Hasbro Legacy Millennium Falcon Conversion

crackerjazz

I guess I'm not a full-fledged member yet to be able to access that page. I'll have to wait a bit of the 45 days it takes as stated in there, but thanks for the link !

darth_myeek

Crackerjazz,
I think you are doing a terrific job. Excellent idea about the older cockpit!

Wondering if you are going to install an internal mount, similar go the MR mount? Shouldn't be too hard, PVC fittings maybe? Also the AMT has an engine upgrade kit with etched brass vents (similar to koolshade), wondering if you can find a scaled up version of it for your conversion?

This is a big project, hang in there!
Mike

Amish Trooper

Here you go bud x2

Star Wars The Legacy Collection - Millennium Falcon - Hasbro - Toys "R" Us

crackerjazz

Thanks for the kind words Neosporing : ). and thanks, Mike. A mount would be nice, although, I want to see the belly cannons too - so in all likelihood it will be suspended. I'm thinking about detailing those vents too - it's almost a sin not to. Something so big deserves fans and grilles. Actually, I spend so much time thinking about approaching so many things in so many different ways that in the end I get overwhelmed and don't get to do anything. And then I get to read Scratchy's Star Destroyer (amazingly detailed and fiber-optically-lit too!) - instead of being inspired it makes me wanna give up I don't know how you do it Scratchy you seem to have microscopes for eyes

Test fitting cockpit (just for size):

Anakin Starkiller

Ooooh Nice

Laspector

Putting that old cockpit on the new Falcon was the first thing that came to my mind when I bought mine. But after losing about 5 attempts to get one on e-bay I finally gave up. So now I'm just re doing the guns, bumping up the size of the radar dish a tad to compensate a bit for the over sized cockpit and repainting. What are you going to do about the tube part of the cockpit that points towards the center of the ship? Won't that have to be re done? The old one the tube was very cone shaped, meaning the lines were not parallel. Also wouldn't it be too short for the new sized ship?

crackerjazz

Hi, Laspector. Try your local kijiji or craigslist listings for an old Kenner Falcon. They were released several times and shouldn't be in short supply. They were all the same mold until the Legacy Falcon came out. As to the cockpit tunnel, the entire tunnel will have to be scratchbuilt. I'm looking at making styrene bulkheads of varying sizes that will form the shape and covering that with styrene sheet - semi-monocoque airplane fuselage-style.

Amish Trooper

Hey laspector I have an old Kenner/ hasbro falcon if you want it. Just pay shipping bud.

Laspector

Amish Trooper, check your PMs. Sent you a message.

Laspector

Am I correct about the radar dish? The one on this new one seems to be the same size as the old one. Wouldn't it have to be a little larger too? Just going by my old 1980 Falcon model (model, not toy) the dish actually has a diameter a little larger than the cockpit. I'm not actually going with that size but I did add about (maybe not quite) a half an inch all the way around on mine.

What are your plans with the guns? I acquired two sets of the old ones off the kenner one and was planning to use those. Actually they are still too big but closer to size than the ones that came on it. Had to remove the housing on the ship that the guns are in as those suckers stick up about a half an inch. I shaved about a quarter inch off mine. Still not movie accurate by no means, but better.

Sorry, not trying to hijack this thread, it's just I have been thinking about doing what you are doing for months now and this thread fascinates me to no end.

PHArchivist

The head-on shot sure highlights the over-sized turret window.

crackerjazz

No worries, Laspector, this thread is all about rebuilding our Falcons. I think I'm taking the scratchbuilt route for the guns and rectenna for accuracy. The rectenna dish diameter needs to be 7.5mm for this scale.

Don't throw away this cockpit portion. It's part of the dome .





Trim it down and attach to complete your upper shell. What's gone
from the cockpit tunnel area needs to be re-patched and a new
cockpit tunnel built.



Hi Rob, those turret windows sure are huge. I'll be patching up those holes and cutting new ones.

Laspector

I see you are re doing the housings for the landing gear too. Dude, you are really going all the way. Those housing ARE way too big. They need at least an inch cut off. I doubt I'm going that far, it seemed to me that's where the electronics are and I didn't want to lose all that. Unfortunatly I had already put mine together completely before I decided to do any customizing. I had also puttied in all the screw holes so I can't really take it apart now. Well I guess I could but I'm not going to. The work you are doing is incredible. I don't have anywhere near the talent you do or the resources. So I just want to cry everytime I see how far you are going I simply do not the ability or talent to do as much scratch build as you are doing.

