This was bound to happen...gray market VF's?

[505thAirborne]

24 minutes ago, sjoebarry said:

JUST RECEIVED MINE FROM SHOW-Z

they did a nice job packaging (plastic corner protectors).  one tiny rip in the cardboard box though;

Just the box alone looks awesome, I hope mine was packed that securely. My "Not Jetfire" just left customs in Chicago this morning, should be in Kansas later today. 

@tekering So did you just get one of these or are a few more on the way?

[Pontus]

50 minutes ago, sjoebarry said:

 

OMG, thank you for posting this picture.  I know this is going to sound silly, but I normally don't pay much attention to transformers so this is the first time I've seen this package since I was 6yrs old when I was so excited to get this exact packaging (except I remember it with foam instead of a plastic tray) as my "one big gift" for Christmas that year!  I'm a little choked up seeing it actually. 😊 The funny part is that, until I came here and started looking into the history of Macross (which I didn't discover until my mid 20s), I never realized that I've actually been a Macross fan since I was a young kid.  I dabbled in Robotech if I happened to catch it on Saturday mornings at Grandma's house, but I never got into the story and was only into it and transformers for the jets (Top Gun had a much bigger impact on me).  I didn't really want any of the toys except this one.  Anyway, back to your regular, scheduled programming... 

[sjoebarry]

Anyone know what this is even for?

[Dark Skull]

7 minutes ago, sjoebarry said:

Anyone know what this is even for?

Ah the tech spec reader! Use it on the back of the packaging where you see that graph. The clear red hides the "red lines" so you can see the blue line better.  The graph I'm talking about should be on the lower left hand corner of the back according to all the pics of the back I've seen Still waiting on mine to come in.

A nice callback to the old G1 Transformers boxes for them to include that   

 

Edited August 27 by Dark Skull

[Dark Skull]

@sjoebarry

[Radioguy]

4 hours ago, sjoebarry said:

JUST RECEIVED MINE FROM SHOW-Z

they did a nice job packaging (plastic corner protectors).  one tiny rip in the cardboard box though;

All my previous ShowZ purchases were packed similarly. This is why I was so shocked by the earlier experiences here.

[sjoebarry]

3 hours ago, Dark Skull said:

Ah the tech spec reader!

Oh my gosh I completely forgot about that. Man that was almost 40 years ago for me with those G1 toys. Wow!

[spacemanspiff]

Unboxing:

 

[tekering]

2 hours ago, spacemanspiff said:

Unboxing:

That was NOT an unboxing. 

The toy remained in the box. 😅

On 8/28/2024 at 3:24 AM, 505thAirborne said:

So did you just get one of these or are a few more on the way?

As a non-canon scheme I don't have the space to display, I'm not even sure why I ordered even one, truth be told...

...but seeing as I'm the only one to have received such a damaged box, maybe I'd have better luck with a second. 🤔

It may be my only recourse, since Show.Z has ignored my complaint so far. 😐

Still happy with the toy, though! 👍

[Dark Skull]

4 minutes ago, tekering said:

That was NOT an unboxing. 

The toy remained in the box. 😅

As a non-canon scheme I don't have the space to display, I'm not even sure why I ordered even one, truth be told...

...but seeing as I'm the only one to have received such a damaged box, maybe I'd have better luck with a second. 🤔

It may be my only recourse, since Show.Z has ignored my complaint so far. 😐

Still happy with the toy, though! 👍

I got mine coming in from Ali Express. I'll let you know how that turns up when I get it.

[Chronocidal]

If the tracking is accurate, I should be getting one from ShowZ tomorrow, so will compare notes then.

[sh9000]

Too bad this didn't come with TV arm armor.

[danth]

13 hours ago, tekering said:

Damn that's a sexy butt shot. Not helping me wait for mine, which is supposed to arrive tonight!

I used to stare at Jetfire from this exact angle as a kid. All the nozzles, the feet, even the exposed hands, it was pure eye candy. Having a Yamcadia version is going to be freaking bananas.

Do we have an official nickname for knockoff Arcadia/Yamatos? Fauxcadias? Yamockos?

[505thAirborne]

If I've ever ordered directly from these guys before I don't remember, so we'll call this the first time & the verdict is, pretty damn good packing. I like the little corner protectors, that's a nice touch. Overall, no damage and my "Not Jetfire" box is in solid condition.

