Arcadia 1/60 VF-19 Custom Nekki Basara Special with Sound Booster

[Chronocidal]

Just got my Arcadia gold-plated Fire Valk in, and doing a quick compare, I can't really see much difference up close in the red plastic.  It's a little darker, maybe?  But I actually wonder if that's just the color fading over time, since all of the colors on the new one seem a tad darker.

Except for the bright orange paint on the shoulders and backplate.  That's identical on them, and a terrible match on both versions.  

Otherwise, looks good, and glad to have a shiny one.  Will probably display this one in battroid to hide the fugly canopy.

[sh9000]

I hope the HG kit and inevitable HMR and DX don't come with yellow canopies.

Edited January 27 by sh9000

[Lolicon]

2 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Just got my Arcadia gold-plated Fire Valk in, and doing a quick compare, I can't really see much difference up close in the red plastic.  It's a little darker, maybe?  But I actually wonder if that's just the color fading over time, since all of the colors on the new one seem a tad darker.

Except for the bright orange paint on the shoulders and backplate.  That's identical on them, and a terrible match on both versions.  

Otherwise, looks good, and glad to have a shiny one.  Will probably display this one in battroid to hide the fugly canopy.

Same. Got my Yamato for fighter mode. 

[davidwhangchoi]

I need arcadia make the rest of sound force please to go along with fire valk

[Sandman]

On 1/19/2024 at 10:24 AM, recon said:

Sill prefer the yammie color scheme. Its strange that to this date, arcadia does not want to reissue the VF-19A/S and VF-17D/S and also with the current advancement of technologies, tampo print all their valks instead of putting them under PF line with some fancy shading, weathering and panel lining

They were shelf warmers so i doubt they'll reissue them. Which is too bad. I was never able to snag a VF-17D. 

[recon]

On 1/28/2024 at 4:41 AM, Sandman said:

They were shelf warmers so i doubt they'll reissue them. Which is too bad. I was never able to snag a VF-17D. 

Lets hope bandai takes up the torch and releases them under the DX line

[Chronocidal]

5 hours ago, recon said:

Lets hope bandai takes up the torch and releases them under the DX line

Just being honest here, I don't want Bandai's fingers anywhere near any new VF-17-based release.  I don't want any more valks exploding from their idiotic design logic, and I would not be even slightly surprised if any new VF-17 from them would have all of the same problems as the 171.

[Sandman]

On 2/11/2024 at 4:00 PM, Chronocidal said:

Just being honest here, I don't want Bandai's fingers anywhere near any new VF-17-based release.  I don't want any more valks exploding from their idiotic design logic, and I would not be even slightly surprised if any new VF-17 from them would have all of the same problems as the 171.

Didn't the same designer work on both the VF-17 and Vf-171?

[Chronocidal]

8 hours ago, Sandman said:

Didn't the same designer work on both the VF-17 and Vf-171?

If they did, it has to come down to the different specifications that Bandai and Yamato had for their designs, because the two could not be any more different in execution.

Yamato's VF-17 is very pointy, but it is an absolute unit of a chonky valk that is deceptively simple in its function, and feels rock solid in hand.

Bandai's version is the most overcomplicated and overengineered pile of self-combusting explodium I've ever seen.

Edited February 13 by Chronocidal

[treatment]

Yeah.

Same design team (T-Rex).

However, two completely different Engineering-Teams  to execute such design:

Yamato-Toys vs Bandai

 

 

 

[Lolicon]

So sifting through the pile of parts that used to be my two CF 171s, I pulled out the black shoulder triangles to see which ones were usable. Out of the four, one was outright broken apart and the other three were cracked. The cracks seemed to follow the swirls in the plastic, so I'm thinking Bandai cheaped out somewhere along the production line, since this was just a "reissue" of an already proven toy (Alto's 171 had already come out).

So yeah I wouldn't be surprised if Bandai hired T-REX and received a fantastic design from them, only to bork it up somewhere along in production.

[Chronocidal]

Assuming you mean the upper triangles that sandwich the shoulder joint, and not the lower ones?  The fact that there are two sets per valk has always been a small point of confusion.

Judging by the way I saw my upper ones break, I'm not sure if it was related to bad plastic, bad assembly, or a combination of the two.  What I think happened with the upper triangles is that the assembly line took a shortcut, and instead of screwing the shoulders together around the ball joints, they screwed them together, and then jammed them over the ball.  The actual process of getting those parts together is a three-handed job, so I can understand why they would use the shortcut, but it caused a lot of the parts to crack.

The lower triangles are just a nonsense design to begin with.  Expecting something that fragile to survive shoving a metal spring pin into was too much to ask, especially if the plastic was already flawed.

I did have some success repairing a broken pair of those though.  It came down to extracting the spring pins, then carefully gluing and sanding the parts back into shape to slide on one another correctly.  Afterward, I replaced the spring pins with a section of insulated wire the right thickness to fit.  The rubber coating wound up providing a nice amount of friction in the rotation, without stressing the parts.

