Legacy Falcon Minimalist Customization

[Not Meee]

I will be getting two items today. The cockpit bulk head and nose section with the three missile bays, for modding. I noticed some pictures of the lighting around the game table. They look like the cockpit lights on the Legacy bulkhead. I plan on cutting them out for my decal, which will have a correct look. I will re-purpose the two lights and mod the seating section.

I added a side image of the nose as it meets the hull. Notice the half barrel/tank on the side. Shown are right of the image. All Falcons pictured in the collage have the same or near same changes. Even the hanger bay 32" Falcon in the SE film.

Also I noticed the front parking lights were added but not functioning, along with side plate updates to the SE ANH Falcon. I created a collage to show the extra changes.

Here is a stock picture of the bulkhead for the Legacy Falcon. To compare how close the lights are to use in the game seating section.

 

[Not Meee]

After obtaining my parts... awaiting the canon boxes. I measured out the cockpit bulk head to be 3-7/8" from side to side. Quite a bit of area to work with, mind you. I will cut out the LED and lens holders for modding the game seat back lighting. Will use some of the printing plastic sheet to make a nice cover. Simple as bending around a knitting needle for curvature once created. May slot the seat panel to allow the plastic sheet to stay in shape in fitment.

Since I am going to disassemble the bloody thing for the cockpit mods, might as well hit all the wee mods that I can without major work.

First thing, the door way is way too deep. I will section the doorway so it is near the proper depth for the placement.

Secondly, I will need to smooth down the bulkhead's raised detail areas. Sticking the newly designed decal from the transparency sheet, needs to fit evenly and flush to keep light from bleeding.

I will try a heated needle to push through small detail round holes for the intricate lighting. Mostly behind Solo, needed for a close approximation when lighted up.

Bulkhead design is coming along. The low resolution to high resolution image conversion is hardly noticable, as if the the cut and pastes are from the same image.

The main area being worked on is the lower grey panels. They are to be completely redone. If everything comes out as planned, I will give a try at the nose section of the pilot controls, that are in view from the round window.

It looks like there are some bits that will not be easily to revert back, without buying more Legacy Falcon parts. Though those areas (Mandible front ends, game seat lighting, 77mm dish, engine greeble details, and proper F1 boxes) may be over looked, or a added bonus, once completed, that most would not complain about if everything else was reverted back.

I am contemplating a wee separation of the inetgral nose and hull plate, which will allow a quick change of the nose with missiles to a modded non missile version. Once I disassemble, my head will wrap better around that option. It shouldn't effect structure rigidity or how one plays with the Falcon, though it's not a solid one piece section of the original. Again a thought for any wee bit to do while I am at it.

 

[Not Meee]

I have completed cutting and adjusting the cockpit bulkhead's door way. It's not perfect but close enough. I checked fitment of my custom decal, and found Hasbro offset the cockpit sizing on the black panel near the top center. It's been elongated about 6% or so. I will add more lighting with the new panel size, while I finish up the bottom grey panels and bottom light bars.

Don't mind the door being marked up, light scratches from hack saw. I am not a pro, so I used basic tools on hand. A small rotary cutter would have had cleaner results. I figured on doing painting, so the marks won't be a problem.

 

[Not Meee]

I found that the Legacy and Smuggler's Run have a irregular sized bulkhead, for action figures. The scale allows for proper orientation, but the action figures are not true to the scale of a properly scaled cockpit. Hasbro fudged by adding some oversizing in the mid section, without changing the scale of the panels. So I will increase the panel depth and add some ANH switches. After the proper panel sizing has been done, the bottom grey panel and lighting bar can be dropped into proper position, having the bottom of the adjusted panel and top of gray panel meet dead center in cockpit height. On the Legacy, there is no proper layout that fits, but to create a custom hybrid, or to paint the existing Legacy BMF bulkhead panel layout.

 

[Not Meee]

Here is my hybrid ANH and early ESB mix bulkhead. Still needs tweaked for proper fitment. I have yet to replace the items that look like a L on the left black panel, along with the bottom light bar.
View attachment 1520479

 

[Not Meee]

Here is a better look at how much the cabin was elongated for action figures, while keeping to scale with panel sizes. The gap and old ANH switch panel above it, are how much was added for action figures that are not part of the same scale.

I will try to add more edge to panels, to make some panels with white line borders with same distance between edges. It will make them more asymetrical by uniformity. Also I will add a wee more to the light bars to keep an optical illusion of uniformity, even though the panel heights will slightly increase. Hopefully all the wee adjustments will use up the gap, well enough not to add any more panels.

