Chronocidal

Ok, a bit worried about what I'm seeing... Do those both have limp head lasers? My Hikaru 1J lasers went completely limp in fighter after one transformation, and these look like they're drooping already.

Good thing this is a three paycheck month... I'm gonna need it

lol.. once I figure out that antigravity device, sure. This thing is extremely unstable as is. They might work in fighter, but I think anything past that would be tempting fate.

going to gerwalk... done And moving to battroid.. Yeah.. this sucker is a bit huge. Posing in battroid is a balancing act, and although the legs can be positioned pretty well, the joints still aren't stiff enough to do any fancy poses. It really needs the mid-thigh pivot before any real poses would be possible, and even then, the weight will make problems. It's fairly sturdy in fighter and gerwalk, but moving to battroid makes it very clear why Yamato used a metal plate for the chest piece on the v2 1/60.. While that joint was incredibly sturdy on my 1/18 version, shrinking to this size reduced that joint to a giant failure point that'll break easily. Still, I'd say it's an overwhelming success compared to my aborted giant one. It's by no means perfect transformation, since you have to remove the head, and reattach the legs for battroid by adding the main hip joints, but I was really happy at some of the details I was able to cram in.

So, a few people might remember the ginormous 1/18th-ish lego VF-1S I made back a couple years ago (still have the pics up at http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/34788 ). Well, I took that apart when I moved out. Just took too much space. But I figured someday I'd return to it... That someday started about two weeks ago, when I moved my lego collection out of my parents house. I restarted from scratch, shrinking the overall size, with the intention of hitting about 1/32 scale this time, and just about nailed it (from the pictures, it's about the length of two 1/60 valks). I finally found a decent set of huge hinges to use, and used them to great extent. Overall result is about the same posability of a chunky monkey, with the rough proportions of a V.2 1/60. The arms are a bit weak, and probably need a rebuild. Anyway, to the pics! Early pic, when I still had ball/socket joints in the hips... weight made me change those out fast when the arms got added. But the poses possible here were awesome. Second progress shot, before a few leg changes and the tail section test shot for the gunpod Fighter mode comparison This shot amazed me that the feet didn't break clean off.. this thing is heavy. underside tails fold up nicely continued....

Hmm.. It may have been in that huge collection somewhere and I missed it, but I wonder if anyone has actually tried doing the costume that Nanase designed for Ranka? I'm pretty sure it was Alice in Wonderland themed, and I coulda sworn it had bunny ears. There was one outfit in that collection that looked kinda similar, but no bunny ears (or giant spoon for that matter ).

Ok, THAT is an interesting thing.. instead of making the entire fins and tails as decals, they only made the smaller portion a decal.. that could be bad, since now, you have to match your red paint to the red decal, or nothing will match. Oh well, for markings that big, I'd rather just paint them all on anyway.

Assuming the VE-1 has the same friction-type head mount as the other v2 1/60s, I'd check and see if another Valk's head fits it, or if the VE-1 head fits another neck. The hole in the head might be a bit big, or the neck might be too small. Either way though, I think you could fix that just by applying something to the head peg to make it a bit bigger (preferably something you can sand down if it gets too big). I coated a couple pegs on my SV-51s' wings in super glue to enlarge them, and that seemed to work well for that. Depending on how loose the head is though, it may take a few coats of glue before you get it big enough. BTW, I use an extra thick superglue for this, so I can build up a bit of a bulge fairly quickly. I wish I could get into my VF-1J's head to fix the floppy lasers, but the gaps are too small to get to the hinges easily, and I think they're riveted on. Still no ideas on how to get the head apart? Edit: K, I know what's wrong with the head lasers.. the hinge pins that keep them on are press fit, and the surface of the head is not quite perpendicular to the pivot axis.. When I first got it, the head lasers were fine in fighter... after rotating up to battroid the first time (quite a bit of friction here the first time), they're completely limp, except in battroid. If I reach into the head with a pin, and press outward on the hinge pins while pressing the laser mounts down tight, they'll go tight enough to stay level in fighter... but rotate them up for battroid again, and the pins pull loose, making the lasers limp again. I'm wondering now if I just have a head that got molded badly. Has anyone else had this happen? Should I maybe think about ordering a replacement?

