Hi all, new member and collector here. I've had the C07 box set for about a week now, from TFSource. Order to door took only two days, good work there. Then they lost points for shipping a box that was damaged sometime between warehousing and final packaging. Both the Toyworld outer and inner boxes had a huge puncture wound, like it bounced off the corner of a steel cube or something. Fortunately, there was no internal damage to any of the bots, so whatever.

Moving on to the bots themselves:

First of all, all decos/paint are amazing across the board. Might be toeing the line towards too greebly, but they look great to me.

Bulldozer - My favorite. So close to the mythical zero-kibble bot. One Toyworld QC issue, though, two protruding metal posts in his right arm kept his hand assembly from flipping inward to transform. A few minutes with a Dremel fixed that. Also, the fold up tips on the shovel don't tab in well with the backplate, and there is some flash in the bucket that should have been cleaned up.

Unearth - Toyworld QC department strikes again. Hip joints have already gone floppy. Also, his hand rotation is too tight, I just broke one of his thumbs off. I also wish there was a tab in the forearm flap to help keep his wrist straight. Even with the loose ball joints, he stands and balances well considering the weight of his tail, though. My main issue is in combined mode, he feels really unstable when manipulating the right shoulder joint. Oh yeah, I also dig the real treads for him and 'Dozer.

Burden - Okay, does anyone else think his ankles are too weak? I'm also lamenting the too-tight thigh swivel and the too-loose, almost spinnable waist. In fact, I thought he completely lacked a thigh swivel until I checked a few videos. My Burden's thighs feel like they'll break when you torque them. The neck joints are just as worryingly tight. Otherwise, he looks good in both modes (as long as you don't look at the rear axle area), with a tremendous linebacker vibe going on in bot mode.

to be continued

 

Welcome to the forum and congrats on your new hobby

 

I'm giving serious thought to selling off the 5 bots I have from V1 Constructor. Due to a dodgy retailer I was unable to get Unearth, so my Devy has been missing his right arm for months now. Trying to source a lone Unearth is proven to be problematic. Nothing on ebay, no BST threads here or elsewhere. I pre-ordered from RK as they claimed they'd be receiving individual bot's, but pretty sure that's not happening either.
Don't get me wrong, I totally dig this guy, but I'm honestly unsure when or even if I'll be able to complete the set. With FT one day delivering their take on Devy, I'm thinking it may be worth cutting my losses and moving TW's on. I can always look at re-buying the combined set later if I change my mind.

 

Yeah I don't envy anyone who's still trying to complete an individually released v1 set, I don't think I've seen the green v1s in stock at any of my sellers all year. You'd indeed be better off selling them and waiting for a potential super good deal on a complete v2 set I reckon. But eh FT will probably have a prototype of their dev next year and he'll obviously pander hard to anyone who wants super toon g1 dev.

 

That's what I'm thinking. I'm happy with Constructor but would also like a more toon version from someone like FansToys.
The worst part is I have to try and dissemble those super-tight V1 hips, and transform them all back into vehicle mode to pack them into their boxes for sale. Sigh... that aint gonna be fun.
I figure the scarcity of solo figures may even mean I get back close to what I paid for them. Would be nice if I didn't lose too much money.

 

That's the situation I'm in. I started grabbing all the V1 TW bots, and I never grabbed bulldozer or unearth. So I'm missing 2 important bots. I bit the bullet and purchased the V2 set. I'm ok with it, as I don't mind having doubles (combined and bot). But I am pretty upset that I don't have those bots. Hopefully Zeta-Ex will re-release those 2 figures! I don't sell my figures, so keeping my fingers crossed.

 

I was in your same situation, I found on Facebook Sarah Zhang, she provided me bulldozer and unearth without the original coloured box and without instructions, but I have managed to complete my v1 devy.

 

Did you happen to pay with Paypal or even a credit card? If so, why not escalate through them and return it and order the set from someone less dodgy?

 

If you don't have all 6, you're going to have a insane amount of work trying to move 5 of them at a decent price. I'd advise you to keep looking for Unearth. Otherwise, you might sell Bulldozer alone, but the other 4 aren't really going to sell.

 

If you're willing to invest the time to learn Taobao, and it ships to your country without using a middleman, you can get it for a reasonable price ToyWorld 变形金刚 TW-C02挖掘机大力神 绿色原色初版配色-淘宝网 About $70 US with out shipping but if you're really keen to complete the set, it might be worth the investment in time. I 'learnt' Taobao from the thread here. Haven't looked back since, even got my Constructor v2 from there. Good luck

 

EDIT: Okay I just pried really hard and it came off. Pretty scary....

Okay, help an idiot out. I can't seem to figure out how to swap the face on V2. Looks like I should just be able to pull the face off and be done with it but mine doesn't budge. I even opened up the head to see if I needed to do something on the inside and I got nothing....

~Paik

 

Definitely do this. It isn't too hard with google translate. Just be prepared to call your credit card to let them know it isn't fraud.

 

Hmmn Thanks for all the advice. First off - no way to return the set. I actually purchased TW-C01 when it first released as a "test" to see whether I wanted the whole set. Was happy with it and proceeded to buy TW-C03 though C06, but Unearth had sold out. So I pre-ordered that from another retailer and was waiting for one to become available. Shit happened, the pre-order failed and I did eventually get my money refunded but have been unable to source another copy of Unearth. I've had the other 5 for well over I year now I think, while trying to track down Unearth. The relative scarcity of individual G1 constructor bots, V1 or V2 had me thinking I might be able to sell them off to folks who want to fill a gap in their collection, but you're right, I'd probably have at least one or two which fail to move. I'm tentatively interested in FT's take on Devy as I generally like there stuff and a more G1 version would be appealing. Dunno. I guess I'm so deep now with Constructor I might as well keep going.

I have been meaning to investigate Taobao - I did a lot of homework into buying direct from Japan to try and pick up the Takara Tomy Store exclusive coneheads when they were first announced - but then the figures became more widely available (and it turned out they were shit-house figures anyways) so I'm not opposed to trying the TaoBao route. Knowing I might be able to pick up Unearth and finally finish this behemoth makes that even more tempting. Time to do some heavy thread reading I guess.

 

Silly question.

So it looks like I'm the owner of the "Green G1 set"- how do I tell if its V1 or V2?

 

Thigh color, head sculpt, or Concrete's barrel color.

Green thighs and purple barrel is V2

 

V2 also has a missile / gun out the right side of Constructor's head and has lat fillers for constructor, as well as platforms which double as a bed cover in Alt mode for Burden.

 

I couldn't find concrete information on the sets with the retailers, and didn't want to scroll through dozens of pages to unearth the answers. You need a bulldozer to get through all these posts! I guess the search feature may have been a suitable allocator.  

Not knowing which set I owned wasn't a huge burden- though I had to know for sure! Didn't mean to shovel the work onto you.  

Thanks for the info! Heh. Looks like I own V2.  

 

You sir are a great thread post constructor. Sorry, couldn't resist  

 

Thanks! I do my best to contribute in a fun, positive way. Toys are too awesome for negative posts.

 

If you feel lost trying it out on your own, you can use an agent like taobaoring. You can just provide them the url and they’ll communicate with the seller for you. They’ll check the merchandise and send pictures so you know it’s all there before they ship it to you. Costs more but you won’t have to worry about translation issues.