Thanks for the tutorial. What a pain in the ass

 

It would have been nice if they'd offered some brand new colour options instead of straight reissues.
especially when some of the designs have a ready option to copy.

I'd not mind Megs and Optimus' swords in Orange or a more magenta like shade of pink/purple than the deeper purple Megs sword usually is. or perhaps a lemon yellow or sprayed gold or perhaps something with some metal flakes in it.

The Alpha Trion sword is something that especially could do with a number of repaints and perhaps the staff could do with another colour option too.

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Anyway speaking of weapons I recently purchased the Shockwave Labs Magnus Hammer and it's not to bad - the handle is moulded in black so no worries about paint rubbing off and the neck cuff can slide right off and be moved up and down to aid storage on a character's back or to hold 2 handed if they character holding it doesn't have open hands. It seems best sized for a Voyager. It may actually go best with non-Transformers like some of the third party toys that could hold it the best. It also looks nice with other optimus' and Magnus toys - shape-wise it looks most like Animated Magnus' hammer. I like it if they release it in another colour i'd likely buy that too.

 

Are there plans for a revised filler kit for Ratchet? You would think the Ironhide kit would work perfectly but sadly, it does not. Ratchet has mold differences.

 

I preordered a filler set on tfsafari for ratchet. It's good to know the ironhide set doesn't work as I was about to reorder that set. I initially wanted ratchet to have the thigh extenders like ironhide but I suppose it will further differentiate the two.

 

Some parts of the Ironhide set should work, One can always buy it to try and if certain parts don't fit put them on Crosshairs instead.

But there is a specific set for Ratchet on TF Safari - I just happen to personally prefer the back filler for Ironhide over the one in that set as it would allow for his back mounted tool armature to be shifted to the side with out it having to be angled - by using the new holes the Ironhide set has in the back parts. Conversely the Ratchet set has those nice foot fillers which I admit i'd rather like a set of those for Ironhide or Crosshairs too.

I may end up parts juggling - heck my Siege Hound already has 4 different kits installed on him & I already bought 3 upgrade sets for Ironhide anyway.

 

That's a good point about using ironhides back filler. I might just switch them out but that may finally force me to match ironhides gap fillers with some red paint as I believe the ratchet set comes in white.

 

I have the same Ironhide kit from Ratchet Studio too - I'm waiting for them to update it for Ratchet. I seem to remember a rep from TFSafari saying they would be doing an adjusted one for him, and lets face it, it'd be a HUGE fail for a company named RATCHET Studio to NOT provide a filler kit for him when they already did for Ironhide... Haha!

 

Ok, got the Matrix Workshop Barricade kit today (ordered from tfsafari). This is supposed to be one of their newer kits. The pegs STILL are oversized. The ports are STILL undersized. This is insane. NOTHING works out of the box. This is now the 5th kit I have from Matrix Workshop that requires (heavy) modding to actually work like it's supposed to.

I'm NEVER buying another kit from them until they can guarantee they have fixed their peg and port problems. ONLY their Jetfire ear kit actually works because it's not 5mm peg related.

@tfsafari Can you please ask Matrix Workshop to please fix their peg problems? This is nuts. I haven't yet asked for a refund but I imagine others would because stuff doesn't fit or work.

 

I agree, I went from being totally in on almost everything they're doing to not wanting to buy any more of their kits. My first and last order was about $50 for the Optimus Axe Kit, Ironhide Weapons Kit and the Springer Weapons Kit. I'm still waiting on my Springer Kit but the other two arrived to me worthless out of the box. I feel like I wasted $50 at this point. I haven't had the time to try to fix the kits I have yet and unless they step up their quality control I'll never buy another kit from them, it's a shame because their designs are awesome.

 

Ah, dammit. I wanted to order a few Matrix Workshop sets (especially the Nightbird one) but it seems like the QC is all over the place.

 

Thanks for letting the rest of us know your experiences. I agree that their designs are really top notch, but their QC really needs to improve. Customers shouldn't be expected to drill 5mm holes to make them larger and sand down 5mm pegs to make them smaller. Other than some flash that needs to be trimmed away, all of my other 3rd party accessories (Renderforms, Dr. Wu, Perfect Effect, Nonnef) have fit well straight out of the package.

 

That has been my experience with everything I've gotten from Dr Wu, DNA Designs and Shockwave Labs, all fit perfectly out of the box.

I really don't think it's too much to ask to expect things to work correctly right out of the box. TFSafari has come on here and said there is sometimes slight deviation in 3D printing but somehow Shockwave Labs and Deep Space Arsenal can 3d print stuff perfectly with no modifications necessary.

 

This is partly a consequence of 3D printing. I will say this though the Shockwave's lab stuff is also 3D printed and usually works better - but I have had issues with missing paint on their stuff (underspray)..

