I put off posting about this since I didn’t want to jeapordize by bids on eBay, but somehow I missed the slashdot post Bandai SpaceWarp Rereleased in Japan back in December, but a random eBay auction led me to discover it’s release.
This “toy” was made back in the early 90s and I had always wanted one. Well now thanks to eBay, I finally get to play with one. Two, actually.
A few more pictures of the Spacewarp 5000 here, but I’m still trying to get my loop-da-loop working :-/
July 21, 2005 at 9:22 am
I need more pictures!
How many miles have you stretched the track so far?
September 1, 2005 at 8:21 am
Check this out:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurence/38796066/in/pool-make/
October 25, 2005 at 11:28 am
I just took home a ‘limited edition’ black Spacewarp 5000 level 3 from Tokyu Hands (Y 5250). Unfortunately the instructions are in Japanese of course but its way more than thei gaijin can read. I gotta find out if the track gets cut and how long? I realize its gotta be cut because at the diverter (?) there’s 6 ends also theres a bag of about 10 track connectors.
So far though assembly has been straightforward and pretty easy. Ahh but the track’s the thing I think
December 22, 2005 at 2:39 pm
The biggest question to be answered, is…. can you buy accessories like in years past???
December 24, 2005 at 10:44 am
the track cuts are still in question. anyone out there have this answer?
and has anyone out there been able to convert the japaneese manuel to english??
February 23, 2006 at 5:10 am
http://www.angelfire.com/journal/scottmills/SpaceWarp/spacewarp.html
Maybe this can help…
i’m come from taiwan
tracing any thing about spacewarp on the web…
April 13, 2006 at 7:12 pm
i bought my spacewarp 5000 and 10000 here
April 13, 2006 at 9:00 pm
Ok so i just got the spacewarp 10000 and first of all yes – the track has to be cut i know the instructions are in japanese but you can find measurments if you look for the numbers and convert them to inches on any converter on the web.
I am a dentist in NY, i have been building models my whole life, i have hand skill – this think is giving me a run for my money – the loop de loop x4 has had me stumped for about 2 weeks, my fingers are numb and my track is getting scratched to hell. I am sure there is something in the instructions that i just cant figure out – PLEASE HELP SOMEONE PLEASE…..english translation
February 25, 2007 at 11:12 pm
We have come back from Japan with a Spacewarp 10000 – has anyone managed to convert manual to english. The above site was not quite comprehensive enough!!! We would appreciate your help
April 26, 2007 at 11:26 pm
the above site is good, but just doesn’t seem to have the Spacewarp 10000 instructions. Help me out.
August 11, 2007 at 1:27 am
hi
cant find anywhere the 10000 instructions in english
if i do get them i’ll put it up
but if someone has them please please let us know
August 15, 2007 at 8:58 am
I had an original Spacewarp set 30 that went wayward by means of a yard sale. I’ve regreted it ever since… until now! I’ve recently purchased the Spacewarp 10000, direct from Japan. This is the second Spacewarp set I’ve owned since about 12 years ago.
I am pleased to see that the plastic pieces are much more flexible. and the elevator is improved, but seems a little wobbly. I havent started the track yet so maybe it’s what keeps it stable. The track arm assembly is much more complex that the original. My thumbs are sore from assembling these… i’m not complaining since these little guys seem a little bit more user friendly when it comes to making adjustments.
Sadly there isn’t any instructions in english to my knoweledge yet, but I can shed some light on certian issues some may have if these newly, Japan-only released sets.
The track does for sure get cut, but from past experience, I found it better to work with two seperate runs of track at the same time, not cutting until you adjust banking and such, and until you reach the end of the run, such as back to the elevator, to a “gimick” or a switch. I suggest using a ball to test the track just prior to cutting it. The 10 little track connectors are for splicing track that may end up being too short, especially useful if you decide to change the layout from the pre-designed layout, (your track lenghts will change and you will have to re- cut some track or add to).
