Building The ANH 5'Millennium Falcon

[eagle1]

Cheers Lee, oh & happy new year mate.

I'd been meaning to ask if you were still thinking of doing a turret. Would still be a wicked display piece on its own. If you need any help with some of the ID's, PM me, no problem.

Yeah, this is gonna be a year of Falcon madness, should be some serious work displayed here soon. And yes, it is very satisfying to glue some donors together rather than pour over ref & measures most of the time.
Stu

 

[ckwanwoo]

Hi Stu,

Happy New Year~
Do you expect how much it costs to build this model?

Now, I have a fun imagine.
5' MF and 8' Avenger, which will be more costly to build the full model? :thumbsup

Eric.

 

[joewhite]

Joe, thanks for the 'chopped up' Ferrari 312b part you found earlier, I looked hard at this part & cut said part to fit today, cheers mate!.
These ILMers really did go out of their way to make parts fit in odd places, this one took me about half an hour to get right

Stu

No problem, Stu, glad I could help! Those pics look really cool, btw! I have a couple of them McLaren tubs....those are what made me realize just how big the model really is! Cool stuff!

Joe

 

[eagle1]

Hi Stu,

Happy New Year~
Do you expect how much it costs to build this model?

Now, I have a fun imagine.
5' MF and 8' Avenger, which will be more costly to build the full model? :thumbsup

Eric.

Heya Eric, Happy New Year to you too mate.

I brought up cost a while ago, but I would guesstimate now a total cost of USD $20-25,000.
Hard to compare with Julien's SD as it's a totally different build, with all the lighting & such. I think there are less rare/big costly donors on the SD TBH, which bumps up the cost of the Falcon somewhat.

Well, here's the cone coming along. Still got to make the front window assembly, may make a start on that this weekend. The front window frames near the edge are still a bit thick as I want the structure to hold it's integrity until the front frame is glued in place. I'll file those down later. Still got the window surround T-section framing to do as well as the plating underneath too.

 

[ralphee]

Awww Stu, its a tube, with a cone on the end, and im giddy!
Super work mate, im a bit all over the place right now, but i will touch base with soon on the gun turret if thats cool?

Bests, and keep this coming...... Lee

 

[ralphee]

Bonkers, those tiny holes you made for cutting, i do that, helps no end getting clean cuts, ive not seen many use it, kudos!

Lee

 

[Talkierg]

Woohoooo,canopy looking good Stu,please more,pics of kit bashed on it if possible.
Oh my,love it love it love it..............

Don

 

[ckwanwoo]

I can't believe that I REALLY look at only cockpit~ :thumbsup
Very huge...I can't dare dream to build this kind huge model.


Eric.

 

[Cadeus]

I don't remember reading $25,000.00. That is insanely disappointing! I wouldn't mind spending a few grand in parts and materials for the Falcon, cause she is worth it; but I am just too conservative to blow that kind of money. Kudos to those that have it, and spend it, but I wouldn't spend $25,000.00 on ANY model, even if I won the lottery... Is it the donor kits that make it such an expensive build? Please tell me you typed it in wrong.

 

[eagle1]

Thanks chaps, I promise to keep the details coming.

Awww Stu, its a tube, with a cone on the end, and im giddy!
Super work mate, im a bit all over the place right now, but i will touch base with soon on the gun turret if thats cool?

Bests, and keep this coming...... Lee

Thanks Lee, glad you likee!. Yeah the trick with drilling holes in the corners is a must with this type of framing. One slip & it's all over:lol
I'm here when you wanna talk Falcon mate.

I don't remember reading $25,000.00. That is insanely disappointing! I wouldn't mind spending a few grand in parts and materials for the Falcon, cause she is worth it; but I am just too conservative to blow that kind of money. Kudos to those that have it, and spend it, but I wouldn't spend $25,000.00 on ANY model, even if I won the lottery... Is it the donor kits that make it such an expensive build? Please tell me you typed it in wrong.