Man, it's 1985 all over again & I love it. I think I've told this story before (Sorry if it's a repeat). Back in 85 a week before my birthday I was at a Mervyn's dept. store when they still sold toys and there were stacks of Jetfire's, I wanted one so bad. My Mom told me, wait & see what happens on Christmas (I was still at the age of, is Santa real?). 6 days later on Birthday I unwrapped my box & it was a Transformers Jetfire... still the best gift ever! 

Seeing this box art, the toy, the armor, man... actual happy childhood vibes today. 

Apologies in advance for all the pics. 

 

 

[sjoebarry]

Aren't there supposed to be peg holes in the Arm Armor that the leg pegs go into?  because mine don't have that.  just friction holding the arms between the legs right now

[spacemanspiff]

5 minutes ago, sjoebarry said:

Aren't there supposed to be peg holes in the Arm Armor that the leg pegs go into?  because mine don't have that.  just friction holding the arms between the legs right now

You might have the arm armor on the wrong arms. The are left and right versions. You can tell if you can hold the gun pod in jet mode.

[Chronocidal]

Yeah, I'm stupid happy that this exists.  First copy from ShowZ arrived today.. amusingly, the upgraded version with the stand, which I ordered very close to release, rather than the one I pre-ordered months ago.

As someone who was barely too young to see the original G1 toys, it both floors and cracks me up that I can just have this on my shelf now.

Box got a little crushed in the back, but mostly in good shape.  Packing was the shipping box, wrapped in bubblewrap, and covered in a bag.

I can definitely see little bits where the KO production lacks in refinement, but it's a solid toy.  Wings are a little loose, but not bad, and everything fits together decently.

One thing to keep in mind is that this mold still has the issue with the booster packs pressing on the tails, and forcing them to unfold a little.  I messed with some of my original Yamato packs, and filed out a cutout to allow the tails to lay more flatly, and avoid them bending, but they don't seem as tightly nested as the Yamato mold.  They're definitely pressing on the packs a bit, but the tails don't seem to be bending, and it helps that I'm not worried about them pressing on the spinal antenna and scratching the tails.

One interesting feature, was it mentioned before that they added a steering nosewheel strut?

One other note, the red parts are mostly molded and painted red.  The flexible parts like the booster mounts and arm clips are bare plastic, as well as the backsides of the leg packs, but the outer surfaces are all painted.

Edited August 30 by Chronocidal

[mikeszekely]

Mine should be here tomorrow.  And due to peer pressure, I bought a Valk... but it's a Hi-Metal R VF-4G, so probably not a great comparison.

I got a G1 Jetfire, now, though, and I'll use that with my review.  Unfortunately the vertical stabs broke.😭

[Chronocidal]

6 hours ago, sjoebarry said:

Aren't there supposed to be peg holes in the Arm Armor that the leg pegs go into?  because mine don't have that.  just friction holding the arms between the legs right now

Just saw this, and I don't actually think this was ever part of the Yamato design?  It doesn't need the pegs to hold the arms up, because they're solidly clipped in under the backplate.

[Radioguy]

Gundamit.

This is what I got. Yes, it seems my Jetfire was impaled like a vampire.

Waiting on ShowZ to say what they'll do about it. Truth be told, care was taken with packaging. Some postal employee must have seen a full moon or something. I haven't opened it further than sticking my finger and wincing at the damage I feel.

Still waiting on a standard edition, but God knows how that'll arrive...and yes, this is after receiving that broken VT-1 from Luna Park.

Ya know, I actually broke a mirror a couple weeks ago, come to think of it. I'm sure that has nothing to do with this...right?

[Dark Skull]

1 hour ago, Radioguy said:

Gundamit.

This is what I got. Yes, it seems my Jetfire was impaled like a vampire.

Waiting on ShowZ to say what they'll do about it. Truth be told, care was taken with packaging. Some postal employee must have seen a full moon or something. I haven't opened it further than sticking my finger and wincing at the damage I feel.

Still waiting on a standard edition, but God knows how that'll arrive...and yes, this is after receiving that broken VT-1 from Luna Park.

Ya know, I actually broke a mirror a couple weeks ago, come to think of it. I'm sure that has nothing to do with this...right?

