Building The ANH 5'Millennium Falcon

[eagle1]

Excellent video Stu!
I was lost for words for a while there! Simply awesome.


The armour plating looks great. As does the damage that you are laying down. I can understand your careful work up to the larger damage areas. They must be somewhat daunting to faithfully replicate at first. And thanks for pointing out the Ladder Chief beam. Hadn't noticed that one.

This video makes me realise just how important it is to layout the pits first to determine the heights and positions at which they sit relative to everything else. Absolute mammoth effort.

I was wondering, is the docking ring perfectly concentric, say as if it was machined, or is it slightly out of round?

And that aside, I was thinking it may have originally been the base of a paint mixing pot. It has a very slight ridge on the inside opening where the greeblies are which reminds me of the base of some plastic cups.

Maybe like say, the construction of an Escape Pod model, unless it was indeed a container of the Colonel's secret herbs and spices....I'duno?

Just spitballing here...

Reference pic showing ridge bellow.
View attachment 1507152

Seriously looking forward to your next updates!

Best regards,

Hey thanks so much.
I guess for a simple explanation of replicating this miniature, is that it's reverse engineering all the way...especially with the pits!. Plating needs to be worked out before pit placement & the pit detail assembly plate has to be built before that!. Heights are critical for pit placement too...its all about trial and error & much fiddling around to get everything to gel.

I haven't ever found out what the original miniatures docking rings were made from. I think its turned wood...i think i possibly saw a pic or two of the inside years ago, but the mind plays tricks haha. It could possibly be a container of some sort, that inside lip is a good tell, but they could have easily added that on the lathe too!. I have that lip on my rings by the way haha.

Stu

 

[eagle1]

eagle 1,
Thanks again for the superb photo’s & latest video. As the saying goes “a picture is worth a thousand words.” But, your video’s words are Falcon Explainations and challenge that wisdom. Really can be appreciated by those building this model. Also, I fully understand your cherishing of certain greeblies and skipping around the structure to keep focus & maximize lessons learned. My build will be entering the disc skin armoring stage before much longer. Your thread’s pictures are valuable so I do not deviate too much in the particular segments & notches. If and when I get to the kit part stage (need to live long and prosper), your thread & video will then become priceless for correct placement of details. Must say the multiple colors of the unpainted greeblies give me hope.

One other thought. The care and quality you and other “pioneers” have applied towards duplicating the original Falcon studio scale models is incredible.

Hi Searun. Thanks so much my friend & i am glad you find my videos & pictures useful for your magnificent build. It's something to have this huge miniature sitting in our workshops isn't it...you must get tingles each & everyday you see it & sit down to continue progress.

If there's anything in particular you would like me to go over in a video, let me know & I'll try to incorporate it into one.

Stu

 

[eagle1]

If you don’t mind me asking, what thickness styrene did you use for the plating?

Thanks,
John

Hi John,

Plating was a mix of 1mm for most of the hull plating. There's also 0.75mm for various areas around the miniature & i think i used .10mm very thin styrene for the docking rings.

Stu

 

[eagle1]

 

[eagle1]

Thank you to everyone for commenting & liking my posts & videos, it really does spur me on to the finish line & I'm glad folks get the enjoyment of seeing just what it takes to realise building this iconic miniature!.

Another video up now & the radar assembly i discussed a little, but i will add some pictures here & a little more explanation.

So as per the other pits...you have to have the assembly to know the size of the pit cutout. Plating was worked out around the known diameter of the radar base & the height determined also. I'm still detailing out the assembly with kit parts & all those tiny Plastruct T strips!.
My assembly will be fully poseable in any position, but ultimately i like the classic pose of dish down, facing forward slightly to starboard.
Now, in one of the pics here, you will see a blueprint i drew a few years back...its good, but not fully accurate, there's some details i didn't pick up, but now incorporated into my final dish front face. As i said in the video, there's a detail in there that's hard to spot, but it's there!. That's what what you get staring for hours at reference pics & seeing these things...moments of 'oh i see now'.

 

[jcoffman99]

Hi John,

Plating was a mix of 1mm for most of the hull plating. There's also 0.75mm for various areas around the miniature & i think i used .10mm very thin styrene for the docking rings.

Stu

Thank you.

 

[Bjorn]

Oh my!

Love that early drawing Stu. Some old school technical drafting skills there. Take's me back to my drafting at school. Very Joe Johnson like.

