Misaligned Forks on MR Millennium Falcon.

S

Samson

New Member
Hi people.

I just joined this forum today. And I have been waiting to join for a while now, for simply asking the following question.

I know that the Master Replica Millennium Falcon is old news to everyone here, but I only got mine 6 or 7 months ago. I have read much on this forum about the Mandible problem only after I purchased it.

However, my problem is not the Mandible problem ( the way it is defined on this forum ). My problem I have seen on two other Falcons and I want to know if others have it too, and I'd like to see some pictures.

The problem is this. If you look at the Falcon as though it were flying directly towards you, with zero degrees with the vertical, the headlights pointing straight at you, you can see that one of the headlights and in fact the entire fork it is attached to is lower than the other.

I am new to this forum and I will attempt to attach a photo. The photo is not my own Falcon. It is another, yet the problem is the same. In the pic you can see the fork (and headlight) on the right is noticeably lower than the other. This is #124 of 1500.

Is this normal ? Are all MR Falcons like this ?
I would like to see some pictures in this pose and know the number of 1500 or 500.
 
I don't know if it's normal, but mine is like that. I was too lazy to look into exchanging, and it still bugs me.
 
Hey, at least both of your mandibles light up. My poorly painted example had a light fail juuust as the company crapped the bed.
 
The one in the pic is not my Falcon. Mine is #890 of 1500, and as far as the problem is concerned, it looks exactly the same. The headlights in the pic are not on. It is just a reflection from the camera flash, but my headlights both work because I try to avoid ever turning them on. Sorry yours failed. Don't try to fix it, you will damage your falcon and it will look even worse. In fact it would be better to get the other one to go out and leave only the engine lights. " Treadwell ", if yours is like that too then there seem to be many of us with this problem. It bugs me too, but because the Falcon is displayed on a slant it is not evident unless you look at it carefuly head-on. So don't let it bother you so much. But the rest of my Falcon is perfect !! and I am very satified in every other way! This is my most loved piece, ( let alone how much it cost me ) !!
 
i have #6 and the forks are nearly in line with eachother,they are slightly off...
 
Mine are pretty darn close to being in line. Definitely doesn't look like that pic above.

Although on mine the front piece on the left mandible is placed on slightly crooked. One of these days I'm going to see if I can pop that piece off and reglue it...
 
I had an AP - it was my second.
Even that had various noticable issues.
My first had forks which were not evenly spaced apart from the nose.
 
wasnt the orignal film model scanned to produce the MR version.
and parts where ID by some falcon modelers,i think one of them was moes?

that could explain the forks issue,the mr falcon was produced for the 30th anniversary of ESB.
time sure does things to models.
also maybe MR's molds worn fast or some just got careless with building them.
to my knolidge the plaque # you get with youre prop doesnt mean that youre prop was made in that sequence.
for all i know my falcon could be #101 made and got plaque #6 of 1500 in the end.

a lot af falcons got paint issues too.

but still its a great piece to own with all its defects and inaccuracies.
 
Howard said:
I had an AP - it was my second.
Even that had various noticable issues.
My first had forks which were not evenly spaced apart from the nose.
Click to expand...


I can explain the missaligned Mandibles.....


Bad craftmanship... and i mean it.

A product like this, the patterns should have been made so all peices were cast in shape to fit in place without sliding all over the place before glueing. The fact this mandabile issue has a reacuring problem in a large percentage of the products, dictates two issues.

1] The main chassi patterns were not completed properly

2] Or Pure lazyness in rushed construction, due to the amount they were producing.

These were constructed by hand once the peices were all cast.


I mean to say, judging by the actual picture at the top of this thread, how on earth could the products and standards guys signing it off "Miss that". It stands out like a sore thumb. This problem should have been noticed on the production line once the electricts were placed and chassis completed. Leave te time consuming job of putting all the hundreds of bits of detailing on it, after the mandabiles were placed, and your telling me the guy that was sitting directly in front of the model with his face to both mandabiles while he places the 1/12 Fararri engine parts on the tips of both mandabiles, that he didnt notice, one of them lower than the other by over half and inch. And thats without the other guy standing with his face int he same spot to paint those areas.
Any model maker or even unqualified person would have spoted that a mile off in the long lengthy process that is took to put the armature together, place the electricts, complete the chassi, and arguously place all the countless detail, and the length over all painting process, which did have to be signed off, and not 1 person took a direct front view to see if it was right.

Yet its was sent out for sale.... $2225

Pure lazyness.



Jonathan
 
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JoslinFX said:
If it is, then my MR Falcon is inacurate, cause my Mr F's Mandobiles are perfectly straight, and all the lights still work fine. lol
Click to expand...


I don't think the original is skewed from pictures I've seen of the ESB prop, though I could be wrong.
 
could be a distortion when the pieces of mandible have come from the mould? ie basic warpage in the part and


sucky QC before being sent out

or, could it be droop of the part? I understood MR used some sort of resin polystone type product so surely that shouldn't happen?
 
Colin Droidmilk said:
I think I read somewhere that this problem exists now on the actual prop..?
Click to expand...