I don't mind having to sand the handles on the Matrix Workshop, I appreciate them offering what I want to buy (and similar people) that they are not up to Dr. Wu standards is understandable Dr. Wu has been around for a decade or so they have had time to get good.

We know that a higher res 3D printer fixes a lot of these issues, so perhaps in a while they might invest in a better machine and their products will be on a part with Shockwave's lab then. Just because something is good doesn't mean it's perfect, and also I will just say this. In many cases there is multiple options for products so if you don't like something there is often (not always) but often another choice.

I would perhaps suggest that anyone unsure - might want to wait for a review, I buy a lot of this stuff and I try to be detailed in my opinions of them when I get them so people looking to buy have an idea of what they are getting.

I wouldn't want to put anyone off buying something like the Hound Kit, The Prowl Kit or the Sideswipe Kit for the sake of some small flaws - I would however like that people are aware of those flaws so they can make their own choices on the matter too.

 

MW should at least sand the pegs down themselves before shipping to e-tailers. Customers should know well ahead of time if they have to do any sanding / modding work on what they buy. I really do like their quality of work otherwise but their peg QC is just awful. I bought most of my MW kits from tfsafari. The Ironhide kit I got for "free" off eBay after a seller sent me the wrong item; that kit was ridiculously awful in how much I had to fix and nothing fit out of the box. The rifle was also warped so bad, it almost formed a J-shape.

I posted this in the Siege thread for MW peg / port issues:

Circle pegs: You could potentially get by if you hack away at the oversized axis but leave the other one completely alone. Their typical round pegs are really 5.3mm by 5.0mm OVALS. Even if you overshoot after sanding away at the 5.3mm axis, it will still fit snug because the other axis will stay at 5.0mm (aim for 5.0 to 5.05mm when sanding). For some of their kits, this is all you would need to do and easiest to address. Flat precision file is easier to use than sandpaper.

BUT...now there's a 2nd peg variant: ~5.15 mm x ~4.95 mm. It's like they tried sorta but still can't figure out how to do a circle (? temperature / supports issue). If you overshoot sanding the oversized axis on this peg (I personally think it's easy to do at this small scale), then you will get a loose peg because the other axis is a bit small. 0.15mm may not seem big but many of my Siege figures can't handle that without some sort of stress on the plastic.

Need calipers to figure out which peg type you have.

Flat pegs: Oversized in all 3 axes. Supposed to be 5.0mm x 2.5mm but you get 5.3mm x ~2.6-2.65mm instead with the length too long. These are on the Prowl and Barricade kits. Not fun to fix. The length has to be cut down quite a bit if you want the side cannons to plug in flush into the main blaster.

Circle ports: Not much leeway when expanding port sizes. The ports on the Ironhide arm cannons are under 5mm (closer to 4.8mm). If you try to jam a regular peg in there (let alone their oversized ones), you will break or crack the arm cannons. I used a 5mm drill bit by hand and made the opening a proper 5mm circle.

Flat ports: These are the most pain in the butt to fix. Undersized at 4.8mm. These are on the main blasters on the Prowl and Barricade kits to plug in side cannons. I use a circular cone shaped precision file for that. I tried using a small drill bit before but can cause chipping on the other side.

 

New kit for Siege Apeface, 3 pieces: gun, staff/barrel and axe.

The staff and axe combine into a longer axe, and all of 3 combine into a bigger rifle, with the gun on the back, the staff/barrel on the front and the axe on the underside. It seems that the combined form could be held as a bigger axe too:



G1 Apeface for reference:

 

New rifle for Siege Astrotrain:



G1 Astrotrain rifle for reference:

 

None of the pieces work?

None of the differences looked to influence the gaps to me aside from having two fewer shoulder/bumper gaps.

 

I should have my ratchet delivered today. I don't have the ratchet filler kit yet but I will try the ironhide filler kit on him.

 

New pics of Matrix Workshop M-22 Kit for Siege Ratchet, courtesy of Daimchoc on FB:

 

Guys, we have had a discussion with MW designer today. They are checking with the factory to see where is the problem. Usually the peg may be smaller than standard sometimes but no one knows why recently it becomes bigger in some batches.

Frankly speaking in our domestic sales and other channels we haven’t receive any complaints about the preciseness of the pegs. So still we think the problem might be within a reasonable range and may not be solved due to the limitation of 3D printed material.

It is not fair to compare MW with Dr.Wu(All of their parts are molded and would be more precise in its size due to the property of the material) and Shockwave Lab (We are also selling their add-one parts, they don’t have so many add-ons with pegs，), and MW is still new.

Anyway for your bad experience（I think you all bought several sets before）, if you want we can send you guys 1 set of MW kits for free （with value below USD12）to compensate for that. Pls send email to [email protected]，let us know your ID ，which set you want and we shall arrange.

We would always support MW but we also respect all your opinions here. However there are always issues in the world that cant be solved，hope you can understand.