What you have to remember with these big miniature replicas is not just the expensive kit donors that go into it, but all the other materials as well.
Ok, donors are a given, but I also include the shipping each donor has cost me to reach my door.
Casting materials would be another big cost. There's no way a Falcon can be made reasonably cost effective without casting alot of the donors for duplicates.
Other items such as BIG Plastruct orders, styrene, acrylic sheet, the vintage Koolshade, alloy for the guns & armature, adhesives, paint etc... all mount up quickly.
My donor stash is growing weekly, some months you may buy a number of smaller kits with a 1 big purchase, other months maybe 2 big buys. The point is, overtime the Falcon is coming together. I have wanted to do this model for years, so already had quite a few of the kits in hand.
I know for some cost is THE factor, it is for me too, but over time, somehow, somehow, it just happens.
I look now at my accumulation of 'stuff' & think, wow, it's really happening.
Of course another BIG factor here is the help from fellow RPFer's, of which I will always have an endless gratitude for, you all know who you are!.

 

[Exxos]

$25,000 USD seems almost like "a deal" to me. I consider some of the resin garage kits out there that are $800 to $1400 and a five-foot falcon, just by volume is exponentially bigger and more involved.

 

[OylPslyk]

it may seem like a lot of money, but just remember, its not like you're dropping a wad of cash all in one payment. its over years of a little here and there.

i just still couldnt afford it myself, because i'd never sell the finished product... but i spend similar sums on my own hobby of restoring cars, but only because that money all gets reinvested every 6mo to a year.

 

[Galaxyman1701d]

This is awesome! I would never have the patience to piece together all those kits. Keep moving forward!

 

[Cadeus]

You make perfect sense, and I believe what you say. She is a wonderful ship! And I was hasty to say I wouldn't spend that much to have her. I think I was just being pessimistic... I have been poor my whole life. I live in a 20 year old trailer, and have never owned a new car. But maybe things will change for me, and I can have her some-day, too. YOU CHEERED ME UP!!! :lol And if it never happens for me, my wife will have a hell of a retirement bonus, selling the kits I've bought, when I die! :lol

 

[jedimaster]

25k, a passion for the subject matter, a whole lotta patience and a smidjion of insanity just about sums it up.

 

[eagle1]

Well I got to starting on the front window assembly, gathering a couple of 'found' acrylic discs, thinking these will make up the assembly, then it dawned on me:rolleyes
I'm sure this was made from a 3 1/2" Plastruct Flat Dish!. I stared & stared at this window for ages thinking there's no way the ILMer's would have assembled this from scratch, glueing all the frame together etc... .
I can see the flat dish would be just right & they are fairly thick in the middle, around 3.2mm. Be easy then just to mark out & drill out the windows. Even the sort of octaganol/hexaganol ? pattern can be achieved easily.
Any thoughts chaps?.
Anyhoo, Iv'e got an order coming along with a couple of the flat dishes
Stu

 

[ralphee]

You mean like a dished head Stu??? Yeah, crikey, could well be!

lee

 

[eagle1]

Yeah mate, VHD-350 should do the trick.
If you really study the front window piece, you can see that nothing is even, looks sort of filed & hand done from a solid part. Where the windows aren't cut out on the bottom & left solid, well, that sold it for me, too complex to be a total scratch for the ILMer's.
Got 2 on the way now, a spare in case I botch the first one up:lol
Stu

 

[Mark1701]

"Let the greebls do the talking"

The best piece of advice so far that I have ever heard.

 

[eagle1]

Well, after 12 hours of work, here's the front window piece finished!.
This piece is such an iconic part of the Falcon, it had to be done well to look right.
I was right in thinking that a Plastruct 'flat dish' was used by the ILMer's to construct this. I knew going into it that the thickness was too thin & I would need to build up the inside with styrene. It dawned on me though, that actually 2 dishes were used, being glued together to get the correct thickness of window framing. So I turned the inner dish to fit in the outer one & finished drilling out the windows. Using a second dish for the inner has the added benefit of having the interior 'clean' being the underside of the dish, much tidier than built-up styrene.

Now, there is a very prominant octaganal pattern on the very front face which has been the cause of speculation as this whole piece was a 'found' object, such as a plumbing/drainage part. I found this not to be the case as the flat dishes worked perfectly & to get the octaganal pattern, well, it was just a case of sanding in a particular way.

Pics show the part just held in front of the cone & will be attached later along with the T-section window framing & underside plating.

Speaking of plating, here's a buck made for vacforming the plating needed for the 5 3/4" tube. Didn't fancy bending & holding while glueing flat sheets of styrene around a tube, nightmare!. Made a few copies in differing thickness's.
Stu