No more shart stains

 

First ark wouldn't hold together in any way, shape, or form. Realized it's because the yellow clips that the grey rectangular piece on the back of the ship tabs into were broken off. Back end of the ship wouldn't come close to closing. Ordered a replacement. Back of the ship holds together much better but the grey plastic rectangle won't tab into those clips. Already seeing stress marks in the yellow plastic from trying, so decided to shave down the grey plastic. Mixed results. Still won't tab in, even after taking layer after layer off. Feels like something is pushing the grey rectangle piece back up, but it seems like the issue is a little warping on that piece, not the tabs. Going to try coming up with a homebrew fix for this connection.

Second mainframe was a floppy mess, second sky spy was a floppy mess, but the ship itself is much firmer.

 

o0 That's not something that I ever expected to read.

o0 That's also not something that I ever expected to read.

If you mean that the entire light grey plastic clip assembly on the perineum physically slides up and down, I think they are all like that by design to help with the alignment and alleviate stress. Once you take that section apart, you will see that there is dead space below and above where the retainer piece slides in so that it can slide up and down. There is enough range in movement for it to almost certainly be intentional rather than "opps we did the wrong length".

 

The flat gray rectangular piece with the two tabs is slightly twisted, so one side tabs in properly but the other does not and keeps popping apart. It also seems like the two tabs on the gray piece were too wide to fit within the two yellow tab sockets. It's an awful connection design, I wish they had thought of something better.

 

"How many times did I tell you, we needed locking mechanisms on The Ark . . ." - an exasperated Robert Muldoon

Ah ok, I can see that as that piece is kind of thin IIRC (I don't recall it being thick when I stripped down my first copy). It probably would have worked better if they were separate pieces and the perineum had a dividing "wall" between them in the retaining section as well as the exterior. A single rectangular cutout and a single piece with dual clips screams "we need to cut the budget and labor/assembly costs".

There was way too much free space on the light grey clips and/or the tabs for them on my first copy so it wouldn't grip which resulted in issues similar to what you are facing since not gripping at all means the legs pull away slightly from the rest of the alt mode which creates chaos.

The clip system is OK but, it's an extremely important connection point and you can't have lackluster QC/QA on something like that without a redundancy system (e.g. swing out clips like 1Studio's Cell/Unicron has but those can also be extremely problematic if the tolerances are too tight). All they really need to do was:

Have the forearm sections (the ones with the dark grey paint and the cannons) "hook" to the leg instead of having a painted tab slide in a notch.

Have the dark grey hinged piece tab in like it does but also have the legs tab into it towards the middle.

Have a stronger connection system at where the legs peg together in the middle and at the back (the section you can see when the ramps are down).

Have a swing out latch system at the very back of the alt mode. Something was clearly supposed to go at the back of the alt mode at some point because, the notched area back there has grooves molded into it like another piece was supposed to fit in (honestly why else would there be a notch there instead of the plastic running all the way across with additional connection points?).

 

Heavy/Scratch: - folding panels for Ark

Been working on this for the past few days, non-partsforming, folding covers for all the ship gaps. Latest version helps hold the ship together too.

 

While I feel like most people have had this for quite a while, I just got my email from TFSource that theirs is in stock.
It's about time. Now it's just a matter of time to get this in hand.

 

Please send link when you get this squared away. Sweet job dude!!!

 

Thanks - link is in the customs thread, first post.

Or right here.

Download STL file Ark - folding side fillers and tower filler • 3D printable model ・ Cults

 

Yeah, I'm gunna led the head too. The eyes need it.

 

I really wish the ark could have been painted up better to match the way he looked in the Kingdom show.

The Toyhax Labels did do what I thought they would and lets face it, Hasbro made it look very Dullsville.


My attempt at a Netflix WFC Kingdom Ark Bash.


Can anybody tell me how to make mine more like my digibash? I have zero clue how to paint things.  

Yo @process, what do you think man! you think it's doable?