Loops are the hardest to get to work properly. And this set has a quad on one side and another single loop on the other. As the instructions illustrate, keeping the loop as semetrically circular is ideal. This is the key to a sucessful loop. As simple as this sounds, it’s quite difficult to achieve sometimes. Plastic tends to relax over time, and has a “memory” when bent to far. Make sure your inital drop keeps a smooth transition into your loop, (no sudden dips, slight turns, bumps or near-horizontal runs just prior to the loop. The very bottom part of the drop needs to match the adjacent loop track. What I mean by this is that if you look directly at the loop from the side, you’ll see the ‘O’ of the loops with the bottom part of the drop matching the bottom part of the “O” perfectly. It will resemble a perfect ‘d’ shape, but tilted slightly at a near 45 deg. You want to match the representation given in the instructions as closely as possible.
I hope this helps!
August 17, 2007 at 3:14 pm
I have sucessfully completed every layout according to the instructions for the Spacewarp 10000. I will gladly help anyone who is having trouble with the Japanese only instructions. The Quad loop is very difficult to figure out since the illustrations are not as cleas as I would have liked. It took a while to figure this out…
October 19, 2007 at 5:31 am
A question for someone who has finished building Spacewarp 10000: was there enough track? If I add up all the track lengths as per the instructions, it adds up to more than the 15,000mm which is supplied (15K per reel, but you need 2x since you lay a dual track). What am I missing here?
October 28, 2007 at 12:59 am
I’ve seen this set about 20 years ago, it also had a Ferris Wheel Model, I never had that chance to buy one until now, my question is how does the new ones (Spacewarp 1000/5000/10000) compare to the old ones (Spacewarp set 10/20/30/40). Is the construction and parts better, they look the same in pictures. Any info would be appreciated.
October 29, 2007 at 2:14 pm
My story is the same. Built the Black Wolf back in ’88 or so. 20 years later stumble across the Spacewarp 10k on Ebay. This was the best eBay find ever. If anyone is interested this guy is a top notch seller. I used the buy it now, pay pal’d, on Oct 25th and received the kit on Oct 29th.
Seller name: minorinminorin
http://cgi.ebay.com/Spacewarp-5000-BANDAI-Space-Warp-5000-Japan-direct_W0QQitemZ130160367491QQihZ003QQcategoryZ19015QQcmdZViewItem
October 29, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Since this post has the most comments on my blog, I decided to make a flickr group for all you Spacewarp lovers: http://www.flickr.com/groups/spacewarp
Go join and add your favorite Spacewarp pics!
October 30, 2007 at 8:15 am
[...] Since my post about the Bandai Spacewarp 5000 is one of the most commented posts on my site, I thought it would be a good idea to start a Bandai Spacewarp Group on Flickr even though I never actually finished putting my two sets together. [...]
November 5, 2007 at 12:19 am
Bought one from Japan (Spacewarp 5000), also received it within a week, great seller. Started building it this weekend, even thought instruction are Japanese,illustrations are great and self-explanatory. I wonder if we can get additional parts or do we have to order kits at a time. Will post pictures when finish.
November 16, 2007 at 2:32 am
Hey all!
I’m yet another person who had a Spacewarp set a a kid and loved it. Thanks to a recent trip to Japan I have a spanking new Spacewarp 5000 kit to build.
One of the things I remember about building the original was having to wrestle with the plastic track. It was always too stiff and would never do what I wanted it to.
Does anyone have any suggestions for softening the plastic to make it easier to work with? I was thinking a soak in hot water, leaving it in direct sunlight or maybe even a short zap in the microwave.
Thanks!
February 1, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Is there any place to get extra spacewarp track? I just purchased a 10k off ebay, but I don’t want to follow the instructions, just build my own. Unfortunately, I think all the fun is in building and rebuiding, and I’ve already wasted a bunch of track with various trial-and-error (aka: fun). So I’m going to need more track to finish and certainly once I tear it up to build it bigger and better. Where can I get it?
thanks!
