Some V3 modifications, pics...

Colin Droidmilk

Thought I'd put up a few pics...

I've had my V3 laid out on my desk for about 9 months. Finally making a start on it now. Spent many, many hours checking silhouettes against reference, and decided to make a few minor mods here and there. After months of looking at best options, I'm hoping to place the nose about 2mm forward and fill the gap, to tease out a little extra sleekness. This'll probably make contour problems, and may prove unfeasible for that reason, but I'd trade some limited bumpiness for the sleeker silhouette.

Kit's mostly tacked together in these shots, but makes for a rare closed-wing view of the V3.

Droidstrip: shaved off about 2mm from the thick round wall halfway along, then re-scored its grooves. Sawed off the disc with the cross that sits inside this, filed down the stump, and glued the disc back on. There's been some debate about the height of this thing, but to my eye it sits low - higher than the fuse roof, yes, but not much.

Reduced the height of the piping toward the rear of the engines.

Filed off most of the panels from the droid's dome. Instantly the droid looked far more plausible. I know ILM had raised panels, but I'll probably just paint 'em on.

Hope there's a few angles here that folks might find of interest - it's such a gorgeous kit, can't do any harm to see some more shots of her... I especially dig low angle three-quarter views, where the built-in canopy really pays off. V3 -the only X-wing kit or replica that can totally rock out canopy-wise from this particular angle... Eternally grateful to Mike and Moe for making dreams come true.

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JPolacchi

Anyone hear from Mike Salzo?I e-mailed him (his AOL address) a week or so ago and have not heard back.

Nwerke

He's around, just very tied up with the 31" Viper right now I suspect.

Colin - way to go! I'm not sure you need to do the fuselage/nose mod, it all checks out very well against the available refs. The nose itself can be tweaked slightly, to my eye at least. And the styrene chip and panel line pattern needs to be checked against the bird you're building. There's a few things to do with the wings also.

The Phantom engines are the biggest problem IMO. They're legacy from the original kit and have the same shortcomings - pun ha ha, they're short, in short. Pun again, ha ha. ;p

Colin Droidmilk

Hi, Nwerke! Surprised you think the phantom engines are out - I think they're fine, heh heh. But every single photo of every ILM X (except the big one - pyros included) does make me want to draw out the nose just a little...(just to be clear, the way the nose sits in the photos above shows the mod intention - certainly don't think the fuselage looks longer or sleeker than ILM as a result)

Panel lines and chips - thing is, for me, the generic job done by the chaps is so convincing as ILM texture, that I really don't want to mess with it, with my untried scribing abilities. Might do a few chips, though - when and if I ever decide which ship I'm going to do. I ordered a Red 5, but dunno if I want to do that now, having since seen closer and new views of paintjobs on some of the others. But that's left me in a total quandary, I want to do ALL of them, heh... guess I'm not allowed to do Red 2 cause I don't have the right engines, but I still wanna... ( even want to leave it totally unpainted to mimic those fantastic unpainted pyro photos!)

Some more bits and pieces -

Took a file and thinned out the engine exhausts.

On the business end of the guns, I didn't want the profile of the C-shaped thing to be partly obscured by the disc behind it, which happens if you want resin to meet resin. So I stuck some styreen behind it, so it sits clear.

Included another view of the fuselage with slightly forward nose (here, the noseplug is causing the nose to sit a little to starboard - this'll be ironed out in the build).

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Nwerke

LOL, you're as big an X nutter as anyone, Colin! Good man.

Oh, they are fine. They can just be a tiny bit finer. Have sent you a PM on that. I don't want to shoot my mouth off too much until I have something to show, which I should do soon.

Now I get it. I thought you meant separating the nose block entirely and moving forwards. I did that on my V1 in 2004. To this day I have no idea why! But this looks fine.

The chips are very easy. I completely agree about scribing. Hate it, and I suck.

Can I suggest "alternative Red 3" - the pyro (presumably) version? I'm sure we'll see a slew of nice Red 12s any second now, but the pyro Red 3 doesn't seem too likely and there's just enough to go on that you can be reasonably canon.

Looking good, can't get enough X-wings, keep 'em coming!

Cheers,
Martyn

mslz22

That looks great, i love seeing it set up with the wings closed, even if it does not wind up being built like that it's cool to see.




Sorry, i have been really busy with the 1/12 viper and getting ready for WF, i thought i got all my emails taken care of over the weekend by i will go back and check, if you don't hear back from me at AOL, try me here, sometimes AOL address kicks stuff as spam.

I have been making new molds for another run of these, and i am making 2 small changes, 1 is rebuilding the phantom engines, they have taken a beating over the years and I want them to be fresh, also I've changed the mounting panels that hold the Saturn V cans, i built a new one that includes more the Saturn V part that sits inside the engine, placing it deeper in the engine.
thanks and again great work, never get board looking at these
mike

Robiwon

Colin, I'm glad your finaly digging into this! I look forward to your build. I know you'll do a great job. I was faced with the same problem when I built my V2, which X-Wing do I build!?!? It can be a hard decision.

