Pyro X-Wing build with scratched canopy...

Colin Droidmilk

I went for a scratch built canopy as I wanted another option to the kit part. I wanted a narrower front to it. So this here canopy of mine is 2mm narrower at the front of the pane. I've only done the front part so far. It's probably a bit wide at the back, though the vertical struts ARE in line with the fuse wall planes so I dunno what I could do about that... Might make another one and see how that comes out.

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jedimaster

Bout bloody time..... He he...

Colin Droidmilk

What d' y'mean? It's quick work that! A year for half a canopy, what's up with that? heh heh...

jedimaster

Stop with dem negative waves man. It's a mother beautiful canopy man.

Colin Droidmilk

Thanks! But will I get the rear half right?

Tune in again next November, lol!

ralphee

Its a couple of canopy bars.....but its the way those bars are crafted in, very nice work, love the front on pics.

lee

kh39

Hello,I'm bulding a pyro kit too.I'm happy to see the other model's build.
Your canopy looks great!
Im my oppinion,the canopy that comes with the kit is a little bit too big to the fuselage.So, I cut the frames and trimmed them.

joewhite

Double post...

joewhite

Sweet! I'll be ScrapBook'ing this thread. I was looking for an extra canopy but no luck. I'm gonna have to build a canopy for my pyro body, as well. The more pics the better, Colin, it's looking good!

Joe

Colin Droidmilk

Glad you guys like it. Thanks for the comments.

Yeah, I had a solid fuselage, which has more shrinkage than the canopy, so the two never looked right together. Also I wanted this kit to improve on the V3 canopy. Having a production-lineage fuselage, an opportunity was presented to get the best canopy yet done on an X-wing replica, for with these canopies 'tis the fuselage that makes the canopy' since the canopy geometry is absolutely dictated by the fuse geometry.

I've never scratch-built anything before so this was a bit of an adventure for me ( it may be only a coupla bars, Ralphee, but this was still difficult stuff for me, lol!). I basically drew round the kit canopy sides onto thin (0.5 mm, I think) styrene, cut them out, then held them at the desired angle in the fuse with lumps of blu tac. Then I took measurements of the gap between them in order to derive the shape for the upper plane. I cut out the upper plane from styrene, cut out the window pane too, then tacked the whole lot in situ again with blu tac. Then I applied superglue where I could. The substance of the bars and the other walls of each bar I made with miliput. Probably I should have put some thin brass rod in there, but like a knobhead I didn't once think of that!

It's not perfect; the port vertical strut slopes forward even more than the kit part. This is caused by the fuse asymmetry of course, but is more exacerbated because I made the canopy top perfectly perpendicular to the fuse instead of slightly wonky. I can correct this by filing away at the forward-leaning strut, though of course its shape will be compromised. Interestingly this seems to be what they did with that strut on the Red 5 canopy. That strut is made from two very unparallel lines indeed!

Joe, here are a couple more pics. Y'see in the first one it looks slightly too tapered - too wide at the back, maybe. Anyway, I like it very much on the whole. I definitely prefer it to the V3 canopy, the EFX and what I was getting with the kit part...

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ralphee

Now get to the back end already lol, be great to see where that goes, its such a hard area to get right on the X for sure, hence, nobody ever has!

lee

Colin Droidmilk

'Nobody ever has'? Ulp... I'll try...

ralphee

Hah, come on, you made a heck of a job on that V3 of yours, seriously, id go MAD even attempting this.....and, rest in the knowledge, you cant possibly go as far wrong as Finemolds did, now thats a ridiculous canopy.

lee

Colin Droidmilk

Cheers! You know, I've been so encouraged by the input from you guys that I've spent the day working on the rear part. And I think it'll work out! The key to the thing is the blu tac. You cut out your first attempt at a plane, it's all wrong but you roughly hold it in with the blu tac, and then by eye you can project onto it corrected horizontals etc, which you then incorporate into the 2nd attempt, 3rd attempt till you've nailed it. Without the blu tac to hold stuff at those weird angles, you'd have to work out the planar geometry on a flaming computer or something, like Jamie Shourt had to on the blockade runner. He had to do all this damn maths, lol... sod that!

Pics to follow...right now I'm being booted off the pc by the GF...

Colin Droidmilk

OK, here's the day's work on the rear part...

(Why is there a V3 droid in there? Because I've bloody lost the pyro one! It must be around here somewhere, unless the cat's knocked it under something... Sheezis...)

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jedimaster

That looks great man. Much better than the original. I never thought I'd here myself say that but with the shrinkage on the body with these the original makes this bird look more like a hasbro.

joewhite

Simon, are you saying the Pyro looks like the Hasbro? Or because of the shrunken canopy?

Colin, I like your progress. I'll be honest....I haven't paid this area much attention. I'm still working on my scratch hollow wings. I did do some quick comparisons between the V3 and the filming model but other than that, I'm learning off of yours and Beaz's builds.

If I get some more free time this week, I might try making a practice canopy based on yours.

Joe

jedimaster

Nah Joe , just the fact that the hull shrunk but the canopy didn't. So technically the canopy is oversized for this hull. Not sure which pic best illustrates this. Certain angles make it look way to big.

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Colin Droidmilk

Ta, chaps! Yeah, Simon, the moment I put the kit canopy on there - the first thing I did when unpacking the kit - I felt a bit let down (and remained so even after correcting the warp and allowing for trimming etc). I thought... 'wha...?' Your first pic shows the problem off best (looks better in the 2nd pic - nice work btw!). I didn't know about the shrinkage issue at that point so I just could not figure that canopy out AT ALL. After all, I had been hoping for THIS - see pics below. And then I figured, look this is an ILM hull, therefore all the groundwork for a great canopy is probably built into it. It should be possible to construct a more ILM faithful canopy up from that. Now that I'm getting somewhere with that, I'm finally totally over the moon with the kit. There's something about the way this new canopy runs into the fuse that, well, really matches up to ILM in ways I'm not seeing in the other replicas. And again, that's not down to my work but to the fact of the ILM hull.

There's stuff I need to sort out, though. It all looks pretty cool from a distance but close-up there are niggles at the mo. The middles of the lower side bars are not quite flush with the fuse wall, they're slightly recessed, because the fuse wall is bowed while the styrene is straight. So the lower bars will need kind of forcing out somehow to follow the bowed fuse wall line (This is why I haven't reinforced them with miliput yet). But I'll think of something.

The canopy on this model below is very thin-looking. This is the ideal toward which I strive. I likes thin x canopies, me. On my rear part ( the canopy, I mean - not my arse) I've started with small windows and then I'll slowly open them out - to avoid overcooking them.

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