Yamato 1/3000 SDF-1 Unpainted Assembly Kit (Limited)

<When Yamato released of 1/2000 SDF-1 Macross Transformable Prototype Replica Kit in June 2010 with its shocking price of SRP 200,000 Yen, there will no way I will paid that price for this flying fortress which I still need to assemble & paint myself. With patience I wait & in December 2010 Yamato again brought us 1/3000 SDF-1 Macross Transformable, which this time is fully painted & only minor assembly of turrets & screw caps are required. From others bloggers, the call this labour of love from Yamato which using the data collected from 1/2000 kit & making few adjustment to bring out this huge flying fortress to us. Yet the price do really setting me back from getting it at SRP 32,800 Yen (there are discount once awhile up to 35% off).

Well, I wait again hopefully for a bargain of 50% off until in May 2011 Yamato release another version of 1/3000 SDF-1 Macross Transformable Unpainted Assembly Kit DX Ltd. with SRP 15,800 Yen. From the name itself, this kit is unpainted & we need to assemble ourself or in another words this is a model kit. There are some picture of the SDF-1 from Yamato promotional web-site.

I grab some of the pictures from Yamato Online-Shop & post it here. From the pictures it show there are additional part for us to assemble the battle damage version (at least that what it seems for me with the damage main cannon) & also metal detailing.

I put in some consideration & finally I ordered one from HLJ. The only shipping method I can have is EMS due to the price of the product & also the size (Which cost nearly 5000 Yen). Anyway, it still cheaper & I do enjoy assembling process of a model kit. This can be said as killing two birds with one stone.

It didn't take long for him to reach my place (in 4 days) in a huge package. I try to weight the box of this fortress, it weight 2306g (no kidding, 2.3kg which burns a hole for shipping). There is nothing to brag on the packaging as it is not appealing at all (Printed in black & white). Maybe the guys from Yamato may forecast us to throw the box away once we assemble the flying fortress.

Once I uncover the box, I find the instruction & assembly manual packed together with all the decals (metal, glow in dark & perhaps water slide type decals) on top of all those runners compactly packed with one layer of bubbles wrap (when I say compact, it really do). There are even "01" & "02" decals available for the arms which missing in the assembled unit.

Well, it may seem not that much runners in the box. If I them spread out in my living room & this is what I get (and I spend sometime to arrange the runners back to the box so that I can close the cover).

These are the die-cast parts for this model kits. Only for the joints.

As per promotional web-site, there are the additional parts for us to assemble the battle damage fortress & I also find out in the metal decals there are the tiny little VFs.

Upon checking through the runners & manual (satisfy with the contents), I put them all back in box. Waiting for the time to come for me to put them into pieces (I do visit Yamato web site to sneak & peak on some master in working up for this model kit). Considering at least 17,000 Yen cheaper in compare with assembled SRP, I think this is still worth for purchased in conditions you would like to customize this fortress anyway (in some forum I do see modeller even install lighting to the city), you enjoy the assembling process, you would buy it & get someone else for commissioning works & last but not least the extra Yamato throw in such as additional parts, metal decals, glow in dark decals & wet transfer decals details which are missing in assemble unit.