Assuming you're talking about the folding/rotating tail assembly, my new Nora wasn't bad, but the left tail was a bit limp. I already risked breaking my Alpha fixing its limp tail, so I chose the quick and easy path (and somehow managed to avoid the dark side.. this time). Basically the tail was flopping back a bit easily, so to tighten the joint up, I applied some super glue to a pushpin, and used that to apply a VERY TINY AMOUNT to the shaft the tail rotates on. I rotated the tail around a bit to get the glue spread out, kept rotating it till it dried, and it firmed up that joint nicely. You might be able to do the same for the hinge for the lower fin attached to the tail, if that's what you're trying to fix. Note, the super glue did leave a trace of white residue on the plastic, but it's fairly well hidden.

Well, same issue as Fatalist, just in a smaller scale. Anyone have tips for tightening a 1/60 v2 VF-1J's head lasers? Both of mine are completely limp when forward, but tighten up when raised to battroid position.

Time to update... 1/48: Still a single Hikaru Super 1J 1/60: 7 - Nora, SV-51a, and v2 Strike Roy, Hikaru 1A and 1J, and Super M&Ms (and all bought within about a month ) This winter is going to be expensive too. Yay for having a job! Correction: Added the M&M Super 1J's.. my wallet is crying. That's 7 new valks since the HLJ free shipping sale.

I think any Roy is a crapshoot. I waited over a year to buy mine and it still had busted shoulders, same for my Hikaru 1A. On the brighter side of things, I just got my Hikaru 1J from Overdrive, and it's got the updated shoulders with the smaller pins (no updated nose hatch though).

Why not just rework the Bandai one from Frontier? They're quite different, but I think if you strip off a lof of the exterior details they'd be the same base shape.

I never cared for the normal tie that much, but I might be tempted to get an interceptor... I like the smaller vertical space it takes. The only reason I have 4 big X-wings is because they're so easy to disassemble. I have all of them in a single box, all in various stages of reworking/fixing. My A-wing and B-wing sit vertically, so they don't take up much space.. shoot, the b-wing is standing on it's cockpit in between two boxes, it barely takes up any room at all that way.

It's VERY tempting to pre-order.. but I'd rather have them ship together, and although the YF-21/VF-22s have been pretty solid so far, I'd rather wait for a solid review.. would also give me time to save up for them, since I could potentially order a double M&M set (VF-1Js and VF-22s). If I wait long enough, I could get all 4 at once (and then take out a small loan)

I'd be guessing no, since it's a design flaw that's been there from the start, and would require an entire rebuild of the toy's internals to fix. The wing mechanism doesn't have the tension to hold the wings steady (or even fully opened for that matter) and the mounting points for the rubbery wings are just shoddy, with way too much play in them. Beautiful as they are, I've never displayed these X-Wings in any way other than standing on the engines so I don't see the wing slop.

Nice, now my lone 1/48 yammie won't feel so lonely on the shelf. One thing I hope they change... that canopy is a bit fugly. Looks really fat and bulbous, even worse than the Yamato 1/48. Aside from that, I'm lookin forward to painting up a few of these.. finally have a good use for all those spare F-14 decals I get. I wonder how long it'll be before someone rips the internals out of a Yamato one to see if they fit in this thing?

Well, since I finally have more than one valk (1/48 Hikaru Super 1J is still my fave) I can finally say I have a collection. The 1J has stayed in the box till now, but I might have to actually come up with a way to display them now... Might try some poses later, but for now.. you know those "that's so crazy it just might work" moments? I love those. Especially when they actually do. I can kind of understand the 1/60 pylons being swappable, but never expected the 1/48 to be identical. Btw no, there isn't enough room on the v.2 1/60 for all four 1/48 missile pods. But there IS room for 12 reaction missiles on the SV-51.

