Yamato 1/3000 SDF-1 Custom/Detailing by Kye

[kyekye]

After getting used to this great toy for a couple of days, I decided to take it apart/detail it up/paint it and put it back to make my "true dream toy".
This will be another slow but constant progress (meaning updated weekly)
Thanks to vf-1s's scan, I first got the legs all disassembled and laid out the parts nicely for better paint job later.

Thank God, I didn't break any parts yet. Some small parts were lightly glued at the factory, but most of them came off easily.
If you don't have right tools, I wouldn't recommend doing this.

Next step would be disassembling body and main cannon.


Legs disassembled and laid out nicely. labeled them with marker for later assembly.

Tools I used to do this so far.

Some of Photo Etched parts I'm planning to use for detailing up

Give me back my Pants!!

Edited March 2, 2014 by EXO

[kyekye]

Oh! I forgot. Here is the part with City.

There is one more part to remove and 2 screws before getting to city

Hmm.. The city with Concert Hall. I'll get back to you later with some plan~

[Mommar]

I'll be watching this thread closely. I can't wait to see what you do with it!

[kyekye]

Today I'm moving on to the rest of the body as much as I can before going to bed..

From this point, it's total adventure without seeing manual. Luckily still no damage to the parts so far!!

First disassembling the shoulder. It has spring and click joint.

Understanding the shoulder cover and lock mechanism. (so that I can put it back later)

[kyekye]

Getting to the Cannon. This took me a while. So many parts and Yamato's ingenious parts separation!!

I was very impressed while working on the parts.

Putting labels for easier assembly later. Most of Dark metalic grey parts are actually separate parts

Parts of Cannon Base. Again, some parts were lightly glued - and used to cover up the screw holes. I had to remove them to separate the Dark metalic grey parts. It's worth it because I can do cleaner job while painting them.

[kyekye]

Moving to the main body. First, chest block and head area.

This one came off easily.

Separated Chest block and the remaining body.

Separating head was a bit tricky. There was a tiny part covering the screw on the back of the head (bridge). Carefully removed it and unscrew to remove the head and bridge cover shield.

i might need to separate small parts from the head, but I'll leave this for now. I need more planning before that.

[kyekye]

Disassembling Engine side (?) of chest block

The front panel was glued somewhat tightly, so took me a while to open it to reveal screw holes.

After that, the rest was easier.

Started showing some metal parts (shoulder joint and cannon joint)

Main Body completely disassembled - This part was the most difficult so far. As getting to the center, Yamato used more glues and longer plastic pegs to put together parts.

I want to work on the remaining leg parts, but I can't figure out how it's assembled. I might end up using some masking for the knee joints to paint.

That's it for today. took me about 4 hours for today's progress.

Tomorrow, I'll get to the ARMD-1 and 2 if i have time.

Oh. please pardon me for separating posts. I'll need to use this to back-step assembly later.

Edited January 11, 2011 by kyekye

[derex3592]

YOU my friend, are a BRAVE soul! I salute you! Can't wait to see how this turns out!

[UN Spacy]

Thanks to you and wm cheng for doing this.

The farthest I'd go with mine is a simple wash.

[kyekye]

Hmm. I'm kinda stuck at Thigh/hip area.

I can see the front cover should come off first to get to the rest of parts and to split the main thigh. but the knee cap is the mistery here. Does it need to be removed first before the front cover? So far, there were some hidden screws inside unexpected spots, so I'm afraid if this might be one of those.

In worst case, i can still just do masking, but really want to remove the grey metalic part to paint separately.

[kyekye]

I found a web page showing all 1/2000 SDF-1 parts, so I'm gonna try to get to the knee.

[kyekye]

Finally i got the Thigh disassembled!! Yay!

It was just glued very tightly. No Mystery there.

Here are some pics of parts.

Finally got one part broken, but it's not gonna be visible. So I'm saved!

Now to the ARMD!

[kyekye]

I just wanted to separate the black-painted inside parts.

The rest (blue and other markings) is printed, I'll have to work around it

Now the fun begins!

Next step is adding details and cleaning up.

[wm cheng]

Great job so far! I'll be watching for ideas!!