February 22, 2008 at 1:47 pm
This guy has a lot of information,
http://www.angelfire.com/journal/scottmills/SpaceWarp/spacewarp.html
Here is his solution for track.
This place has replacement tubing, it fits but is a little on the loose side . You may also be able to find it at your local auto store, just ask for oil pressure guage tubing.
http://www.summitracing.com
ATM-3226 12 Ft Nylon Tubing 1/8 Inch Diameter $7.95
ATM-3223 6 ft., 1/8 in. nylon tubing with ferrules, and fittings for mechanical gauges … $5.95
ATM-3222 Nylon Tubing 6 ft 1/8 Inch Diameter With Ferrules $5.39
Provided By Ken Rolston
The search continues for a more suitable replacement
March 12, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Hi,
Should I buy a Bandai Spacewarp 5000 or go for Bandai Spacewarp 10000? Money is not an issue but I want to know what are my chances of completing the 10000 set. We (my 10 year old and I) have never assembled Bandai spacewarp before but have had a lot of fun building K’nex sets (big ball factory, roller coaster etc.).
Regards,
Saurabh
March 12, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Hi,
Can you also indicate how many hours/days it took to assemble the 5000 set and 10000 set respectively? Thanks.
Regards,
Saurabh
July 18, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Hi,
i had the black wolf coaster, and I never got all those gimmicks to work off of one motor. So I never really finished it. I assembled the spacewarp 10000 in one day. I was hoping it would have taken me a week, so I was kind of dissapointed. I actually found the hardest part to be the single loop, the space over there gets pretty cramped, the quad loop only took me an hour to lay out and havent had to tweek it since. The only problems I’m having now are those teeter totter things, having to keep adjust them every so often, and on the elevator, if a ball comes in as an other ball is passing on the adjacent side, it gets knocked off. I’ll probably just have to slow everything down.
Shaun
August 14, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Depending on how much experience you’ve had with building these in the past, they are always fun. The 5000 took about 2 weeks maybe 1 hour a day, in the japanese manuals just convert mm to inches and measure/cut. The 10000 is a beast to reckon with.. the 4 loops are *very* difficult but the coaster has some neat features/tricks like the old black wolf chime. I’m about halfway done with the 10000 but would not recommend it as your first spacewarp.. try the 5000 or an older set 20 or 30 to start. spacewarp desktop is an awesome new addition that comes with 5 glow balls and 4 steel balls and a switch in the back for night operation/UV LED.
August 18, 2008 at 3:48 am
I have bought for my children one set of Bandai Space Warp 5000 from Japan on August 2008. The manual is in Japanese language. I thought that it is possible to complete the toy with the help of pictures. But now it is not possible. Can somebody help me sending a manual in English ? I would be grateful. My e-mail address is given below.
Alamgir.Rahman@kafcobd.com
September 13, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Hi was wondering what the difference between spacewarp and spacerail are. I have seen both advertised and they look the same but in different packaging.
Does anyone know if they are compatible?
Thanks
November 4, 2008 at 5:12 pm
I just finished a SpaceWarp (SpaceRail 231-3) 5000 last night. I ignored the lengths to cut them and just ran each rail from the roll. I would leave it a couple of inches long to have room to play with it, then roll the ball down the track. At each connecting point I’d adjust it ’till the ball ran fine, then do the next. When I’d get to the end, I would trim the last bit off. I never had to use any of the connectors, there was plenty of track. It took me around 6 hours total. The instructions weren’t in English, but I found them pretty easy to follow. The two things I did that really helped: before I put together the elevator, I took each piece and shaved off the edges left from the mold. I also HAD to take apart the diverging piece to shave off the mold edges and lubricate it, it did NOT work out of the box.