And thanks, I think I blew an hour yesterday trying to find these pieces on the dish....nup, nada, nothing jumping out. Too funny!

The pics of the parts on the dish assembly and pylon are a big help. Very clean work by the way.

Another great video!

 

[Tsophika]

I love to see this coming together, Stu.
You nailed that radar dish.

 

[eagle1]

Oh my!

Love that early drawing Stu. Some old school technical drafting skills there. Take's me back to my drafting at school. Very Joe Johnson like.

And thanks, I think I blew an hour yesterday trying to find these pieces on the dish....nup, nada, nothing jumping out. Too funny!

The pics of the parts on the dish assembly and pylon are a big help. Very clean work by the way.

Another great video!

Thanks so much!.

Ha yeah, that drawing took an age to do & even now its wrong in a few details...but i still love it & its a nice thing to have on the bench while working on this assembly.

Well, you're going to have to look harder my friend for the hidden details that those crazy ILM modelers put in there!.

 

[eagle1]

I love to see this coming together, Stu.
You nailed that radar dish.

Thank you so much, that's very humbling coming from you knowing how much a stickler for details you are!.

 

[3DImpact]

That dish is a thing of beauty! Absolutely love watching this all come together...

Dan

 

[eagle1]

That dish is a thing of beauty! Absolutely love watching this all come together...

Dan

Well thank you so much Dan. I'm stoked you like the build process.

Stu

 

[joberg]

I almost had a heart attack when I saw you video explaining the build/scale of your MF; your long arms gesticulating over that beautiful Studio Scale model made my heart skip a beat "Please, don't hit it" was my thought!! Great radar dish for sure and glad to see that a pencil, compass and line drawing are still the fastest way to flesh/design something!!

 

[Larsen]

So impressive... Amazing to see your progress.

Do you ever think about how it must have been back then, sitting in that garage/warehouse in Van Nuys?

Crazy to think about how fast they had to put this thing together too.

Thank you so much for sharing.

 

[connaiseur]

Thanks so much!.

Ha yeah, that drawing took an age to do & even now its wrong in a few details...but i still love it & its a nice thing to have on the bench while working on this assembly.

Well, you're going to have to look harder my friend for the hidden details that those crazy ILM modelers put in there!.

Maybe the Ring on top of the centerpiece would make the Dish fully perfect! Mindblowing work!

 

[eagle1]

I almost had a heart attack when I saw you video explaining the build/scale of your MF; your long arms gesticulating over that beautiful Studio Scale model made my heart skip a beat "Please, don't hit it" was my thought!! Great radar dish for sure and glad to see that a pencil, compass and line drawing are still the fastest way to flesh/design something!!

Hey thanks Joberg, much appreciated.
It is a bigggggg model, no hiding that fact, but as time passes with working on it, it doesn't seem daunting to me anymore.
Haha...i tap it alot in my videos, but never hit it!. But, it is surprisingly strong & solid. The core i designed & built I'm very happy with in terms of strength, cutting into for the pits & other cutouts.
I still love drawing something out, always a pencil in my hand & ruler in the other!.

 

[eagle1]

So impressive... Amazing to see your progress.

Do you ever think about how it must have been back then, sitting in that garage/warehouse in Van Nuys?

Crazy to think about how fast they had to put this thing together too.

Thank you so much for sharing.

Thank you Larsen, very kind!.

Yeah it crosses my mind often when doing something on the model. Laying down kit parts i always think...wow...here i am...doing the same thing as those ILMers did way back when. Thinking someone hose that particular kit part & glued it down & i have just done the same thing, it does indeed give me the warm fuzzies!.
They had 6 weeks to put this together, 24 hours per day in 12 hour shifts with maybe 4 modelers at any given time working on it...from what i was told anyway.

 

[eagle1]

Maybe the Ring on top of the centerpiece would make the Dish fully perfect! Mindblowing work!

I have that 'ring' which is from the Sealab, but will add it last as its a very delicate part. It will be added as per original configuration, not the slightly later 'pinched' configuration.

 

[Rust and Bolts]

Well, after a solid 10 minutes, I don’t think I’ve spotted the details you mentioned.haha.

Awesome build. Too cool.

 

[eagle1]

Well, after a solid 10 minutes, I don’t think I’ve spotted the details you mentioned.haha.

Awesome build. Too cool.

Hey thanks so much.
Ha yeah...think i opened a can of worms there...so many questions i have had.