 

[Not Meee]

I found by going back to the bulkhead decals that are available for various kits. Most are not true to the door lines (height markers) I found a recent post somewhere that had a recreation of a cockpit marked up. Also found that is closely matches with my door and another patern I grabbed details from, as it was not ment for any modeling kits. Obviously they did some homework, unlike some top tier kits that are available. So my plan now is to align the door open/close button, on the lower grey panel, to line up with the widest side corner of the door... at least a button's width up or down.

I did clean up and widen the panels without much distortion. Makes the light bars a wee more noticable, which helps with such a small scale inside the cockpit. Technically, inspection in using a jeweler's jewel to notice down to .5mm differences is not necessary. It's obvious enough, by overall design, but better layed out than what I have come across. I assume depending on limited ability to view details in smaller cockpits, designers have fudged things around a bit, to make external viewing easier. Judging by what I found there are at least 3 different designs, including the Legacy Falcon, that seem out of place with middle panels with actual layout. Having the Legacy Falcon to go by blindedly, other than shape of the octagonal paneling, is guess work, due to added length around mid point down.

Anyway, the custom bulkhead coming along. Note, the door is the wrong layout to the Hasbro 2.5' Falcon. There are a few things needing correction, after being stretched, mostly on the center right panel.

 

[Not Meee]

Removed, as it was no longer needed.

 

[Not Meee]

Bad news... last night I secure erased my work. Not intenionally, mind you. It was partially moving remotely to my tablet with my file manager GUI reversed and pointing to a different folder of the same name not on the tablet. Long story short, recovered to yesterdays file, all the work 99% completed gone!

At least the recovered file also was posted here in the reply above this entry.

In aggravation, I mangled up a quad canon box, for use with a Heroes 3D printed replacement canon. It felt good! Ha!

Here is what I have done to make it have articulation, unlike all other 3D parts upgrades. The canon won't be as stong, so I hope my securing with fishing line holds up, unlike my first trial... a 2 meter drop, and missles flying everywhere on impact. I doubt a 2020 Legacy Collection Falcon would have come out as clean, from hitting tv top and the floor.

I have yet to trim the center mounting leg, for proper fitment, and create my fill in paste, using a muxture of the original toy plastic dust, from sanding and MEK. No painting required and will make the piece look molded, when done.

 

[Not Meee]

I cut up the second canon box, a wee more to scale. Actually just a wee taller than it should be. I figure the one above can be used fore the bottom canon box, since it is 2x taller than scale. The bottom boxes are all 2x taller than they should be, so the canon boxes were way overly tall like door way to the cockpit was too deep. Han and Leia action figures could have made out in the deep door opening, if there was a curtain covering it. Practically a smuggler's bay if a fake door was added. Ha!

I will have to create a custom canon holder / pivot arm, but it shouldn't be a problem.

If following along... my bulkhead decal posted a few replys back will update with changes, time to time. It's sort of a backup, in case I secure erase again. Ha! About 90% done with the decal, as of now. Once completed, I will make a template to cover the bulkhead and to mount the decal on. An cut aluminium can should do fine, as it is thin and can be pin holed by hand on a block of wood. Then paint white to fill in the transparent lines of the decal.

 

[Not Meee]

Here are the two canon boxes. Mostly ready for the home made MEK and plastic powder filling putty to be smoothed in and set. Won't do it until all plastics are ready for application. Rather make a batch and do all at once.

The shorter box shows the sloped walls much better than the overly tall structure. Because Hasbro did slope the walls, the fitment had to be carefully placed as stepped sections. To keep the alignment, I did 45° angled cuts so that the top and bottom try to self center. Some areas were cut higher but wi allow the plastic fill putty to join with more surface area as I build up the sloped walls, from being stair stepped.

 

[Not Meee]

Updated more on the decal, and will need to edit the colours and fix an error when adjusting a greeble. You probably would not notice it, if I told you there was an error. The decal will fit nicely being that I had to make changes to the panel sizing while trying to keep to the scale. If you were to mentally remove the ANH switches, you probably would think everything was proper. Though i did not keep all the lights... the wee ones a bit too small to make a difference. Though I kept some, to see if they will light up enough to be noticable.

Even if there was no lightling planned, the printed decal is light years better than the lack of detail given by the original bulk head. Hasbro could have at least made an attempt with a decal rather than raised greebles with very little detail for any accuracy.