You know.. I'm actually glad I think. Much as I'd like more episodes, seeing this get the big screen treatment should be epic. Disappearance has enough material for probably 4 episodes, but I'd much rather watch the whole thing at once. I mean, I read the book long ago, so there's no real cliffhangers for me. I'd rather see it all in one continuous story than broken up over several weeks. Haruhi is one anime I really do prefer to watch in one sitting, just to get the whole picture, or at least watch it an arc at a time. Also, storyline-wise, I think this works out better. Disappearance is a serious turning point in the series, and opens the door to what has always felt like a second act to me.. . I remember trying to come up with a good episode breakdown to fit everything in, and one of the longer arcs always wound up getting left out. With Disappearance a standalone, it should open up a third season to really dig into things. Provided that is, that they don't alter the story to remove references to the later books, and use it to completely finish off the series. That would make me sad.

Sigh.. I thought I was done ordering stuff, but it's addictive. I just got my free shipping HLJ order of an SV-51a, v.2 Roy and v.2 Strike 1A Hikaru (seriously shipped in 4 days, I was shocked), and fell in love with the SV-51. So now I ordered a Nora and a plain Hikki 1J from Overdrive to take advantage of their sale too (probably just use the strike parts on the 1J instead of adding an extra fast pack set). And I'm still waiting for that half-priced Michael VF-25 kit to get here.. stupid HLJ shipped it by itself when the other stuff I ordered never got back in stock. This is gonna be an expensive fall and winter, especially with the complete M&M set I plan to buy But I plan to space them out a bit.. maybe one order per month. Might get a VF-1D too, but I want to wait to see if it goes on sale.

Well, my coffee table either looks like a VF-1 assembly line, or crash site, take your pick. I took apart my Roy and Hikaru 1A last night to get at the arm hinges, and every time I look at these things, I get more scared at how tight they are. There's already stress marks on the joints that connect the backplate to the chest, and while they're much beefier than the arms, I wouldn't be surprised if those fail at some point. Anywho, the shoulders are all coated in superglue now. Although I managed to crack one of the hinge points while forcing the pins out, everything seems sturdy enough. I'm thinking though, I may just replace the hinge pins altogether. I don't mind the shoulders a bit sloppy if it means they don't break, so I may replace the pins with segments of a paperclip.. slightly smaller, so I don't have to bore out the holes after adding the glue, giving the pieces a bit more material around the joint. How I'll keep the new pins in, I dunno yet.. I might just put a drop of glue on them, and assume they won't need fixing again. It's a lot easier than grinding down the existing pins to fit the smaller holes, and I'd rather not stress the parts out by drilling the holes bigger again. Hopefully this'll last a long time, but at the very least, it should last long enough for Yamato to update the replacement parts to use the smaller pins.

Just out of curiosity, how are the shoulders on this one? If they're stressed at all, the marks should be easy to see on this plastic.

I'm already saving to buy these, but for those of you falling in love with the colors, beware... whole lotta shoppin' goin on here. Either that, or Milia hijacked Max's ride (and dyed his cockpit upholstery red too). I think that's her in the cockpit, complete with her retro TV style uniform.

Gah.. sad as it is, I'm almost convinced I should just clip the dumb antennas off (maybe replace them with a softer material).. accuracy be damned, I want my paint to last. Least this won't be a problem with the 1J's if I get em later.. Hikaru's tails are blank, and if I file down the rear antenna on the M&Ms, the big one will only press behind the white tail stripe. I just hope they've fixed the shoulder issues by the time I get those.. I thought I was safer waiting a year on my Roy, but I still got broken shoulders.

You know, it is beautiful.. but am I the only one who thinks something just looks... well, wrong about the head-on shots? I know it's probably nit-picking to a riduculous degree, but the whole plane looks ... twisted. The nose looks off center from the canopy, and both look misaligned with the fuselage centerline. Or maybe it's just that both of the tails are leaning the same way... I dunno. I think if they offered an unassembled/unpainted version I'd probably jump on it, but I really don't like the factory weathering, and this thing would take a lot of work before it would be accurate. Sure, it's a nice display piece.. but for $230 I also could probably get a 1/32 kit (or two), build it, detail it up, and actually find that I have a place to put it when it's done. Btw, seconded on the VF-1 scheme. I think it's actually completely unique in terms of markings. You see all manner of squadrons using some sort of diagonal band on the nose, but I've never seen anyone else who did a full length horizontal stripe... and now that I think of it, someone needs to make a VF-1 VF-1.