Thanks!
The smaller wire is 22 gauge. It's nice to work with as it has a coating on it but you can't tell and it's super stiff.
The larger wiring is also 22 gauge but has a rubber coating.
The bottom section is coming along great. I was initially going to go more 'accurate' on the colors for this, but I liked my Bandai build so much I said the heck with it, I really like the blue and grey.
The blue/grey is XF 82 (Ocean Gray 2), the Tan paneling is XF-55 (Deck Tan) and all the silver-colored parts are all Alcald Stainless Steel. I really love working with these Alclad lacquers. They go on crazy smooth, are pre-thinned to the perfect level, and clean up in minutes. The darkest parts are XF-69 Nato Black. Once I discovered and started using Nato Black, I almost never use straight black anymore, it's often too harsh for my builds.
Instead of XF 82, I used XF 23 (Light Blue) and gave it a nice black wash afterwards. It’s not as dark as yours, but I think it turned out pretty good.
Ooops indeed...easy to fix?
Nice Build!
So, looking at your build I realized I made a fatal mistake putting my cockpit section together. I glued the 'inner' plug into place which sucks as this part came out so awesome! It's so obvious now that I see it
Thanks! Glad I could help you figure it out even if it was inadvertently! [emoji23]
Do your wings stay open if you stand it up so the main wing is up and down? Mine won’t, but I’d like that option... I just haven’t figured out a way to do that yet.
Do you have any decals for yours? I wish I could get my hands on a set for mine!
Yeah, better now than when I glued the cockpit on and it was way too late...
Yes, they do stay open. I ground down a hollow aluminum rod until it just fit and the friction seems to be good, at least for now. I am afraid of making the fit too tight as PLA does not do well under a lot of pressure over time.
No... I have some really accurate 1:24 scale decals that are awesome, but they are technically for the X-Wing, Y-Wing, and a few TIE's. I am just going to use a few from some random old kits.
I made some progress over the weekend. One of the wings is ready for resin and primer.
View attachment 1433939
The main body is pretty much done and I am finishing the re-worked cockpit now.
View attachment 1433940
Very cool! My kit is resin and not cast by me, so pressure doesn’t really work on mine... plus I broke one of the tips of the wings where it pivots and I had to put a pin in it just to keep it together, so i’d be afraid that it would break with that added pressure.
Are the decals you have from Jason Eaton by chance? I have a set from him that he had made recently, but they don’t have some of the B-Wing decals I was hoping for.
This is an awesome build. I've been following along, but no comments until now:
fo the wing function, you may try adding an o-ring groove to the pivot rod, in the body, and wing sections. It may take some working out, but the rubber will provide the friction without adding a ton of pressure. I suggest soft silicone metric o-rings, with a 1mm cross section. McMaster-Carr.
Search online for the Parker o-ring catalogue/guide (I have an actual hard copy). It shows how to machine the grooves based on how the o-ring is used. You don't care about sealing but the ring compression is what you're after. Knowing how deep and wide to cut the grooves so the rings are rubbing properly, and not pushing too hard. But I think if you cut the groove too shallow, you'd never get the ring (on the shaft) into the bore. Trial and error works too, since you again are not sealing.
Trickier, but doable, is to cut half the groove depth on the ID and the other half on the OD. Then the ring provides friction as well as retaining the parts. With higher durometer* rings (harder rubber), this can be a permanent assembly- you'd have to burn out the ring to get the thing apart!
*70 is pretty typical, with 90 being "hard". I would look for silicone under 70 durometer for this application.