I am rebuilding my MR Y-Wing, idealizing it to my specific tastes. I have added some detail from the scrap bin into the nose recess, since it looked weird leaving it blank:
And here I've redone the neck parts, swapping the sides from Red Jammer to the yellows, and long brass rods that not only help support the neck but also add to the detail. I like to sacrifice strict studio scale "accuracy" for things that I'd imagine the original builders would have done, had they been able to take their time. It lets me be more creative.
Which is my perfect excuse to add lights. Routed the front of the "dash" out, set leds in the void created, rebuilt the dash, added some Wave Option lenses and fiber optic bundles, and puttied over the leds/wires to rebuild the "dash" surface. Added hoses and a pilot, and a few resin WWII radio boxes. Next up is hollowing out the Artoo and adding his lights, and then the engine lights. All the wires run through the body (I cored it with a spade bit) with the board sitting in the butt, behind the tank part on the back. Battery (9 volt) will go behind one of the Leggs eggs, which will hold in place with a couple of those rare earth magnets. The on/off switch will be hidden under the racing car wheel part which I've made room for on the top, having shaved down the Saturn V LEM part. In the next month or so, I'll have it mounted to a Panavise which hangs tight on my wall in the prop room. Lotta work, but as always, fun.
I dremelled out the Luke face and added in my undersized "1/20th" figure face (it's a girl, gasp), and pinned one of the Leggs eggs so that I could slide it off to replace the 9 volt that'll juice the light board. You can see where I routed into the body to hold the wiring and board itself, and shaved off the pipe detailing on the wing in favor of brass rod. I'll replace the buttplate details from my kit stash. The wires will travel from the body, through the brass rod, and into the engine pods. Kinda silly to hide wires on the Y-Wing, with all of its exposed plumbing, but there ya go.
I routed out the Artoo unit, carefully separated the dome from the body (I want to pose the head in a different position), and cut the small holes for the logic readouts and status lights. The body was mounted higher up, too. Fiber optic strands will be lit white for the logic readouts, and the lightpipes, which I formed by heating thick fiber optic "rod" will have a blinking two led light source. All this has to live directly under the Artoo, so I routed out the Y-Wing body directly beneath the droid socket. It was quite a lot of work for such a small space, but the eye will go directly to the Artoo unit since he'll be lit (and is a recognizable character that everyone loves, even though he's not R2-D2)... I gotta say, that heat shrink tubing is so much easier to work with than electrical tape - I don't think I'll be going back.
I fused two sets of two leds with a heat-bent acrylic rod to make Artoo lightpipes. These leds switch off between the two colors to make the R2 readout. Since he's not R2-D2, I chose blue/green for the front and yellow/red for the back.
Those two assemblies plus the white led that feeds the two clusters of fiber optics for the "logic displays" had to get crammed into the socket:
So there are 5 leds in the head, and 5 leds in the R2 head. It took over two hours to get everything seated safely... here is a "before" photo.
Tonight I decide where to hide the on/off switch, and the switch that toggles the R2 2-color readouts between fading and blinking. Somewhere on the Saturn V engine pods, I think, since I can get in from behind easily. (giggle)
And here I've redone the neck parts, swapping the sides from Red Jammer to the yellows, and long brass rods that not only help support the neck but also add to the detail. I like to sacrifice strict studio scale "accuracy" for things that I'd imagine the original builders would have done, had they been able to take their time. It lets me be more creative.
Which is my perfect excuse to add lights. Routed the front of the "dash" out, set leds in the void created, rebuilt the dash, added some Wave Option lenses and fiber optic bundles, and puttied over the leds/wires to rebuild the "dash" surface. Added hoses and a pilot, and a few resin WWII radio boxes. Next up is hollowing out the Artoo and adding his lights, and then the engine lights. All the wires run through the body (I cored it with a spade bit) with the board sitting in the butt, behind the tank part on the back. Battery (9 volt) will go behind one of the Leggs eggs, which will hold in place with a couple of those rare earth magnets. The on/off switch will be hidden under the racing car wheel part which I've made room for on the top, having shaved down the Saturn V LEM part. In the next month or so, I'll have it mounted to a Panavise which hangs tight on my wall in the prop room. Lotta work, but as always, fun.
I dremelled out the Luke face and added in my undersized "1/20th" figure face (it's a girl, gasp), and pinned one of the Leggs eggs so that I could slide it off to replace the 9 volt that'll juice the light board. You can see where I routed into the body to hold the wiring and board itself, and shaved off the pipe detailing on the wing in favor of brass rod. I'll replace the buttplate details from my kit stash. The wires will travel from the body, through the brass rod, and into the engine pods. Kinda silly to hide wires on the Y-Wing, with all of its exposed plumbing, but there ya go.
I routed out the Artoo unit, carefully separated the dome from the body (I want to pose the head in a different position), and cut the small holes for the logic readouts and status lights. The body was mounted higher up, too. Fiber optic strands will be lit white for the logic readouts, and the lightpipes, which I formed by heating thick fiber optic "rod" will have a blinking two led light source. All this has to live directly under the Artoo, so I routed out the Y-Wing body directly beneath the droid socket. It was quite a lot of work for such a small space, but the eye will go directly to the Artoo unit since he'll be lit (and is a recognizable character that everyone loves, even though he's not R2-D2)... I gotta say, that heat shrink tubing is so much easier to work with than electrical tape - I don't think I'll be going back.
I fused two sets of two leds with a heat-bent acrylic rod to make Artoo lightpipes. These leds switch off between the two colors to make the R2 readout. Since he's not R2-D2, I chose blue/green for the front and yellow/red for the back.
Those two assemblies plus the white led that feeds the two clusters of fiber optics for the "logic displays" had to get crammed into the socket:
So there are 5 leds in the head, and 5 leds in the R2 head. It took over two hours to get everything seated safely... here is a "before" photo.
Tonight I decide where to hide the on/off switch, and the switch that toggles the R2 2-color readouts between fading and blinking. Somewhere on the Saturn V engine pods, I think, since I can get in from behind easily. (giggle)