Scott
November 12, 2008 at 3:11 am
SpaceWarp is the original, and SpaceRail is the cheap chinese knockoff. The SpaceWarp kit has better quality control (no mutant pieces), and slightly better engineered binary switches. I had to file down some pieces from the SpaceRail kit to get them to fit properly. Other than that, the two kits are identical, down to the track layout (there’s gotta be a lawsuit brewing there…). If you’ve got the bucks, get the SpaceWarp.
December 10, 2008 at 12:16 pm
i bought the spacewarp 5000 and i didnt put the loops in cuz it was such a pain in the ass, i was losing my sanity, i went the simple route, yet its still awesome to watch the marbles go down the track, i love it, im looking to buy the spacewarp 10000 to get a taller elevator and make it more kickass, after 2 days of tweaking it works, but sometimes the balls fly of the track, i highly suggest buying this awesome toy, but cant get past the fact that there are kids that are 12 years old building this, im 28 and i felt retarded watching the youtube videos of it and i couldnt get mine to work right, damn you science.
December 10, 2008 at 12:33 pm
i cant find anywhere to buy a spacewarp 10000, somebody please help
December 19, 2008 at 3:40 pm
hey,
i just got a spacewarp 10000 level 5 and the directions are in japanese. does anyone know a website where i can get the english directions?
January 5, 2009 at 7:09 am
Spacewarp 10000, you can purchase on ebay for $60 US… i just finished building my 10000, actually not hard at all… currently, im buying another 10000 to add onto my current 10000 and build a 20000… i love building this thing, really fun. but yah, if you need any help at all in building it, feel free to shoot me an email at paylowboy1@hotmail.com… i’ll be glad to answer any of your questions, such a measurements, curvatures, bending, shaping… loops especially pissed me off but i’ve figured out the easiest way to go about making it happen…
January 10, 2009 at 7:04 am
I’m 30 years old, and had the pleasure of seeing one of the older model spacewarps in action when I was a *young* kiddo’. Of course, they were tougher to find new then, so I’ve never (until now) had the pleasure of building one myself. What a great throwback! Ooh, and look up Spacewarp on wikipedia.org for a bit more info…
Question: I’ve seen a bunch of remarks about measuring the length of rails before cutting on this thread, and thought I’d ask for one more possibly salient detail before I start chopping away. With the 5000 set, how much rail is left over once you’ve finished building, when you use the provided measurements exactly/build it without measuring at all? Does Bandai give you any extra to work with?
Thanks for the feedback, and happy spacewarping!
February 3, 2009 at 1:01 am
Does anybody know if crossties are available in bulk? I have a couple old Spacewarp 20′s and have been going through the old brittle crossties like sunflower seeds. I’m actually at the point where I’m ready to recast some in vinyl just to keep my addiction fed. My goal is a Spacewarp 1,000,000, running for miles and miles and miles and driving me utterly crazy, so I’m gonna need LOTS of crossties! LOTS and LOTS I tell you!!! MUAH HA HA HA HA!!!!
February 4, 2009 at 7:03 pm
is the spacerail any good ? the spacewarp is about twice as much with shipping
February 6, 2009 at 10:10 pm
I have two Spacerail Lvl5 and i’m dying to find out the difference, “is the price worth it?” My motors in the Spacerail are noisy and has a inconsistent sound they spool up and down, the rod are very thin gauge they bend very easy, and that’s if there not already slightly warp out of the box. The Rotating mechanism is not very consistent, the 2nd doesn’t work at all I was lucky to have one that worked.
I’m thinking of ordering a SpaceWarp out curiousity,
I would like to built x8 together.
see below my Spacrail…
March 2, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I also would love to know if the “Space Rail” Chinese knock-off is any good, but I can’t say.
HOWEVER, I do have a BUNCH of old Bandai SpaceWarp which I assemble from time to time, so I am familiar with the assembly issues.
