings morph, I'm probably not going to be buying any more. Now, getting a new YF-19 would be very nice, and once the momentum gets going, sure, more people might start wanting a matching YF-21. But for the moment, two things keep it from sounding like a good idea... the falling dollar, which will probably mean $350 plus prices for it, and the common discount status for the current YF-21/VF-22, which makes it look like they can't sell what they have. Granted.. a saturated market has never stopped companies from making more VF-1s, but I don't think the demand for the YF-21 is even in the same ballpark. Even if they did improve it greatly, would enough people buy it to make it worth the effort and expense to develop?

Here we go.. it was a ridiculous mini-flame war over the YF-21's proportions, which... considering the thread just started about a v.2 YF-21, is oddly relevant again. I'll have to re-read the entire thing later to find the funny parts, I just remember the term battying being used repeatedly, and I don't even know what started it, or who used it first.. again, I'm gonna read it all when I get home. Here's the biggest use of the word I think, then it goes on to wish people would go back to just calling each other mentally deficient, and posting Zardoz pictures. http://www.macrosswo...ndpost&p=545382 The debates still get heated, so nothing has changed there, but ridiculous things tend to happen when the arguments flame out and people are left with nothing new to post about. I'll have to find more later, but here are the threads about the YF-19 and v.2 VF-1. http://www.macrosswo...showtopic=19382 http://www.macrosswo...showtopic=24556

I don't recall if I was even around for the old board, or if I actually posted there... What I do find fun from time to time is re-reading the huge threads dealing with new releases, specifically watching all the panic button mashing. I think my favorites are the 1/60 YF-19, YF-21, and v.2 VF-1 threads. I remember one specific discussion involving far too many uses of the term "battying" that's always funny to re-read. Oh wait.. wow, I actually did join back then.. early 2003. Had a total of 7 posts before the new board.

You know, for what it's worth.. you may have dodged a bullet by getting the old one by accident. The early releases of the v.2 VF-1S had a design/manufacturing/assembly flaw that caused the shoulder hinges to break quite often. It's been fixed on later releases, but buying online is a crapshoot, so you never really know how old the stock you find could be. While not quite as pretty, the one you got is probably plenty sturdy. Not having a cockpit figure sounds odd though. I'm not familiar with the v.1 1/60 releases, but I thought they came with pilots.

Well, since they're designed to be lowered one notch in fighter mode, the legs don't lock in as tightly as the VF-25. I've never understood that particular feature of the thing. I might have to pick one up once this re-release happens though, the design has grown on me a bit. Though I'll be heavily tempted to paint it a nice flat gull gray color. That paint makes the thing look a bit like a chameleon caught in a pimp's wardrobe.

... Molotov Valktease?

Considering the way Bandai loves to design joints, there's really not a good way to tighten them... those pins they use are a pain. You might try forcing some superglue into the joint from the underside, or even into the center of the hollow pin, but there's not much room to get the glue in there, and any leakage will really show on the dark gray plastic.

You know, a funny thought hit me earlier. With them including the reaction missiles with the armor parts, they're cutting into the release scheme they used before. I wonder if they're just going to start including the stuff people had to order separately last time? Would be nice if they just went ahead and included the fold quartz booster and speakers with Michael's, and the ghosts with Luca's. I wouldn't mind shelling out a bit more if I can get everything in one package.

The wings and tails are all really badly shaped, but they are just flat slabs on that drawing. I imagine they'll be much better shaped later on.. I'm counting on it really, since those tails are nowhere near the right shape.

Look at the shape of the wings, that's a very rough cad model. They aren't even airfoil shaped yet. I'm not worried about the shape of the wings/tails/etc much because honestly, for this design they play absolutely no part in the transformation. They barely even move, so there's really no reason they shouldn't make them detailed later on. What does concern me a bit is the overall shape, which is a bit off in the nose, and such. They'll be using this model to plan how the transformation mechanism works, so key parts for the transformation like the nose and feet should be fixed at this stage.

Looks like a good start, but yes, I expect they'll be adding a ton of detail over time. That looks like a very basic computer model just laid out to get proportions. The wings are all slabs with flat edges, so I can imagine those will change a lot (I hope.. the tails are the wrong shape entirely so far). I agree about the proportions though, the nose doesn't look long enough, or rather the neck.. the overall size looks pretty good, but the canards look too far back, and much too small. As for the feet.. I think I can see a bit of why they wouldn't want to use the original design, but copying the VF-1's feet won't look good. I think if you figured out a good way to make a dual panel foot that extended, and then bent twice, it would work, but it might not be very sturdy. I'll have to see if I can get the model I have to make a gif. It doesn't look terrible, but having flat toe/heel panels sticking out from a longer piece looks a bit odd.

Honestly, I wouldn't let that stop you. Even if there is a re-release, the exchange rates might not be in your favor. Though, who knows if the re-release price would be less than what sellers want now.

Actually, I was kind of glad that the panel behind the head pops off easy. It made it easier for me to get the head transformed, and snaps right back on easily, and stays put if I don't pull on it. When I first transformed mine, I was worried I was experiencing an accidental return to the old turtle-neck problem. The head must have gotten some glue under it, because it would not budge off the plate. When I finally got it loose, the head came clean off in my hand. Fortunately nothing broke, and it just snapped back on, but yikes. One issue with mine I already was able to fix, with a razor blade of all things.. I noticed the left wing glove wasn't snapping all the way down, and was catching on the edge of the shoulder block. Well, I took the blade and shaved off some plastic from the underside of the wing, and along the edge, and it now sits perfectly flush. If things aren't sitting right, make sure to check for leftover mold release plastic, so you can trim it down. So far, I've only hit minor issues all around. My intake covers don't stay on (I'd just glue them in, but we might need to mount super/armor parts in their place later), my left wing glove flops back and forth easily, and my head was stuck down when I first got it. Actually, I should say the paint coloring is very weird. And this is definitely not a lighting issue. In the past, I know people have noticed issues with plastic colors matching, but I don't recall anyone saying that they had mismatched paint. I've got a lot. The lighter gray panels seem to be painted with all manner of shades, as if someone mixed up separate batches, and repainted certain parts. Some pieces are noticeably lighter, as if they gave more coats. The weirdest one... it looks like someone already weathered the underside of my left wing glove. It was definitely painted with two separate shades, and the brighter second coat didn't get into the detail, so the panel lines look like they are pre-shaded. I've also got mismatched painted panels on different halves of the same leg, right above the knee. Among others. The dumbest thing about some of these problems though.. particularly the wing gloves.. why on earth did they even paint those? The entire part is one color, so why would they mold it in the wrong color, then paint it to match? They've been doing that with some pieces since the v.1s, and for everything they've improved, this particular practice still makes no sense. I'll take some pics later to show what I mean, and in the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal, but it's still.. well, just dumb.