Pretty sure it had more to do with walking under a ladder.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, Radioguy said:

Waiting on ShowZ to say what they'll do about it.

I'm sure they'll take care of it, one way or the other.  ShowZ's got good service.  But that's still a major bummer.

[MKT]

Enjoying all the pics posted here, thanks everyone for posting them. The paint app doesn't look shoddy at all and pretty decent. Had to smile a bit on the tech spec reader bit, nice callback to when these were actually promoted as cool gimmicks.
 

5 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

One interesting feature, was it mentioned before that they added a steering nosewheel strut?

 

  I remember in an early review of the Valkyrie Factory VF-1, the reviewer pointed out this feature, so looks like it carried over here. 

[mikeszekely]

Doesn't look like I'm getting mine today.  USPS been drinking or something.

[Radioguy]

I hope they didn't give you someone else's tracking number.

[danth]

I got mine!

It looks amazing. I have to fix some things -- one hand cover has come unglued from the hand, meaning it can fall out of the arm. Easy fix I hope! Just need to go buy some glue.

The other hand seems to have some buildup inside causing the forearm halves to separate slightly. You know the two pegs that go into the wrists? One peg is hitting something. I might need to drill it out slightly. I need this too look perfect from behind...as it is, there is a millimeter gap between the two forearm halves.

@tekering's pics make this thing look larger than life. It seems almost small in person! Plus I've gotten used to the 1/48 size I guess.

[danth]

50 minutes ago, danth said:

The other hand seems to have some buildup inside causing the forearm halves to separate slightly. You know the two pegs that go into the wrists? One peg is hitting something. I might need to drill it out slightly.

Update: Fixed! I drilled into the hole carefully and eventually the whole bit of offending plastic flew out. I guess a bit of flashing was stuck in there.

[danth]

Can anyone recommend a glue for the hand cover? I assume this thing is ABS. I've searched the forums and for toys I see people recommend regular Krazy glue or super glue. I have some Duco Plastic Model cement but it's for polystyrene.

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, danth said:

Can anyone recommend a glue for the hand cover? I assume this thing is ABS. I've searched the forums and for toys I see people recommend regular Krazy glue or super glue. I have some Duco Plastic Model cement but it's for polystyrene.

The best would probably be that epoxy that comes in two tubes that mixes together or a cyanoacrylate glue + activator like Loctite Plastic, but that's probably a bit messy for a smaller job.  Tamiya makes a cement for ABS, but I'm not sure where you'd find it at a reasonable price.

[Chronocidal]

Little update/summary, now that I've opened up both of my copies, and had a chance to mess with them.

All in all?  Pretty solid.  Definitely not the level of polish you'll find in the official releases, but nothing is outright broken or non-functional.  Some of this might have been mentioned about previous Valkyrie Factory releases, but I never picked up any of those releases.

The main things I noticed, both positive and negative:
1. The arms are probably the source of the vast majority of what I would label "problems," and they're not insurmountable, just a little annoying.  The shoulders are insanely tight out of the box, and the first thing I did was spread the shoulder covers slightly, and slide them off so I could loosen the shoulder joint screws.  As a reference point, I loosened them to the point that they were level with the actual shoulder block, since they had been massively tightened down.  Even loosened, they are generally very squeaky, probably due to different materials used for the friction pads.

The elbows are also a little bit troublesome, but in opposite ways on the opposite arms.  One the right arm, the first elbow joint is fine, while the second ratcheted bend is incredibly stiff.. while the left arm's second bend is decently clicky, but looser than the first joint.  You can tell there's some sort of assembly issue going on with that joint on the stiff one, since the arm halves aren't quite pressed together all the way.  I'm hoping the glue on these will pop easy enough to just pull them apart and reassemble them better.

Lastly, the hands are really stiff to pull out, and the covers tend to flop open pretty easily.  Pretty minor, but you may want to just leave the hand mounts rotated out and swap in posed hands instead.

2. I did remember it being mentioned that the chest plate locks into the backplate much more solidly on these, and takes more force to pop loose.  That's easily fixed by filing the tabs under the chest panel down so they don't lock into the shoulder tabs so solidly.  Doesn't change how solid it is in fighter at all, since the chest is locked between the back and the nose.