 

That's a great bash. I think the dark orange paint apps would complement the peach orange plastic much better than the few spots of yellow. It's definitely doable, but if you're unfamiliar with painting I strongly suggest practicing on something smaller before jumping into such a large project.

From personal experience, painting can be very frustrating. You would most likely be using acrylic paints, which are forgiving in the sense that they only require water to thin and can be easily removed with isopropyl alcohol. The downside is acrylics are not very durable, which I think is a negative on something that you would be manipulating, i.e. the paint apps would be prone to scratching. It's for this reason that I don't usually paint my figures, unless the paint is naturally recessed and unlikely for me to touch.

 

Ah. I see. Hmmmm...

what to do. crud I just DM'ed you before coming to this thread. sorry man.  

 

So TFSource finally got theirs in. I got my copy today! I don't know why but when I first looked at this and pre-ordered it, I knew it was gonna be big but now that it's here, it's much bigger than I anticiapted. Only down side I have to complain about so far is that those plastic flames that they provided are kinda crap. Mine don't fit in the designated spots at all. Guess they'll go back in the box... Saw someone earlier posted a 3D printed post to attach the satellite to teletran-1. I'm gonna work on printing that in the next day or two. Now the fun part is to figure out where to put this in my collection. Haha!

 

That's a blessing, you would have eventually left them in for too long on accident and they would have started absorbing the paint from the engines as well as bonding to the paint and/or the plastic.

I really wish someone would start printing and/or casting rigid blast effects since they would circumvent the issues with rubbery plastic while looking better/sharper.

 

I have the same issue with mine. I can't get the top two tabs under the gray square part to stay tabbed in along with all the tabs your showing staying slid into their proper spots.

 

That's how my first copy was (which are what the pictures were taken of).

Are the the clip pegs/posts on the legs clipping into the light grey clip system on the perineum (the underside/bottom of the pelvis/crotch) in the alt mode? If they aren't it's not ever going to have the popper tension for everything to stay together at the same time. There might be other issues as well but, that needs to be ruled out first because it's crucial that the clips system is working.


My replacement copy is a beast (I did have to swap some superficial parts out like the nosecone since it was warped, the spire/tower door, the port side landing gear, the Golden Disks, and the probe's solar panels) other than the very back bottom/edge/undercarriage not wanting to stay together. Everything else though is firmly connected, so much so that I can grab the alt mode by the forearms to pick it up or put it down or hold it and everything stays together. I don't have to worry about holding it in the same place in the same way on both sides nor being gentle nor inertia nor weight distribution nor anything else. I have moved it around several times and transformed it off and on and is still stays together in the alt mode even just standing on a shelf with the nosecone pointed to the ceiling and the rear of the alt mode on the shelf. That hinged dark grey square piece absolutely will not come untabbed unless I physically untab it.

 

Ha! I'm jealous! Mine isn't that solid! Can you take a pic of the area your referencing so I know I'm looking at the exact right place that your talking about? No rush on that. But I'm interested to see if maybe I missed something or maybe have something not sitting right. Who knows, haha. I followed the steps exactly in the instructions, well, backwards anyhow.

Edit: I think it was your post but I also tried the whole pressing of the gray tabs down while lifting up the back part of the ship. That actually did help and most things are pegged in.. I mean, it's not solid like you say yours is, still jealous, but it works.

 

That was another user that suggested lifting up on the legs while tabbing the hinged dark grey square piece into place. My replacement copy doesn't really require that but, it does ease the tension in other areas when doing so.

I'm going to be lazy and use screen grabs from the PrimeVPrime's amd EmGo's video reviews for the clip system:




*edit*

Those need to completely clip in and, the legs need to stay completely against the perineum without assistance from anything else since the forearm tabs only tab in to the bottom half of the legs in alt mode. It wouldn't be a big deal if the "tabs" on the forearms in the dark grey paint actually tabbed in or hooked instead of just sliding into a notch but, they don't and that hinged dark grey square piece is never going to be able to keep the legs pulled against the perineum.

*/edit*