First: Working with the rails: The lengths suggested in the instructions are good, they will leave you with a few extra inches; not much waste but you won’t come up short. As far as the coil stiffness, find some place you can stretch them out (a warm attic is ideal, but who has that…) and leave them that way for a few days. You can also GENTLY warm them with a hair dryer, even loop each strand over a tree limb with a small weight attached to the ends and leave them out in the sun, again, for a few days. HDPE (the type of plastic) has a good memory, but it is rheolastic, a fancy word for saying it will change it’s shape over time.
Second: There is no easy way to assemble this stuff, you have to wrestle with it, fiddle with it, have a ball handy to test each section, give yourself a week or two rather than a week-end. Try not to tell anyone what you are doing, or they will pester you endlessly. (SpaceWarp is universally fascinating).
Third: The ^@&#@! brittle cross-ties. I confess I have considered getting Space Rail just to get more cross-ties, but I’m not sure they would be better. What I HAVE done, with some success, is repair the ones I have. Go to a good hobby shop and get some ultra-thin Cyano Acrilate adhesive. Get the low-odor type, make sure it is suitable for ABS plastic. Go through your cross-ties, GENTLY spreading the two rail clips on each one, and if you see any sign of a crack, add a tiny drop of glue. Once they actually break in two, they are nearly hopeless.
Also: Get a very small flat mill file (an emery board will do) and file the tops of each rail clip on every cross-tie so they don’t have to spread so much when you snap them onto the rail. You can also prevent breakage by sliding all the cross ties onto the rails endwise, but THAT will truly try your patience.
It is actually all worth it. The great fascination with this toy is not the gimmicks, or even the loops. It is the hypnotic randomness of the motion. The goofy flexibility of the rails and framework means that even though it should all be predictable, it isn’t. True, hit the switch, and all the balls rise in line and begin to roll, evenly spaced like soldiers in lock step, going left-right-left-right through the switch and down each predictable course…and then the logical pattern disappears within seconds. Why? Because the momentum of each ball distorts the rails and framework, affecting the motion of all the others. I have never seen any machine that so effectively generates complex random motion.
I have put these things on display at parties and meetings and trade shows. People are universally mesmerized; they all remark how extraodinarily relaxing it is to watch, even for just a minute or two.
March 4, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Thanks for the notes, I’m pretty happy with my spacerail I guess after reading your comments. It’s seems like I have the similar isues, I guess they are somewhat similar quality “I think” keeping in mind that spacerail is half the price.
May 28, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I got me a spacerail 3 today… Built it in one afternoon. was fun. I paid 7 USD for it knowing there was a part missing. andone know where I can ger the elevator worm? I have started making my own worm will see how that pans out. using clay to mold it over a rod then going to sand and coat it with fiberglass resen – the fiberglass…. I may just be hooked going to have to buy the top of the range now.
June 11, 2009 at 2:28 am
I just bought Space Warp 5000. I built it in one evening however my finger tips became quite tender. Even though it is a genuine Space Warp, I’ve found a few (not all, by any means) of the problems people have mentioned previously about SpaceRail. Otherwise it’s been a great fun to build. I remember my father had one when I was a kid (~1995) and I tried to build it but gave up. I’ve considered buying the 10000 but I just found a 15000 level 6 SpaceRail (presumably there’s also a Space Warp somewhere) on ebay.
July 28, 2009 at 6:18 am
Hey guys,
Just to say that my theory is this…… I think bandai are selling off their stock (you don’t see much space…WARP now) It was always made in china FOR bandai.
I have a feeling that this company in China has now set it’s self free!! (along with much of that economy!) Obviously that company can’t call it spacewarp becouse of copyright,so that’s why we have spacerail.
As some have said, the thing that is now missing is probably quality controll…….!!
However,if the only BIG difference is that you need to do a bit of trimming of moulding flashes etc, maybe it’s worth it, becouse of its favourable price.
November 7, 2009 at 11:01 pm
I have an original Spacerail 10000, but the container that contained the steel balls has been lost, and I’d like to purchase some ball bearings to replace them. Can anyone tell me the diameter of the original steel balls (marbles)?