3. The feet are kind of interesting.  Not a problem, but they seem to have a different ratchet behavior than the originals, with one more click of spread to them,

4. You may need to file the tabs of the small boxes that snap into the backs of the legs to mount the fast packs, since they look oversized, and are really difficult to snap on or remove.

Overall, just a really solid and entertaining release.  It's also really funny to say that the box is one of the best parts.  They absolutely went above and beyond to replicate the original G1 box, and I find it hilarious that the original G1 box contents description is still pretty accurate, because the fast packs still use nine pieces.  

Being honest though, I do wish they had left off the UN SPACY markings and kite logos, just to make it easier to customize.  I'll leave one in its all of its mashup glory, but I intend to convert one into a more accurate Autobot scheme.  I won't be replicating all of the stickers or anything, but just removing the text and kites, putting Autobot logos on the boosters and canopy cover.  What's slightly annoying is that some of the paint isn't actually black, it's some sort of dark metallic, so it might be tricky to match.  I was able to strip the skull off of one of the canopy covers very easily with a gundam marker eraser pen though, then buffed the plastic clean.

I might get creative, and pull a few parts out of one of my unbuilt kits to replace the arms, and maybe start with a set of bare wings and tails, but we'll see.

[mikeszekely]

Mine arrived today, the after arriving at my local hub for the third time.  Took me all day to transform him into robot/Battroid, because that chest is scary tight, so I haven't even removed anything but the figure itself from the packaging.  Full review soon-ish in the 3P Transformers thread (because to me, this is Missing Link Jetfire), but everything @Chronocidal said is ditto for my copy.

[Dark Skull]

13 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Mine arrived today, the after arriving at my local hub for the third time.  Took me all day to transform him into robot/Battroid, because that chest is scary tight, so I haven't even removed anything but the figure itself from the packaging.  Full review soon-ish in the 3P Transformers thread (because to me, this is Missing Link Jetfire), but everything @Chronocidal said is ditto for my copy.

If it makes you feel better, I had a package one time coming from NY. It got to my hub earlier than expected, then went back to the state hub. All in all, 7 times with the back n forth just so they could meet the "Expected Delivery by" date. It was so funny I had to screenshot it. My FG-01 is now in Los Angeles...so I'm hoping I won't have a repeat of that 

[sh9000]

The 2024 Transformers x Macross Collaborative.

[twich]

Mine Arrived today, only was able to get the outer plastic bag packaging off of the toy.  The toy box is in pristine condition and the extra accessory box was also pristine.  I look forward to when I am off of my work so that I can dive into this.  My son is really excited about the old school transformers packaging and thought it was cool when I told him that it was exactly like the Jetfire toy that I had as a kid.

Twich

[Chronocidal]

2 hours ago, Dark Skull said:

If it makes you feel better, I had a package one time coming from NY. It got to my hub earlier than expected, then went back to the state hub. All in all, 7 times with the back n forth just so they could meet the "Expected Delivery by" date. It was so funny I had to screenshot it. My FG-01 is now in Los Angeles...so I'm hoping I won't have a repeat of that 

So, if you ship things via FedEx, they do this on purpose.

FedEx offers different tiers of shipping, with different delivery priorities and speeds.  So, if you pay for the cheapest version, they're under absolutely no obligation to deliver something before the expected date, regardless of where that package is coming from.

When I ordered the monitors I have on my current computer, they were shipped from a warehouse about a two hour drive from my house.  They arrived at my local FedEx office the day after I ordered them.

I then watched the tracking information tell me that the trucks were driving my monitors around town for two days without delivering them.

I called them on this.  They told me they were "not due for delivery."  I had a lot of choice words for them about the entire situation,, and then drove to the local office, and just picked them up to end the stupidity.

Anyhow.. Back to Jetfire-related things.

So, I had one amusing success.  A quick gundam eraser application took off the UN SPACY label from one of my leg packs without really touching the undercoat.  Awesome.

Tried that on the second one.. and the paint came off in the reverse order.   The black stripped out from around the lettering.  In the end, I stripped off the entire stripe, and now have that one prepped to spray.  I don't know if I'll try and strip the black off of the second one, or just spray over it, but I'm betting it'll have to be stripped down to get a good coat sprayed.

We'll see how it goes.