[kyekye]

Since I'm adding photo-etched parts on the head, I would be afraid of touching it during transformation.

So I decided to use magnet on the neck/head joint. I can remove head while transformation and put it back.

Neodymium Magnet Grade N52 (part name:D21B-N52 from K&J Magnetics)

Now I can work on the head details.

*Adding antenna lines and small panel details.

*Filled portion of side gap with putty

*adding metal rod for yellow disk antenna and sensors on both side of the head.

*I think I'm gonna cut out the glass shield and replace with thin clear plastic. So I added main bridge details using Photo-etched parts.

*photo-etched parts placements are temporary. I'll need to prime them before paint. Some minor gaps will be also filled with primer later.

Again, my camera is not doing a good job getting focus on MACRO

[wm cheng]

You my friend are crazier than me!

[vf_1s]

You my friend are crazier than me!

Crazier then me too. Way to go!

[JuanJovv]

Wonderfull I want see more... more please

Regards

[charger69]

Magnets for bridge...

Brilliant!

[kyekye]

Thanks for nice comments! -Mom! Crazy people are telling me I'm crazier!! (jk )

Originally I was planning to only work on weekends, but I got carried away and lost some sleep during weekday nights... Not good.

BTW, someone asked me about knee ratchet joint area - inside view. So here it is.

You can see 2 lock areas on the ring (left image) and triangle peg is pushed by strong spring (right image).

You can see the front/back direction by the knee cap position (the area with glue stain)

[Kicker773]

subscribing to see updates.. awesomness!!!

[MacrossJunkie]

Man, I don't know how you managed to get those pieces apart. I tried for a good bit of an hour just trying to take the leg apart to get at the city based on the scans and all I really managed to do was get the gray piece of the front of the leg off, but couldn't get at the screws in the back of the leg. The turret and other piece covering the screws are glued in pretty good and I'm afraid I'm going to stress the plastic or break something entirely if I try any harder. I've pretty much given up on painting the city at this point which I would have loved to do.

[kyekye]

Man, I don't know how you managed to get those pieces apart. I tried for a good bit of an hour just trying to take the leg apart to get at the city based on the scans and all I really managed to do was get the gray piece of the front of the leg off, but couldn't get at the screws in the back of the leg. The turret and other piece covering the screws are glued in pretty good and I'm afraid I'm going to stress the plastic or break something entirely if I try any harder. I've pretty much given up on painting the city at this point which I would have loved to do.

I know exactly what you mean.

Now that I think about it, I must have been possessed or something. What was I doing with $400 toy..

I had a number of chilling moments while I was doing it.

BTW, Check out what I found! Link

Probably it's not that bright, but it might work for me since I have 0 experience with these kind.

[charger69]

Are you gonna put some light in the city section??

It's quite challenging man!

[kyekye]

Are you gonna put some light in the city section??

It's quite challenging man!

Just checking possibilities for now. Never used the lights in the models, but 1/2000 model by 'vf_1s' sure looked nice!

For 1/3000 model, there is some space under the city and behind city just enough for 1X AAA battery.

It doesn't hurt to get one light kit and check the size and flexibility of optical cable. If it doesn't work, I can use it somewhere else later.

[kyekye]

Adding details to the ARMD. Actually Yamato did a pretty good job with all details and panel line on ARMD. Things missing are mostly short antennas and Numbering on the panel. ('01' and '02' decal would've been a nice touch. Yamato?) I think I have left over decal from somewhere though.

So I drilled pinholes with pin vice and added a bunch of 0.5mm diameter rods. I thought about tapering the tips, but I will end up getting poked by it. So instead, I rounded the tips with a file.

Circled areas now have antennas. The lengths are not in sync yet. I'll need to cut them in better lengths, prime them and glue them tomorrow.

Going to bed now..

[macrossnake]

Another wonderful work from MW member. Can't wait to see you finish the whole project.

[94medition]

Wow, another amazing custom sdf-1 WIP! The magnet for the bridge is brilliant!

Where did you get the Photo Etched parts? Is 1/700 the right scale to use or you just pick the ones that same to match of the scale of the sdf-1?

I will definitely closely follow this thread.

[kyekye]

Wow, another amazing custom sdf-1 WIP! The magnet for the bridge is brilliant!

