New Project - My Son's Desert Skiff Bed

You need my Sarlacc Pit rug/blanket!!

Edit...good memory Funky!

Great looking work... the better reason why there is a Father's Day. Keep posting the pics.

Awesome work!! Just wondering if you could make one for a king size bed, cause I would buy it. Don't know how I could explain to my wife that I REEEEEEALLY needed to buy it though:facepalm.

Brad, your first post is soooooooo true.

Az, great work and I'm sure your boys loves it!

When you are done with that, can you come to my house and build me Jabba the Hutt's ship? I expect it to include Leia in a metal bikini.

Let me tell you something brother, you should be commended very highly for this. Not only is this a great build, and fun to watch come together, but I can promise you that your son will NEVER forget it.

I say that, as my father always took the time to do things like this for me, and with me growing up. A Jawa Blaster, Vader breathing box, and more than I can mention. And today, well, he instilled this habit in me, and now we work on some great projects together, and it's amazing!

Sorry to get long winded, but I love to see things like this. My dad is my hero, and the memories of these types of projects are never forgotten. Great job!!!!!!!!

Also, you have inspired me, sir. I have a 3.5 year old daughter. She's a monster. I'm talkin, the size of a 6 year old. (but what do you expect, when the runts of two families have a baby). She doesn't like star wars (yet!) but she does, in fact, sleep in a bed... One that is rapidly becoming too small for her. So, for her birthday, I will be building a loft bed...

All because of you and your wonderful son.

Great job, Az. Very inspiring.

I wish you were my Dad :cool Mine was always too busy fiddling with cars to spend time doing this sort of thing. Awesome!! thumbsup:thumbsup

This has got me thinking, the missus said just the other that we need a bigger bed & maybe I could make one....Hmmmm

Thanks guys, glad to see this is inspiring a few members!

Fuzzual said:

Let me tell you something brother, you should be commended very highly for this. Not only is this a great build, and fun to watch come together, but I can promise you that your son will NEVER forget it.

I say that, as my father always took the time to do things like this for me, and with me growing up. A Jawa Blaster, Vader breathing box, and more than I can mention. And today, well, he instilled this habit in me, and now we work on some great projects together, and it's amazing!

Sorry to get long winded, but I love to see things like this. My dad is my hero, and the memories of these types of projects are never forgotten. Great job!!!!!!!!

Click to expand...

Thanks bro, I appreciate that. My son definitely loves it, and I am glad I have this opportunity to do something like this. By the way, lovin' your room!

Robert412 said:

Also, you have inspired me, sir. I have a 3.5 year old daughter. She's a monster. I'm talkin, the size of a 6 year old. (but what do you expect, when the runts of two families have a baby). She doesn't like star wars (yet!) but she does, in fact, sleep in a bed... One that is rapidly becoming too small for her. So, for her birthday, I will be building a loft bed...

All because of you and your wonderful son.

Click to expand...

That's awesome, I have a 3 year old daughter and she wants a princess bed. I think I am taking a short break after this one, but I'll get to it!

hankey01 said:

You need my Sarlacc Pit rug/blanket!!

Edit...good memory Funky!

Click to expand...

That's sweet, I need to seriously consider one of those!

I did some more work today, and I will say this, this sucker almost defeated me today! Everything that can go wrong, practically did. My control box got completely screwed up, I made a mistake with my design and I split a chunk of wood off, but I worked around it.

The first thing I did was worked on the audio. I was looking for something inexpensive and easy to work with, so I got these audio discs from Build-A-Bear (the same one I used on my Jawa), they're about $8 each. But this time I messed around with it. I removed the push button and soldered a momentary on/off button from Radio Shack. It actually works pretty good, you'll see later in the video.

I bought 3, 2 for separate blaster sounds and 1 for an engine sound. The only thing that sucks is you only get about 10 seconds, so the engine sound was cut short. The blaster ones are perfect.



Here's the button that I mounted to a plug, these go on top of the piloting sticks.



I mounted the speakers to the inside of the control column. I also used schedule 40 PVC for the handles.



Here's a view with the column nearly complete.



Here's the control panel lit up. I managed to get a broken oil gauge from the local auto parts store and back lit it with a white LED. I also added 2 lighted switches, one controls the red LEDs and the other the blue. I added another momentary on/off switch, this one controls the engine sound. The two switches below the yellow lights control the yellow lights and oil gauge and the other controls some red LEDs on the side of the bed.



Here's a video of how everything works. All the LEDs are powered by a 9V battery, the sound is controlled separately by the internal batteries of each disc. The pilot control handles move forward and back.

Star Wars Desert Skiff Bed.MPG - YouTube

I think tomorrow I wil start painting, it's pretty much ready for paint, save a few minor touch-ups and detail work.

My son and daughter loved this, they played with those switches for half the day. My son kept pretending he was taking off and landing, it was priceless and makes this all worth while.

Very cool!

I just checked out your youtube video. That is amazing!! I have boy/girl twins who just turned 5. My son wanted a vacuum and my daughter wanted a "Thor Hammer" hmmmm... I'm not giving up hope on him!! Great job, Superdad! Bed looks awesome!!

Here's a better view of the control sticks, used several pieces of PVC pipe.

that is brilliant, well done!

I would have killed to have a bed like this when I was a kid! It lights up AND make sound effects...really nice man. Your son will always treasure that you did this for him. Too cool.

Thanks guys!

One final finishing touch before I start painting. I finished the rear sail using a piece of foam core board and paint stirring sticks. I cut the sticks to length and added them to the foam board. I am hoping it ties in when I paint.

Finally got to painting today, but it's going a little slower than I had hoped for, lots of awkward angles. I really love this color, it's not nearly as green as it looks in the photos.

I also love how the rear sail wing turned out.

Back at it tomorrow, want to wrap this one up before the weekend's over if I can.

This is all kinds of cool! Kudos to you for taking the time to do this for your kid

Just about done with the base coat, about to move onto a little weathering. I also added a piece of gray anti-fatigue mat for the floor. I got this from Lowe's. They sell it off the roll for about $3.50 a linear foot, but I didn't need much. I spent about 8 bucks and did it with one piece because it was just wide enough.

Very cool bed.