If this is so it is interesting and relieving to know. But I have not seen any pics of the actual 32 inch ESB prop taken from the front like that. The only pics I've seen are from


http://www.halstensen.com/


try this direct link to Falcon
http://www2.hit.no/tf/forskning/kjem...lcon/index.htm




Having said that however, I don't think this is the case because some people have Falcons with the Forks perfectly aligned. Like Heimidal has.
In fact I have seen a pic of your Falcon Heimidal. You have #269 of 1500. It was your pic that made me post this thread. After seeing your pic I realized that not all Falcons had this problem, so I wanted to see how many did, and why. And if some were worse than others.
I am even attaching the pic of your Falcon I had seen.


However, the photo I posted at the top of my post is exactly what mine looks like and I have seen one other that is also exactly the same. This leads me to believe that these were probably not built by hand but manufactured and put together by machinery, probably moving quickly down a conveyer belt assembly line. And QC probably only viewed them from the top as they moved quickly down the conveyer. This would explain why many of our Falcons have exactly the same fork misalignment on exactly the same fork and by exactly the same amount.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Actually, I'm not surprised this type of detail is missed. I've been to many model shows and seen plenty of models (aircraft mainly) where they look bang on from the top and the side, but sight down the front and you see one wing higher then the other or the tail section off as well (along with splayed out landing gear and crooked tires). It happens with model makers MORE often then you might think. As such, I can see how this would be missed. Of course it isn't an excuse, but it is aggrivating to have to deal with the it when one factors in what these beasties cost.
 
It wasn't laziness.

And I can assure you, they don't make models on a conveyor belt in China. That one almost made me spit my tea. :lol

I have written about this many times before, but I will do the condensed version as I don't feel like writing the same thing all over again...

Each Falcon model has about 1100 separate parts. Each model was built by hand by a small team of model-builders. I spent many weeks in China working with them over the years. Some of their model builders could run rings around us. They got mad-skilz :lol

It is just that after they make so many of them, it is hard to keep up the quality. I am not defending that, I am just saying it is human nature. I know *I* wouldn't want to have to build and paint 1600 of these things for about $10 a day pay.

1600 models (including APs, R units, samples, etc) times 1100 = 1,760,00 individual parts that had to be hand assembled to get the run done.

I betcha that if YOU had to assemble 1.7 million parts, you might had a few flubs here and there. :lol Stuff happens.

Again, not defending them, your model should be PERFECT for the money you paid, I agree with that! In a perfect world, there should not be ANY defective product shipping out to customers. As a consumer, I am right there with ya!

I am just saying, that if you know anything about production engineering...statistically, there WILL be flawed units. It is a fact. EVERY company that produces large quantities of items overseas will have defective units. You just have to factor that the returns into your P&L.

I have bought electronics products from multi-billion dollar companies (Like Sony and Kenwood) that were defective right out of the box. Does that mean they were "lazy"?

There are a million variables that the parent company (Like MR, or Sideshow, or Gentle Giant or Sony for that matter) cannot control with overseas manufacturing. How the product is produced on any given day...how it was handled....did it get bumped before the glue was dry?, what mood the QC guys were in that day, etc. ONE defective solder joint can kill an entire circuit of thousands of good joints.

Most of the factory workers in China probably haven't even SEEN Star Wars, and we want them to make a PERFECT copy of the Falcon as it appeared in ESB. That is really hard to do. It took about 18 months of research, planning, design, review, etc, to even get the models started.

I know the paint quality varied a great deal, but I understand why. I completely repainted/super-detailed my model and it took about 60 hours to get everything the way I wanted it. A factory CANNOT take 60 man-hours to paint each unit. (that would be 96,000 man-hours). They would go out of business and/or it would take 16 years to get them all done. Compromises have to be made or the models would just not get done. That is a fact of life.

Yup. Some of the headlights are not working. That sucks. It shouldn't have happened. No excuse there. No idea what happened. I really have no idea how the mandibles would be crooked. The model was designed with an internal skeleton that runs throughout the structure to act as a support, so that nothing sags or moves. It may have taken a big jolt somewhere before it got to you. Maybe the freight company dropped that particular cargo container that day? I dunno.

I DO know...Everyone on THIS side of the ocean cared VERY, VERY much.

So, to just make blanket statements like..."It was laziness" or "It was the conveyor belt" or "Most of the models are defective" is just dumb.

Did you poll every one that owns a model and ask them if they were defective? THEN calculate the ratio of defectives to non-defectives, to determine that "most" of the models are bad?

Because 10 or 20 people say they have a problem, doesn't mean that MOST of the models are bad. I know 50 people who have perfect ones. (Mine is fine). That still leaves 1500+ models unaccounted for.

And I still can't say that "most" of the models are perfect. I know there were very few returns, but even with THAT data, I cannot make a definitive, statistical statement as to the ratio of bad to good. There simply isn't enough data either way. People may have had defective units and just didn't feel like returning them. Too many variables. See what I mean?

I am just saying...you may want to avoid making claims with no real data to back it up.

My .02 wupi-upi.
 
My mandibles are not misaligned when viewed from the front. Definitely a quality control issue when it was built if they are that far off.

Dave
 
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