Where did you get the Photo Etched parts? Is 1/700 the right scale to use or you just pick the ones that same to match of the scale of the sdf-1?

I will definitely closely follow this thread.

Thanks for your nice comments.

I'm using "whatever photo-etched part I think will fit". some are from 1/700 scale ship, but others are something else. For example, the bridge detail part I'm using is some German pilot belt buckle.

[kyekye]

Not much to post today because I repeated the same thing I did yesterday on ARMD-2

Thou I still managed to prime the metal parts and glued them on both ARMD 1 & 2.

All the metal tips are rounded - to protect my fingers . Also added some more antennas on the bottom as well.

While I was waiting for the metal primer to dry, I made a dummy VF-1 with putty to check the size. 1/3000 of 14.23M = 4.74mm Hmmm...That's too small . I'm not sure what to do about it yet.

[derex3592]

this thread should be under the Macross PORN heading ......wow...great job so far!

[wm cheng]

Hey KyeKye, that looks amazing!! You guys are fantastic - now you've pushed me from just a oil-wash of a toy to a bigger and bigger deal I'm trying to not turn this into a model (as I don't have time for a full build) - but you've convinced me that this toy deserves it. I love your ideas. Still gotta find a few hours to sneak in.

What do you use to cut your brass wires? I hate doing it because it makes me think I'm mangling my sprue cutters and ruining the cutting edge.

That Valkyrie is insanely small. I'd love to see what you use to build it up - let alone paint it. Great work so far. When you put it together again, are you going to putty and fill up the seams?

[vf_1s]

Just checking possibilities for now. Never used the lights in the models, but 1/2000 model by 'vf_1s' sure looked nice!

For 1/3000 model, there is some space under the city and behind city just enough for 1X AAA battery.

It doesn't hurt to get one light kit and check the size and flexibility of optical cable. If it doesn't work, I can use it somewhere else later.

You can go the easy route... When I was in HK this Christmas, I picked up some 1/100 gundam saber hilt that lights up (led with watch battery). It is small enough to fit onto the celing of the 1/3000 city. I think you can buy them online. Let me look for you...

Here are the pics and video

http://jqmodels.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/beam-saber-hilts/

Here is where to order them:

http://www.gundampro.com/it_beam_saber_for_pg.php

[kyekye]

Hey KyeKye, that looks amazing!! You guys are fantastic - now you've pushed me from just a oil-wash of a toy to a bigger and bigger deal I'm trying to not turn this into a model (as I don't have time for a full build) - but you've convinced me that this toy deserves it. I love your ideas. Still gotta find a few hours to sneak in.

What do you use to cut your brass wires? I hate doing it because it makes me think I'm mangling my sprue cutters and ruining the cutting edge.

That Valkyrie is insanely small. I'd love to see what you use to build it up - let alone paint it. Great work so far. When you put it together again, are you going to putty and fill up the seams?

Oh Boy.. I've done it now

I would still say that 'parts separating' was 90% luck and 10% skill.. every time I got to the 'glued' parts, I closed my eyes and prayed...to Captain Global!!

I use just regular small wire cutter for brass rods (.020-0.51mm - got it from floral/craft shop! ) Drilling holes on the edge with pinvice was quite a job itself.

For small scratch build parts, I use Mr. Epoxy putty (strong) or MoriMori. I prefer Mr. Epoxy Putty for easiness, but takes 6-24 hours to full hardening while MoriMori only takes about 30 min.

[kyekye]

You can go the easy route... When I was in HK this Christmas, I picked up some 1/100 gundam saber hilt that lights up (led with watch battery). It is small enough to fit onto the celing of the 1/3000 city. I think you can buy them online. Let me look for you...

Here are the pics and video

http://jqmodels.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/beam-saber-hilts/

Here is where to order them:

http://www.gundampro.com/it_beam_saber_for_pg.php

Wow! Thanks!!

That looks awesome!

It seems like it's sold out almost everywhere. After some more search, I found other one at G-System shop.

Although my first idea with that fiber-optic light one was slightly different.

Here is a section view of my crazy idea

but I can't tell until I see the product, so LED light saber will be a great back up plan!