Are you going with a Panavice mount or something different? You going to add lights?

Thank you for the info Mike. I look forward to being able to order a new V3 from you. Is it going to be a V3 or a V4, or a V3.5?

mslz22

I would at best call it V3.1, it's not really any big changes...

Robiwon

Sending PM so as not to derail Colins thread.

Colin Droidmilk

Mike, thanks for your comments - though you're the ones who've done all the work, lol... all I done is 'nitpick' and file stuff off! But hope to have something to show on the paint front...

Anyway, I guess this thread should be re-named, and given over to the celebration of, the Return of the Salzo X! That's fabulous news for everyone who's missed out on this so far.

Robiwon - hi, I got my panavise and inserts, thanks. Even bought a new power drill just for that one hole, ha ha.

I'm not going to bother with lights. Guys like yourself have done amazing work with lighting, but just conceptually it's outside what I'm after (lights on film is one thing, on an inanimate model in front of me, that's something else, unless it's totally intrinsic to the thing, like the DS), which is lucky as I know nowt about electrics, and am just too busy to get into it. All it has to do for me is look how the models look on exhibit, dead, in perspex boxes... Actually,(ironic tone) having said that, I wouldn't mind rigging up a model mover to display stuff on. But I know nothing from motors too. Still, imagine that, a model fixed to a large apparatus in the corner of the living room with a switch that puts an X-Wing through a banking turn or something. Preposterous, yes, but surely very, very necessary, as no wife or girfriend could possibly fail to see. Surprised no one here's been insane - or rational - enough to do that yet - or maybe they have, lol...

Colin Droidmilk

De-rail away! I've pretty much spilled all I have for the time being, and it's wonderful to have Mike in here bringing such glad tidings...

kh39

Hi,

I saw your Fine Molds Y-wing in tha past.It looked great!I'm sure this will be great too!

Robiwon

Thanks for the compliments Colin.

Just go slow on opening the hole for the insert. Of course don't make it to big but don't make it to small and try and force the insert in or you could crack the hull. Can you post a pic of your insert? I wonder if we have the same style.

Colin Droidmilk

Thanks kh! Paintwise, this is the Big One. Finally, the chance to paint on the same size canvas as ILM.

Colin Droidmilk

Thanks for the concern! This is the most nervewracking part for me, that and fixing the hull halves together (you may have noticed in the photos the 1.75 mm gap caused by slight warps in both pieces). Here's a photo of my insert. Is it the same as yours? I already made a trial run by drilling a hole in the underside of the spare cockpit that comes with the kit. Inserted the insert, but it was tough going. Hard to keep it straight too, because there's hardly any bare cylinder to lead in with - unlike on the packet illustration I might add, which has a good length before the thread starts. Still, once in, it's absolutely solid as a rock, you're right. So I have a cockpit mounted on my panavise for the present!

Here are a couple more pics of the closed up V3 - just for Mike...

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Robiwon

Colin, yes, that is the same insert. What I did on my hull was I made the hole somewhat cone shaped. This allowed the threads to really grab tight when the screw was almost all the way in. This way I was not putting a lot of stress near the surface of the model and risking a crack. Making the opening just a little bit bigger also allows alignment of the insert so it goes in straight. Hope these tips help.

Nwerke

Colin, with warps, some very hot water and weights are your friends!

Colin Droidmilk

AAaaaaaah... thanks, man...

Colin Droidmilk

They surely will, thanks!

w8cmp

Can anyone help me with details of where I can order a couple of these inserts. I'm in the UK and have managed to get a couple of the right Panavise mounts, but still need inserts to mount my V3 and Viper when I build them...

Thanks for your help.

Chris

Robiwon

Do a search for "threaded brass inserts". Check your local home improvement type store or hardware store. These are made for wooden projects. If you have trouble finding one let me know, I have an extra. It's the same one that Colin posted above. Matter of fact I may put an interest thread in the junkyard for these inserts as well. Shouldn't cost much to ship them overseas.

Guy Cowen

I'm off on holiday this week but send me your address As i bought a bag of 50 on ebay? I'll send you some when I get back. Where did you get the panavise from in the UK its near impossible to find em?

Colin Droidmilk

I ordered my panavise through a dealer in Solihull: www.brianhyde.co.uk. Their website just goes on about spirit levels, so ignore that and just email them about the panavise. I got on to them through the US panavise site, which in its international section lists this company as its UK dealer.

w8cmp

Thanks very much Guy - I'll PM you separately with my address...much appreciated.

I ordered a couple of Panavise mounts direct from the US as I couldn't find a source here in the UK - even though my uncle works in the security camera business - even he couldn't get them except like me from the US.

Thanks again everyone...

Chris

Colin Droidmilk

Martyn, if you're around, or anyone else - what's the actual drill with this? It takes all the strength of my hand to close this gap when test-fitting, by the way; do you think the hot water and weights'll still do it? If so, what exactly do I do? (Thought it best to be absolutely sure of what I'm doing. Don't want to bugger this up...)

Sorry for the idiot questions, but hopefully they'll be useful to others out there new to this studio scale game...