Hasbro Hero Series 30" X Wing with Open Wings

Always wanted a big X Wing, with wings open hanging from the ceiling. Had a old MPC X Wing and Tie Fighter chasing it hanging from the ceiling when I was a kid, always loved that.

So when the Hasbro 30" came out, it made sense to buy one and get it done. I'm not an X wing expert and I'm not a purist, so the goal is to cut it up, get the wings open, paint and weather it and it's done, plus I've got a lot of prop building on, so I don't want this to take months or years.

Problems so far.... As already observed in other threads, the detail on these big bird's is quite good, but to open the wings up requires a lot of work and once you start doing that then it seems a shame not to fix the other issues with accuracy.....but if I go off on a quest for super accuracy, I'll be doing this for the next two years, so the goal is to get the wings a part, keep the detail for the top wing, build a complete lower wing, stay away from doing too much moding and use paint and weathering to get it over the line.

The internal engine detail inside the wings is a big hole, so something will have to fill the void, but it won't be super accurate. I know from experience that paint and weathering can make up for a some inaccuracy

It's sheer size, some light modification and the right paint and weathering and bingo bongo...it should look good.

I'm not going to have the cockpit visible, but the decals had to come off and I'll fit internal black acrylic panels, so it appears like glass. Once it was cut up, the wings are most of the work, so I cut flat wing panels from 1mm styrene and used 5mm flute board as the core. Not sure how I'll mount the wings yet, probably an internal sub structure of styrene and flute. Will have to keep the weight down to hang it.

Painting and Glue Testing: After much testing, I've found hot glue works best (easy and cheap) and washing the surfaces with acrylic lacquer thinner gives the best bonding for paint which of course will be acrylic lacquer.

I'm convinced when they thought about making this toy available they said....." Let's make it big and with some fine detail to attract the replica prop crowd, but let's make it out of the worst possible material. Something flimsy, hard to work with and that paint and glue hates to stick to....but our real target market will be kids who won't really be able to do anything with it"

Still it has size and some accuracy to work with...so on we go......

All the cores and the lower wing top and bottom panels are cut and good to go.

Everything is basically oversized by a fraction. That's the beauty of styrene and flute board.......once everything is glued together I'll run around with rotary tool and detail sander to close edge it all, then add oversized styrene stripes to finish the edges and sand them back.....plus styrene and flute board are super light.....better for hanging.

The more I work on this, I realise I want to slow down and take the time to go with more accuracy.....but I've been caught in this trap before.... and years later still posting updates......

Really good work! I'm going to do one of these myself fairly soon, so it's nice to see some trailblazing!

Rich

Yet another thread to subscibe too. Looking forward to see how you tackle the wings.

The wings are coming along nicely.
What is the source for your template for the inner wing ?
Will you make it static with the wings open or perhaps have the ability to open and close them ?

mb1701d said:

The wings are coming along nicely.
What is the source for your template for the inner wing ?
Will you make it static with the wings open or perhaps have the ability to open and close them ?

Click to expand...

i just Google images the wing plan and printed it out to scale.

The plan is to keep it real simple, not go too ninja in the accuracy department and hang it with wings permanently open.

Quick update, wing hole sections are lined and one piece now.

Great stuff so far!

looks great i was thinking about trying to scratchbuild some new engines or maybe get some prototyped for mine? i have a 3d x wing model so if theres anyone with a printer?

I'm wondering if it's possible to make the wings out of acrylic at all with an enlarged version of the aluminium armature for the Salzo birds (not necessarily using the same material though).

Junk Pilot said:

I'm wondering if it's possible to make the wings out of acrylic at all with an enlarged version of the aluminium armature for the Salzo birds (not necessarily using the same material though).

Click to expand...

