Yet another Fine Molds 1/72 Falcon build

Looking fabulous! Keep it up!

Al

Although I've removed the mandibles and changed the position of them (which I'm not recommending to you), I do suggest perhaps scribing a lip to create the illusion that the hull overhangs the mandibles:





J

Jaitea said:

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Looks fantastic, is the pipework brass? I'm sure that took some time making sure the angles were right, I have a suggestion for you.....I'll post images tonight.

J

Yes it's brass

Arrrrgh, I don't want to remove the tubing and replace with brass! I'm not doing it!

Yours looks so good though...

No, I'm not doing it!

It's easy, go get some scraper tools and miniature chisel set,.... that's what I used. It'll look great leading into all the pits!

Looks great man! Replacing pipes is key,though I only replaced some. Alaneye, I just used plastic piping, and scratchy is right it is easier than you think. I used the flat xacto blade, and as long as its sharp it glides through pretty easy.

Jaitea said:

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Although I've removed the mandibles and changed the position of them (which I'm not recommending to you), I do suggest perhaps scribing a lip to create the illusion that the hull overhangs the mandibles:





J

OMG I'm definitely not changing the mandibles . This is something I might try on my second Falcon if I ever get around to it. But scribing a lip actually sounds very interesting and looks great so I'll think about it. The only thing that might stop me from doing this is the brass piping which I really don't want to redo because of it.

Thanks for the tip though and love what you did to the mandibles! Do you have step by step images of how you did that? I have no idea where I'd start.

Alaneye said:

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Arrrrgh, I don't want to remove the tubing and replace with brass! I'm not doing it!

Yours looks so good though...

No, I'm not doing it!

I think you should give it a go Alaneye as even a total beginner like me has managed. Seeing your work I know that this is something you will have no issue with.

I have used a sharp flat X-ACTO knife to remove the pipes and it was pretty easy. Just don't use too much force or you'll scratch the hull like I did many times before I got the hang of it.

this is looking excellent keep up the good work!

Thanks for the tip though and love what you did to the mandibles! Do you have step by step images of how you did that? I have no idea where I'd start.

I don't have any step by step images of the removal, (I did this before joining any forums)......but I have a second kit, which I'm gonna modify also & I will definitely photo each step.

There are some images of the removed parts on this thread:
http://www.therpf.com/f11/fm-1-72-mi...urgery-159331/

.....& some tips on how to remove them without damaging the surrounding details.

As I say on the thread, there are tonnes of really fantastic FM MF's without this mod, so please don't feel under pressure to attempt this procedure

J

mancini said:

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I think you should give it a go Alaneye as even a total beginner like me has managed. Seeing your work I know that this is something you will have no issue with.

I have used a sharp flat X-ACTO knife to remove the pipes and it was pretty easy. Just don't use too much force or you'll scratch the hull like I did many times before I got the hang of it.

*Sigh* I know, I just keep trying to tell myself that the molded ones look fine and it's just work I don't need to do. I might try one at the weekend and see how much difference it makes.

Alaneye said:

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*Sigh* I know, I just keep trying to tell myself that the molded ones look fine and it's just work I don't need to do. I might try one at the weekend and see how much difference it makes.

If don't feel like doing the whole model and just want to try it out, do the three pipes on the front left side of the top hull. These ones make the hugest difference since they are not supposed to touch the hull in one place. If you don't know what I mean I'll post an image.

Started on the inside of the cockpit yesterday and after priming several pieces I got a little bored while waiting for the primer to dry...

... so I started thinking about battle damage . My initial thoughts were to just paint the blast marks and maybe just do some of the most visible holes. In the end I decided that something like that would not do my Falcon justice so I opted for an accurate 5-footer battle damage reproduction. As you can imagine I went nuts with my dremel . I have finished the top hull and cockpit sections, with the escape pods and bottom hull still waiting to be done. I have also copied the damage to the edges of the saucer section from the 5-footer (lots of breaking stuff, gluing it back on and filling stuff with putty) so I'm wondering how that will turn out .

As I was happily hacking at the oh so carefully sanded and polished hull (as I managed to scratch it in several places while customising it) I have also decided to scribe the "lip" as recommended by Jaitea ... thanks BTW ;-).

After I had finished all of these changes I realised one thing. I would have to prime the whole hull again (or at least most of it) which would mean I'd have as many as four coats of primer on various sections of the hull . As I was already quite unhappy with the lack of detail in some areas, one more coat would just kill the entire model. So I decided to remove the primer from the hull altogether and start again... so stupid. I know that some of you might think of this move as fairly excessive but bear in mind that this is my first attempt at priming anything straight from the can and that I probably used way more paint then most of you would have. And since I didn't want to ruin the entire model because I got lazy one afternoon I just did it.

I'll hopefully post some new images soon as I'm currently also working on the ramp and thinking about the final lighting setup.

Oh and I figured something out. Many of you had airbrushed the inside of the hull with several coats of black to block light. My experience was that instead of doing that I just held the hull against my table lamp and just covered the places that let light through with a thin layer of putty ... et voila.

Sounds great, can't wait to see the battle damage

J

mancini said:

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Started on the inside of the cockpit yesterday and after priming several pieces I got a little bored while waiting for the primer to dry...

... so I started thinking about battle damage . My initial thoughts were to just paint the blast marks and maybe just do some of the most visible holes. In the end I decided that something like that would not do my Falcon justice so I opted for an accurate 5-footer battle damage reproduction. As you can imagine I went nuts with my dremel . I have finished the top hull and cockpit sections, with the escape pods and bottom hull still waiting to be done. I have also copied the damage to the edges of the saucer section from the 5-footer (lots of breaking stuff, gluing it back on and filling stuff with putty) so I'm wondering how that will turn out .

