An RPF Open Source 5 ft Millennium Falcon Build/Reference Thread. All Are Welcome

So here’s a question about hull plating. What’s your go to method for measuring and cutting curves? Let’s take this panel for example:
B65046E8-7DF2-402E-AD86-0F979A1F6124.png


How do you get the perfect curve?
 
For pieces like this I print them out on paper first, cut them out with scissors and make sure they fit. Then I use that template to mark the real piece of plastic, cut it out with an x-acto and then sand the edges with an emery board.
 
swgeek said:
For pieces like this I print them out on paper first, cut them out with scissors and make sure they fit. Then I use that template to mark the real piece of plastic, cut it out with an x-acto and then sand the edges with an emery board.
Click to expand...
Awesome. That’s what I was thinking.
 
In addition to what swgeek said, you may want to cut them slightly larger so that you can sand or cut the edges for a smoother curve until you get used to measuring, cutting and fitting. You can always fix a larger panel by trimming, but gluing a millimeter strip to where you trimmed too much will look terrible and will take more time to fix.

TazMan2000
 
Also, since there is a slight curve, it may be difficult to get a flat piece of plastic to look good when glued down. What I did when gluing plates of plastic onto a sphere was cut slices in the middle of the piece, being careful not to go end to end so that they would split. The "cuts" would open up slightly, but allow the panel to sit flat on a curved surface. Once glued, fill in the "cuts".

TazMan2000
 
Thought I'd put my 2 cents worth here on panel cutting.
Guys, there is no issue with the styrene curved panels sitting on the hull flat!. Because they do. Even the bigger panels sit perfectly on the hull, believe me!. As they are curved, they match the long length of curvature. There's no issue to be had here ok.
As for my personal panel cutting preference, I use thin card templates on the trickier panels & transfer to the styrene sheet to cut out the panel proper.
If you make a mistake on an edge, as I have done on quite a few, then you cut off a goodly strip, say more than 10mm & butt up a new piece of styrene & sand to it is as one again & continue. It's pointless in most cases to fabricate an entirely new panel.
 
eagle1 said:
Thought I'd put my 2 cents worth here onanel cutting.
Guys, there is no issue with the styrene curved panels sitting on the hull flat!. Because they do. Even the bigger panels sit perfectly on the hull, believe me!. As they are curved, they match the long length of curvature. There's no issue to be had here ok.
As for my personal panel cutting preference, I use thin card templates on the trickier panels & transfer to the styrene sheet to cut out the panel proper.
If you make a mistake on an edge, as I have done on quite a few, then you cut off a goodly strip, say more than 10mm & butt up a new piece of styrene & sand to it is as one again & continue. It's pointless in most cases to fabricate an entirely new panel.
Click to expand...
Thanks Stu.
 
not sure about the chrome parts but the part(s) in my cropped photo is on sprue C of the 1/12 m23... edit: it does appear to be only one part.
 

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Has anyone posted the positions of the maintenance bays on the mandibles. I know Stu mentioned that they're different from top to bottom. I always thought they were directly above each other top to bottom. That's probably just because I grew up looking at the MPC Falcon model, lol. I know they're shown on the Maruska and Vfxsup64 drawings. They appear to be in the same place top to bottom. You can't see top and bottom at the same time so it's not too critical, unless you're a obsessive person. And as luck would have it I am, lol. Just wondering if I missed any new info on where these suckers go, ; ) Thanks,

Joe
 

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