It's very easy to get caught up in this build and overthink practically everything. The entire toy/model is rubbish material wise and I've thought about molding and casting everything cool about the toy and using the size and detail to start again.........I'm scratch building the inner wings, new lower wings, inner engines etc...and every time I touch this build, I can see it consuming the next 2 years of my life....... :facepalm......the problem is it has so much potential......BUT WE MUST BE STRONG and focus on keeping it simple retain some accuracy and get it done!

judgedredd said:

looks great i was thinking about trying to scratchbuild some new engines or maybe get some prototyped for mine? i have a 3d x wing model so if theres anyone with a printer?

Click to expand...

Again, it's easy to see the overall potential of this very fine TOY.....but my scratch built engines will look cool in the finished prop, but won't be accurate for the experts and purists.

Practically all of the work is in the wings and it's easy to over spend time on them, especially when most of the detail is not really seen.

I'm going for some lite detail not true accuracy to speed things along.

Great work on your conversion and a great philosophy to have for this model! I much prefer seeing it compleated and in your display case than being one of of these unending builds in the quest for perfection.


I must abmit to the getting caught up in "tweekdom" builds myself, but that is often not a good thing.

Junk Pilot said:

I'm wondering if it's possible to make the wings out of acrylic at all with an enlarged version of the aluminium armature for the Salzo birds (not necessarily using the same material though).

Click to expand...

I was thinking of going the acrylic route for the wings, so I'll let you know how that goes.

SB

I'm away from home for another 4 months so how about you let me know how it goes.

StevenBills said:

I was thinking of going the acrylic route for the wings, so I'll let you know how that goes.

SB

Click to expand...

Coming along GREAT! My wife picked one of these up for me on clearance at Target for $20, so if anyone's interested, keep your eyes out.
For the wings, I was considering simply making a negative mold and vacuforming styrene to get copies of the outer shell. Really liking your inside detail work! Look forward to more pics.

it would be great if someone made a mold of the wings and engines so we could buy them :love

RedCircle said:

Coming along GREAT! My wife picked one of these up for me on clearance at Target for $20, so if anyone's interested, keep your eyes out.
For the wings, I was considering simply making a negative mold and vacuforming styrene to get copies of the outer shell. Really liking your inside detail work! Look forward to more pics.

Click to expand...

I thought about casting the wing to get the missing bottom wings, but it's a lot less work to simply cut them from styrene, however if you were to build the entire top and bottom wing complete and cast it, I'm sure you could sell a few ...but then the internal engine still needs building and the rear rockets don't join well and they'd need fixing and then and then.....

judgedredd said:

it would be great if someone made a mold of the wings and engines so we could buy them :love

Click to expand...

Depending on how mine turns out I may consider casting the entire wing including internal engine, rear engine internal detail and correct rear engine mounting......but as my goal is to have the wings open and have some detail that probably won't be that accurate, I doubt if it would worth doing....plus even if someone supplied the wings, they'd have to supply the internal fuselage mounting....still I'd like to see someone have ago at it.

Got a bit more done, not super accurate, but starting to look good for what I want. The internal engine work is done, just need to add covers for the dowel and then cover the rear rocket missing parts. There's a real ugly part of the rear rocket to the main engine connection, so I melted it all away with a soldering iron, which is a very good way to get through the HDPE plastic it's made of. It'll get covered when I add the dowel covers.

definitly interested in a set

RogueTrooper said:

I thought about casting the wing to get the missing bottom wings, but it's a lot less work to simply cut them from styrene, however if you were to build the entire top and bottom wing complete and cast it, I'm sure you could sell a few ...but then the internal engine still needs building and the rear rockets don't join well and they'd need fixing and then and then.....



Depending on how mine turns out I may consider casting the entire wing including internal engine, rear engine internal detail and correct rear engine mounting......but as my goal is to have the wings open and have some detail that probably won't be that accurate, I doubt if it would worth doing....plus even if someone supplied the wings, they'd have to supply the internal fuselage mounting....still I'd like to see someone have ago at it.

Click to expand...