As I was happily hacking at the oh so carefully sanded and polished hull (as I managed to scratch it in several places while customising it) I have also decided to scribe the "lip" as recommended by Jaitea ... thanks BTW ;-).

After I had finished all of these changes I realised one thing. I would have to prime the whole hull again (or at least most of it) which would mean I'd have as many as four coats of primer on various sections of the hull . As I was already quite unhappy with the lack of detail in some areas, one more coat would just kill the entire model. So I decided to remove the primer from the hull altogether and start again... so stupid. I know that some of you might think of this move as fairly excessive but bear in mind that this is my first attempt at priming anything straight from the can and that I probably used way more paint then most of you would have. And since I didn't want to ruin the entire model because I got lazy one afternoon I just did it.

I'll hopefully post some new images soon as I'm currently also working on the ramp and thinking about the final lighting setup.

Oh and I figured something out. Many of you had airbrushed the inside of the hull with several coats of black to block light. My experience was that instead of doing that I just held the hull against my table lamp and just covered the places that let light through with a thin layer of putty ... et voila.

I did the same thing on mine and I'm glad I did! I love all the bent panels, it really sells the damage. I also did the big crumpled panel on the bottom which required some dremeling and styrene as it is really crumpled. I documented all that damage in my post. Can't wait to see yours! I also recommend the 5 footers grill damage and rust. First used a needle to bend them up using reference of the 5 footer. I painted them the same as the base color then sprayed them black underneath and a heavy black wash on top. Finally I added rust with both paint and pastels. All these things add to the 'piece of junk'. Seemed wierd to me that the ship would be so dirty and damaged, but all the panels and grills would be perfectly straight.

Removing the primer is driving me nuts!!

What's the best way to remove Tamiya fine grey primer? I used Tamiya lacquer thinner and I sincerely hope that this is not the way to go.

mancini said:

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Oh and I figured something out. Many of you had airbrushed the inside of the hull with several coats of black to block light. My experience was that instead of doing that I just held the hull against my table lamp and just covered the places that let light through with a thin layer of putty ... et voila.

Just a thought: I blocked light leakage in the hull by covering all the individual light sources with black fabric tape. Works like a charm and no need to paint the interior. For the cockpit tube, where there was no room for tape, I covered the tube interior with aluminium tape, no light penetrates that stuff. I'm very happy with this solution.

mancini said:

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What's the best way to remove Tamiya fine grey primer? I used Tamiya lacquer thinner and I sincerely hope that this is not the way to go.

For removing enamel paint I sink the part in drain opener for a few hours. It doesn't affect polystyrene, but it burns enamel paint clean off. It might be nasty for brass, though, I don't know. I'd never, ever use thinner to remove paint from polystyrene, unless the paint was still fresh and in small area.

mancini said:

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Removing the primer is driving me nuts!!

What's the best way to remove Tamiya fine grey primer? I used Tamiya lacquer thinner and I sincerely hope that this is not the way to go.

Oven cleaner!!!! 1.Spray 2. place in a plastic bag and tie up air tight (well not air tight realy). 3 leave for 24 hours.

Will not do anything to the brass.

Ozzy

PS: Realy enjoying your build so far.

Ozzy

ozzyguanche said:

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Oven cleaner!!!! 1.Spray 2. place in a plastic bag and tie up air tight (well not air tight realy). 3 leave for 24 hours.

Will not do anything to the brass.

Ozzy

I'll give it a go ... thanks

ozzyguanche said:

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Oven cleaner!!!! 1.Spray 2. place in a plastic bag and tie up air tight (well not air tight realy). 3 leave for 24 hours.

Will not do anything to the brass.

Ozzy

Well, after a brief test my oven cleaner has taken care of acrylics (practically immediately) and somewhat removed the primer (probably needs that 24 hour treatment) and has not destroyed the styrene :-) ... but has turned my brass to black .

I don't know its availability in Europe, but Floquil makes a product called "Easy Lift Off". It is a chemical paint stripper that seems safe enough for plastic and can remove Tamiya primer. I found that out when I had a disaster on the wing of a P-39 model once. So I painted this stuff on it to strip the paint and it took even the layer of Tamiya spray primer off without damaging the wing's plastic.

Considering how oven cleaner likes to eat aluminium foil, I'm not surprised the brass turned black. I hope that is all it did though. I'm not a chemical engineer, so I have no idea what goes on in the chemical process.

JMChladek said:

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I don't know its availability in Europe, but Floquil makes a product called "Easy Lift Off". It is a chemical paint stripper that seems safe enough for plastic and can remove Tamiya primer. I found that out when I had a disaster on the wing of a P-39 model once. So I painted this stuff on it to strip the paint and it took even the layer of Tamiya spray primer off without damaging the wing's plastic.

Considering how oven cleaner likes to eat aluminium foil, I'm not surprised the brass turned black. I hope that is all it did though. I'm not a chemical engineer, so I have no idea what goes on in the chemical process.

For all I care it can turn the brass pink as long as it removes the bloody primer :-)

And US vs Europe? That's a big issue when it comes to various chemicals. You can't buy a lot of the stuff here just because someone in the EU deems a certain compound of a product harmful and you just can't import it :-/ ... and with the stuff that does get imported it's usually under completely different brand names. I just found out that the Tamyia lacquer thinner contains something recently blacklisted by the EU so no mere lacquer thinner for Europe .