Hot on the heels of the Millennium Falcon I posted a couple weeks ago, here is my recently completed Y-Wing
I case anyone is unfamiliar with the model, Bandai's Vehicle Model line is a series of small "Box Scale" kits, some are 1:144, some are 1:350, and if you get the Death Star, 1:2,700,000! Many of the starfighters work out to 1:144, making them ideal to display with the larger bandai kits. The only downside is that the cockpits are molded solid.
Starting with the box art, we have an old and slow Y-Wing chugging along the surface of the death star;
As you'd expect from Bandai, the detail in this little kit is very impressive, especially considering it's a stripped down machine with pipes everywhere! That being said, I replaced many of the most prominent pipes with metal wires and clipped ends of resistors,
Not seen in the above pictures, but I also replaced the two small pipes just forward of the R2 unit
As I had mentioned earlier, these kits don't have open cockpits, so I had to cut them open. I used a .30 drill bit to cut out the contour of the windows (the triangular ones were tricky), and I used a similar technique for the cockpit tub,
After a bit of chopping of styrene bits and bobs, and a bit of Aves, I had a proper cockpit and a pilot!
I had attempted this same build some time in the past, and felt as though the instrument panel should have been lit. I hollowed out the dashboard "hump" and used a 0805 SMD LED to light the gauges. I then glued a .01 piece of styrene for the front of the panel and will drill through the black light block layer to show the individual gauges,
I didn't take any pictures of the engine lighting as there isn't really much to show; just two pink LEDs (one per engine) and the plastic behind the exhaust thinned out to let a bit more of the light to shine through, I honestly spent more time on the base,
Since I needed something big enough to hold three AA batteries, so what better to use than a three AA battery box!
I bought a 5 pack of these off of Amazon, battery and switch all in one! For it to suit my purposes I relocated the switch to the back of the box, and used two of the kit stands to break up the monotony of a simple plastic box,
Painting was pretty straightforward, black basecoat, Tamiya for the main colour. The pipes were picked out in burnt exhaust, light gunmetal, chrome silver and metallic brown. I opted to paint the fuselage stripes green as that is what I had on hand and yellow is a miserable colour to try to brush paint at this scale! After the main colours were applied, I used Mr. Panel colour to add some depth and then applied some silver and lt. gunmetal for chipping. Afterwards I sprayed the ship with Mr. Hobby flat clear and the base and post Mr. Hobby gloss clear.
Questions, comments, threats all welcome!
I case anyone is unfamiliar with the model, Bandai's Vehicle Model line is a series of small "Box Scale" kits, some are 1:144, some are 1:350, and if you get the Death Star, 1:2,700,000! Many of the starfighters work out to 1:144, making them ideal to display with the larger bandai kits. The only downside is that the cockpits are molded solid.
Starting with the box art, we have an old and slow Y-Wing chugging along the surface of the death star;
As you'd expect from Bandai, the detail in this little kit is very impressive, especially considering it's a stripped down machine with pipes everywhere! That being said, I replaced many of the most prominent pipes with metal wires and clipped ends of resistors,
Not seen in the above pictures, but I also replaced the two small pipes just forward of the R2 unit
As I had mentioned earlier, these kits don't have open cockpits, so I had to cut them open. I used a .30 drill bit to cut out the contour of the windows (the triangular ones were tricky), and I used a similar technique for the cockpit tub,
After a bit of chopping of styrene bits and bobs, and a bit of Aves, I had a proper cockpit and a pilot!
I had attempted this same build some time in the past, and felt as though the instrument panel should have been lit. I hollowed out the dashboard "hump" and used a 0805 SMD LED to light the gauges. I then glued a .01 piece of styrene for the front of the panel and will drill through the black light block layer to show the individual gauges,
I didn't take any pictures of the engine lighting as there isn't really much to show; just two pink LEDs (one per engine) and the plastic behind the exhaust thinned out to let a bit more of the light to shine through, I honestly spent more time on the base,
Since I needed something big enough to hold three AA batteries, so what better to use than a three AA battery box!
I bought a 5 pack of these off of Amazon, battery and switch all in one! For it to suit my purposes I relocated the switch to the back of the box, and used two of the kit stands to break up the monotony of a simple plastic box,
Painting was pretty straightforward, black basecoat, Tamiya for the main colour. The pipes were picked out in burnt exhaust, light gunmetal, chrome silver and metallic brown. I opted to paint the fuselage stripes green as that is what I had on hand and yellow is a miserable colour to try to brush paint at this scale! After the main colours were applied, I used Mr. Panel colour to add some depth and then applied some silver and lt. gunmetal for chipping. Afterwards I sprayed the ship with Mr. Hobby flat clear and the base and post Mr. Hobby gloss clear.
Questions, comments, threats all welcome!