All things considered though, those parts should be discarded entirely, and replaced with something that isn't so fragile.  I came up with a rough design for a replacement that copies the design from the Yamato VF-17, but have never gotten around to making a set to test, since I didn't think my filament printer would be up to the task.  After those VF-11 intake covers came out so well though, I might give it a shot.  It might take some very fine drilling to get a sturdy hinge made.

The tricky part is probably making a part precise enough to fit in the same slot as the existing green part.  That's a really thin part, with a really small screw holding it on.  Otherwise, I think that folding panel would accomplish the same thing as the stock parts.  It might dangle down from the chest, but I think it might even fit rotating 180 degrees to fit under the chest panel.

Of course the other option is to just yeet those lower triangles into the abyss, and deal with the slight lack of streamlining.  They're small enough to kind of just overlook in the long run.  

Edited February 13 by Chronocidal

[MKT]

Quite a few Yammie VF-19 Kai popping up at Mandarake, no doubt due to the recent Arcadia reissue. However, a good number of them are having cracked elbow issues, hence the lower prices of these in the Yen 20k+ range. Rather unfortunate, and Arcadia should re-release the 19S, F, and P since they should be afflicted with the same issue as well?

But on other hand there's no telling for now if the Arcadia Kai will have the same issue down the road..

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1252369364&ref=list&keyword=macross&lang=en

 

[Scyla]

Got my VF-19 Kai yesterday and the different shades of read is stark, even in hand.

And it is not just the shoulder swivels but also the die cast spine and the brackets for the Sound Booster that are the same different shade of red. Plus the red plastic has a lot of tiny, yet visible scratches: disappointing.

Being a Macross 7 and Fire Bomber fan I am happy to have a representation of both but I feel like my honeymoon with the older Yamato/Arcadia molds is over. Also I think I would prefer the toy with yellow highlights instead of gold.

Since I had my first VF-19S in hand and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread my collection - and collecting preferences- have changed quite a bit. All the Metal Builds, Kuro Kara Kuri Transformers and Sentinel toys  have tainted my expectation of what I enjoy quite a bit.

Luckily the newer Arcadia toys seem to be more in line of what I enjoy.

 

[Pontus]

I only just took mine out of the box and haven't transformed it yet, but the shoulder hinges have a huge gap between them and the panel.  I see a bit of gap in other pics, but nothing this big.  Will those drop down if I transform it properly, or did I get a dud?

On 2/14/2024 at 10:28 AM, Scyla said:

Got my VF-19 Kai yesterday and the different shades of read is stark, even in hand.

And it is not just the shoulder swivels but also the die cast spine and the brackets for the Sound Booster that are the same different shade of red. Plus the red plastic has a lot of tiny, yet visible scratches: disappointing.

Indeed.  Although I think that different shades can look good and take away from the massive amounts of plasticky red everywhere, these just look like bad plastic.  Frankly, the whole thing is way too plastic looking.  

But I like to look at problems like this as something fun to do to make it better and, in this case, maybe learn a new skill.  I'm looking into electroplating plastic.  A little red acrylic over nickel plating makes a perfect metalic red!  I'm thinking I may try to plate some gold on it too.  Does anyone have any experience plating their valks?

[Chronocidal]

2 hours ago, Pontus said:

I only just took mine out of the box and haven't transformed it yet, but the shoulder hinges have a huge gap between them and the panel.  I see a bit of gap in other pics, but nothing this big.  Will those drop down if I transform it properly, or did I get a dud?

Got a picture?  You'll have to be a little more specific about which hinge, which panel, and which gap.  

The VF-19 mold is very susceptible to minor mis-alignments though.  One of my VF-19Fs was completely cockeyed due to a small piece of mold flash blocking one of the wing tabs from seating completely.

[Pontus]

Sorry, been working long hours and trying to ask from work.  But I transformed it and managed to wiggle the shoulder joint back down.  But the thumb joint was super stiff and broke off when I tried to fit the gun!  Yay.  And of course, no fixed pose hands.

[Chronocidal]

Oh, yeah, that's absolutely an issue.  The metal shoulder pivots really feel like they don't fit down far enough into their sockets.

For me that generally got overshadowed by how insanely mis-matched their paint is.  

[Uxi]

I picked this one up on sale at HLJ. My first since the Gullet YF-19, which is a floppy mess in anything but fighter so enjoy all the nice refinements I missed (and kicking myself for not getting the VF-19P).

Nice and tight and just completed the first transformation . Going to Gerwalk and Battroid was easy enough (forgot to do the hip button thing at first. The leg missiles are very tight and couldn't get the middle one to turn on either leg and didn't want to force it.  

Getting back to fighter was kinda hard... first the battroid hatch was open. Went back to battroid for awhile.  Had problems lining things up and one of the arms didn't seem right. Then getting the legs tabbed in again had issues with the chest locking down until I pressed and it clicked into place. not sure if that's normal but don't want to force it routinely.  Nice and tight and locked in now.  This is definitely a display in battroid valk for me.

Haven't messed with the Sound Booster at all.  I'll def get the Blazer and Zola if they're re-released, though also hoping for whale blood red P and Ravens VF-19A.