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Posted
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qog_bjg1lQU

Well it's all in Japanese so I can't really tell you what's going on. Part of a game show? Still, interesting to see 1/1500? scale molds being carved out by a laser.

Thaks for sharing that with us.

Scary to think that they are fully capable of churning out kits or figures you need a microscope to paint.

Using the cad system its easy to see how they manage to chrun out kits in several scales so easily that have excellent detail.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

I so know what I want to do when I grow up (maybe someday). Even their toilet is awesome! I just need a bazillion dollars/pounds to buy that laser engraver! - MT

Posted

Holy Crap!

Great find David! Now I know how they made the Yamato crew figures! There is no way I can ever paint them?! I couldn't even believe that the plastic could flow into such small spaces.

Whats really interesting is the multi-colour parts where different plastics are all injected into the same sprue and creates a multi-coloured part that is integral through the plastic and not just a surface paint. The technology is really impressive. It makes Yamato (toys) look almost archaic.

Wow!

Posted

The multi-colored piece process is known as "color injection". Bandai's done it for at least a decade, maybe two. And most companies still can't do two colors on the same SPRUE, much less the same piece! I've built a Gundam or two that had a 4-color chest piece (white, red, blue, yellow)---neat stuff. Though the failure rate is fairly high---not uncommon for a piece to end up with colors that "bleed" into the wrong area. Part of the reason you don't see it often---costs a lot to do, doesn't always work. They do 2-color stuff all the time, sometimes of different types of plastic even---very common on PG kits. But 3 and 4 color seems to be much more difficult.

There's also "single color, single plastic, but multi-layer" injection---seen on MG and PG fingers for example, to create working joints within a single piece during the molding process. Bandai just blows away anyone else when it comes to making plastic.

Posted

I just love how they molded four materials, PVC, ABS, HIPS and rubber together to make the EVA kits. You cut it off the sprue and it matches the rest of the kit's plastic, but has ratcheted joints! You know, they've been doin' multi-color stuff like that about as long as Macross has been around. I never saw Gundam in the beginning, but the cool kit designs and colored plastics "called out to me" from the shelf. I couldn't be rude and say no! - MT

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