 

[Not Meee]

I am just about finished with my cockpit decal. There is a few things, that I am religning a wee bit, for symmetry. The very small greebles have been removed to eliminate clutter. They are basically very small square representations of words, for labeling around some of the panels.

 

[Not Meee]

Removed as it is no longer needed.

 

[Not Meee]

Got notice I should be getting my Shapeways 308 Bits parts in before Xmas. Yay! Still awaiting on mold putty to create fake Hasbro parts from the 3D printed shapes. Hopefully I can mold the cannons with all the electronic bits encased. Two 2mm leds in the body wired up to a simple RC timed transistor switch, to automatically flash, independently between top and bottom barels. Segments of fiber optic will run through the barels. Wiring magnet wire from a mini radio transormer, through the arms ( negative on the left, positive on the right) should allow pivoting through a cup and pin method, without stressing the fine magnet wire. Thats my plan, it can be done with other cannons on the 2.5" kits. So we will see.

 

[Not Meee]

Finished up with my bulkhead decal. Its not perfect but has a lot of details of which may throw you off, if your comparing with known layouts. Some details were too gratuitous in fine detials, and not were needed, once printed to scale. Basically the base layout that worked best for the Hasbro was not as perfect as I had hoped. Many key reference points were off by changes for visual fitment with scale, being smaller while keeping visual queues. This should look different in comparison to my previous layout shown in progress updates. So, if you have a Hasbro Legacy Falcon, this decal can be the base to further enhance on your own skills, either by further manipulation or by adding lighting, as I will be doing... or just as it is, for a proper decal to enhance.

 

[Not Meee]

You may not like my final revision, but it was like the book, Give A Mouse A Cookie. Once I corrected one thing, another is easily shown. In fact, I did not realize one component greeble was over sized, being elongated, until finished. Basically all the black panels were ppurposefully done wrong. They were too accurate to be coincidence. What triggered the final corrections, was watching ESB, where Solo did the Fonz move, to the Falcons panel to activate th system. I caught a glimps and froze, noticing the thick border around the lower black panel. It is hard to reproduce, other than a thick white top and bottom borders. So far I think I am the only one to introduce them into a bulkhead for the Falcon. Either you will like it or not. It takes a bit of time to get use to them. But there you go.

 

[yaris]

Looking good so far.....is that the Hasbro Legacy Falcon....??

I picked up one at a yard sale, it was missing the cockpit cover, radar dish etc....which was good because the cockpit is way oversized to scale for the rest of the ship/toy....obviously to fit the action figures inside the cockpit...so I scratch built the cockpit to scale (by my eyes) repaint and weather.....not overly detailed but good enough for me.....

 

[Not Meee]

Looking good so far.....is that the Hasbro Legacy Falcon....??

I picked up one at a yard sale, it was missing the cockpit cover, radar dish etc....which was good because the cockpit is way oversized to scale for the rest of the ship/toy....obviously to fit the action figures inside the cockpit...so I scratch built the cockpit to scale (by my eyes) repaint and weather.....not overly detailed but good enough for me.....

Thanks! Yes it is the 2008 Legacy Falcon. I started with minor visuals that can be reverted back to original, using alcohol and water. The water based enamel for a grey wash on the side plates does a nice weather patern without much effort, other than 3 light coats in rotation. The white board marker fills in the lines without need to thin paint or air brush. Just a damp ear bud to gently wipe away excess and thin out heavy areas.

I finished up the bulkhead decal to my liking, and updated the image above to my print ready decal. Found many errors were created after adjusting various panel layouts. Had to resize or reconstruct borders around lights and buttons.

Some may notice I added green lights, and moved the rack panel handles to a more strategic location. Nobody would obstuct status lights or make holding the rack unbalanced, by the handles being to close to the center. Added more greebles from a few ESB scenes. Which started my endeavour to correct further.

Everything matches up nicely, both blown up for detail work or in applying to the cockpit. The decal should fit 6 per page, and plan on using a few as sacrifical templates in creating light passages and testing alignment, before completion.

My Shapeways parts are delayed. There were set to be delivered on the 24th, so 27th should be more like it.

 

[Not Meee]

I printed out a sheet of 4 images. I did not format the decals to fit nicely within a close grouping, and also did not set borderless print. The paper I used was Avery transparent matte self adhesive 8-1/2 x 11 sheet, with matte photo high quality setting on my printer. I could have adjusted print with override to saturate colours and black levels. But wanted to see how it came out overall.

I like the colours, but until I mount it in the cockpit, I won't know if I need to overlap another decal to darken it up enough to keep light from bleeding, and show deeper details.