Slight thread necromancy! These are still floating around on the ebay. Received mine last week for only $16 shipped from China. I have the same issues that everyone in this thread seemed to have. The left thruster doesn't sit flush nor does the bat front against the rest of the torso. There's a stress mark in the right posterior shoulder where the thruster pack swings down and there's a bit of black paint on the left part of the snout. It looks like it was intentional, to give more detail, but there's not a matching paint app on the right. Yeah, that's a paragraph of nitpicks, but to be honest, they're pretty inconsequential. The thruster and bat front flushness isn't noticeable. The thruster can be fixed(as noted on page 1 of this thread), but its not something I feel like I need to do. The stress mark is only seen during transformation, and it doesn't appear to be getting worse despite the number of transformations I've done. I know some people had stripped and overturned screw problems, but mine's holding together quite nicely despite all the multiple transformations I've done. I had to really zoom in on the snout to find the black paint there after reading about it. It's small and hard to see. I wouldn't have noticed if I didn't go looking for it. The Decepticon tampo on mine is really nicely done. I'm really happy with the quality of this KO. For $16 shipped it was a steal. For the price, it was well worth the gamble. If I didn't have the internet as a resource and someone handed this to me and told me it was official, I'd be ok with it and attribute the aforementioned flaws to normal production runs. My only real disappointment is with TakaraTomy. For a masterpiece figure, this needed more articulation. Particularly there should have been and could have been ball joints in the shoulders so the wings could position back and forth. There's a pic in this thread a number of pages back of someone who modded this KO to have them, and its a huge improvement.
I've had no problems with my KO Ratbat, not even the alignment issues reported by some. There are no stress marks anywhere (and my Hasbro MP Seekers have stress marks all over the place, so it goes to show that KO does not necessarily = subpar quality)
I picked up the KO as well and its completely adequate. I couldn't justify Soundblaster and this fills the void nicely.
When you have the actual MP next to the KO to directly compare them the KO is visibly markedly inferior. But y'know, I have the KO but not the MP...
Has anyone repainted this to Wing Thing or Shattered Glass Ratbat? I just ordered two and plan on getting creative.
I bought one a few weeks ago. And the thruster-issue is still there. Like OP I too have no issues with quality apart from that thruster issue. Paint app is pretty nice and headsculpt looks sharp on mine. Very glad. But... How do you get the metal nails removed. And what file to use in between such a small space? I wanted to argue these mp figures are one leap forward. And transformation is quite genius me thinks. I still wonder HOW they come up with transformation-design from a rectangle to something with more posture than the bulky G1 toys. Do they use 3d sculpt software to add slice dice move around till it fits? Then you mention baljoints to give the wings more posability. SOLD!
I had two more issues than those in the original post. After sanding the back of the chest down to let it sit flat it turned out the front pins on the feet were offset making the whole piece sit at an angle. Not sure how to fix this. Much more easily fixed was how the face sat out from the chest about 1mm, which I fixed by carving out the screwhole in the chest. In theory it won't attach as well, but the screwhole was stripped anyways and it hasn't fallen off yet. His cassette mode details were really sloppy on one wing too. [Edit: I am also in the process of stripping all the paint off so I can give him his two-tone Marvel comics look]
I've had mine since it came out and has fallen off of Soundwave's shoulder numerous times. Things a tank. Probably the best KO I own. I know a lot of people got bad paint. Mines eyes aren't even painted but, the paint it does have, is spot on.
Where are you guys getting your G1 KO's at? I'm looking for genuine sellers with a good price. And good packaging so they don't arrive crushed. There are lots of scammers out there pretending to sell G1 KO's out of China.
Looks like TF direct still have them in stock. A tiny bit more expensive than ebay but you'll definitely get it. KO MasterPiece MP13B Ratbat Cassettes
Does it really need reprolabels though? The paint's pretty good, I think. I bought one of these a two years back and it's an excellent little figure. Definitely recommended. Heh, my semi-review is still above from back then.
I want him to match my other tapes. Also, unlike most tapes, he shows a lot of the tape side when in his root mode because of his wings.