Since you have reduced the width between the two hulls, you will not be able to use the detail pieces that were originally there, correct? How will you do the new detailing?

crackerjazz

Hi Laspector, that's correct I've totally degutted the Falcon of interior details and electronics. I had to give them up as I wanted to keep the weight down, seal it up completely, putty up the seams of the detachable panels, and get rid of all the switches on the toy. I would have loved to keep them, though.

I did have to cut off a good portion of the landing gear boxes. I used the 5-footer as reference (photo from Forbidden Plastic). The primary difference would be that "1" tapers inwards (shaped like a triangle) so that "2" would be flush to surface. "3" would be almost flush to surface as well, not as flush as "2".





These do not sit flush to surface on the 32-inch - the too-shallow dome will not allow it, I guess. I've noticed the same thing on the MPC falcon one, which also has a shallow dome. (Finemolds falcon by Corey Harvey) in Modelermagic:

crackerjazz

Oh you might be wondering how the old cockpit does compared to the 5-footer. It's pretty close actually. The taper looks spot-on:





That reminds me I have contact Frank Cerney.


Needed to do some jaw-rework to line up the two halves properly.






This needs lengthening - will need some PVC. And the tunnel needs cutting.

superjedi

Looking good, man!

This was exactly how I did the tunnel on my 32" 5-footer. It didn't come out absolutely perfect, but it looks pretty good I think.
Construction tip: when you get to the point where you're ready to do the tunnel, do some templates in construction paper until you get the shape you want, then cut your final piece in styrene. I'd recommend doing the bulkheads/ribs in .020 or .030 styrene to keep the tunnel nice and stiff. (That's what she said. )

crackerjazz

You might want to contact Frank Cerney (Brundelfly) as suggested by Jedi Dade regarding resin cockpits. I'll do the same. There's a good amount of work to do on the toy cockpit - like shaving off the details, reworking the frames, etc, let alone the whole ship. I don't know why I'm punishing myself, Laspector, it must be just the love of doing something creative and love of the Falcon - I desperately want that toy to look like the prop And don't give me too much credit - I'd really rather not do it either since I get frustrated myself as I go along and discover things that stump me But I've already started the work - no turning back sort of thing. The key I guess is to take it slowly. At least I look forward to more hobby time. But one day, who knows, Hasbro could to release a same-sized "5-footer" - and I'll probably find myself being shuffled off to the asylum in a straight-jacket.

crackerjazz

Wow, thanks for the tips, Eric....

ralphee

Its a TOY.....and........... nothing short of EPIC as it goes lol, great work so far, looking forward to seeing more!

lee

NAZGÛL

Hell yeah. Its amazing looking!

tk1565

Dude a step shy a god.. looking frak'in awesome
keep it comming
iam hunting for a cheapBMF falcon I can chop up this side of the boarder ?
I have 2 vintage ready to kill if I need'em
keep up the awesome work
tk...out

crackerjazz

Thanks, TK! BMF - almost forgot what Hasbro calls it. Just like the "big" in BAT-AT. Yeah, I've seen some selling really cheap - usually when missiles, figures, cannons and even the canopy are missing as they pop off easily. You won't be needing any of them, anyway. Mike's a record-breaker scoring one at $20. Nice Viper Mark IV build by the way! (Brings back memories of the viper launch sequence which always got me holding my breath - my eyes were always glued to that artificial horizon indicator bobbing to level).

DahOne

Wow! A significant undertaking to say the least! I will keep my eyes close on this one! Keep up the awesome work!

crackerjazz

Thanks, DahOne, There's a back piece on the Hasbro which I intend to replace so I'm using it to cut up some sturdy plastic pieces to patch up the cockpit tunnel hole created by cutting off the oversized tunnel. I'll be using 1cm-wide strips to keep the curve of the dome.





I've been itching to detail the vents with fans and grilles so I whipped out the candle and began stretching some sprue so I could build grilles to simulate the koolshade:



At the risk of becoming permanently cross-eyed, I tried gluing them
onto some styrene. Crossbars will come later, and the whole thing cut into a nice round grille for the vent, which, hopefully, will show some scratchbuilt fans underneath.



I think my myopia (anisometropia actually - one eye farsighted the other nearsighted) - was getting worse after just an hour of work. And it'll probably take a hundred years to finish so I might not go ahead with it, after all. Besides, I don't want my 5-year-old to accidentally poke his fingers through the grilles of the (by-then) million-dollar vents. I don't know, we'll see....

Amish Trooper

You are a machine on this build.