Rebuilding AMT/MPC Millennium Falcon Again

[ozzyguanche]

Hi took some closer shots of the pieces. Not finished as you can see,

My casting is getting better, so some styrene tubing a kit base and a press stud top turns into an F1 wheel. Learning heaps as I go.

Ozzy

 

[MARK M3]

Hi took some closer shots of the pieces. Not finished as you can see,

My casting is getting better, so some styrene tubing a kit base and a press stud top turns into an F1 wheel. Learning heaps as I go.

Ozzy

AWESOME! AWESOME MY FRIEND!!!thumbsup

 

[crackerjazz]

great job, Ozzy! Looking forward to this too, and buying some parts from you

 

[ozzyguanche]

Thanks guys.

A question for you both. The engine deck!!! what would be more convienient for you to work with? 1. individual parts and build the deck yourself. RE: sand down the original engine deck (I am planing to make mine removable) or a complete new one/ cut of old replace new? And I suppose the same question for the side walls.

Ozzy

 

[crackerjazz]

Hi Ozzy, individual parts for me. I'd probably sand down the deck. Your detachable deck sounds good, too, though. I don't plan to make any change to the hull curvature - would your detachable deck have the same curvature as the original?

 

[Jedi Dade]

when I did this for mine i cut the old deck off and made a new semi-removable piece.

Jedi Dade

 

[ozzyguanche]

Dont leave it there JD, more info!!!! HOW!

Ozzy

 

[ozzyguanche]

Hello,

I am still struggleing with some of the parts for the front madable walls and the engine deck, so no updates till i get something I am not embarrassed the show. I am hopeing to be less crap at it in the near future.

In the meantime I have hacked away at the body of the falcon to see if the new measurments I am comming up with (based on the parts I am making that are used muliple times around the ship) to see if it looks right.

First of all I cut the parts that would be most affected by the "hambergering" of the body. The docking ring halls, and the cockpit tuble.

Then I cut off the fin section at rear (I will be replacing with new ones) and the lower front landing bay (which is tooooo shallow), and the engine exausts on the engine deck. I had planed to reuse these, but I am going to make some new one with actual moving mini electric fans inside them ( ya ya I know dream on LOL.)

this is the correct size for the tank deck. Landing bay box to be sized around it.

Next sanded down the engine deck.

Undecided as to whether to do the drop on engine deck, removable or just greable this. Anyone been here before have an opinion?

Ok next I put in the burger spacer and some electrical conduit for attaching the falcon in different possitions. I used 20mm2 heavy duty conduit so I can put what ever I can find as the side/bottom attachments. I dont have a clear solution yet.

I only attached it to the bottom for the moment so I can figure out what wiring is going into it.

Next (after24 hours waiting for the apoxy to dry) I lowered the height of the spacers around the body to mach my new side wall height of 1.6cm. This is an increase of 1 cm from my original falcon. Ohh and the spacer is 5cm. The spacer is also a change and represents the docking ring size (which I have estimated) matching the walkways being level (does that make sence?)

OK, fitting top and bottom. With the cockpit as well to see how it looks against the side wall height.

Well thats it, even though I have made estimates to try and ensure I get the right sizes for the falcon to be a good representation of the 5 foot falcon, I am also relying on phot reference to see that it has the same look against my own photo's. Not science I know, but the ultimate end result for me is a falcon that "looks" like the 5 foot.

Thaks for looking

Ozzy

 

[tek2graphics]

Love your idea with PVC! Thanks!

 

[MARK M3]

Hello,

I am still struggleing with some of the parts for the front madable walls and the engine deck, so no updates till i get something I am not embarrassed the show. I am hopeing to be less crap at it in the near future.

In the meantime I have hacked away at the body of the falcon to see if the new measurments I am comming up with (based on the parts I am making that are used muliple times around the ship) to see if it looks right.

First of all I cut the parts that would be most affected by the "hambergering" of the body. The docking ring halls, and the cockpit tuble.

Then I cut off the fin section at rear (I will be replacing with new ones) and the lower front landing bay (which is tooooo shallow), and the engine exausts on the engine deck. I had planed to reuse these, but I am going to make some new one with actual moving mini electric fans inside them ( ya ya I know dream on LOL.)

this is the correct size for the tank deck. Landing bay box to be sized around it.

Next sanded down the engine deck.

Undecided as to whether to do the drop on engine deck, removable or just greable this. Anyone been here before have an opinion?

Ok next I put in the burger spacer and some electrical conduit for attaching the falcon in different possitions. I used 20mm2 heavy duty conduit so I can put what ever I can find as the side/bottom attachments. I dont have a clear solution yet.

I only attached it to the bottom for the moment so I can figure out what wiring is going into it.

Next (after24 hours waiting for the apoxy to dry) I lowered the height of the spacers around the body to mach my new side wall height of 1.6cm. This is an increase of 1 cm from my original falcon. Ohh and the spacer is 5cm. The spacer is also a change and represents the docking ring size (which I have estimated) matching the walkways being level (does that make sence?)

OK, fitting top and bottom. With the cockpit as well to see how it looks against the side wall height.

Well thats it, even though I have made estimates to try and ensure I get the right sizes for the falcon to be a good representation of the 5 foot falcon, I am also relying on phot reference to see that it has the same look against my own photo's. Not science I know, but the ultimate end result for me is a falcon that "looks" like the 5 foot.

Thaks for looking

Ozzy

Awesome my friend!thumbsup:thumbsup

 

[ozzyguanche]

Thanks tek2graphics and BP.

I know I should be concentrating on one part of the falcon at a time and finish something and not be a bit all over the place, but I have done it again anyway.

while sanding down the engine deck, I realised that the engine inserts I had planned adding to the inside of the 6 rear vents would not fit with the current engine light box I had made. So I decided I should at least make one so I can arrange them in a way I can fit it all in the rear space.

Here are the engine vents I have been working on. Purchased some mini fans some time ago, and broke off the blades around the electric motor.

Also had an old engine piece from a plastic toy plane of my sons. Its a little larger than the size of the engine vents, so it should flush under the vent holes. And fits perfectly over the electric fan motors, so as not to hinder its rotation.

From the leftovers of the toy plane I made and fan piece to glue to the electric motor. (all pieces still need to be cleaned up)

Put all those together.

Looks pretty cool spinning away, will try and do a vid.

I used the top part of the toy plane engine that I cut off, which turned out ot taper a bit, and be the right size for the engine vents and made an vent. I used the PE. a member here sent me years ago to finish it off.

I need to raise the PE Heiger in the vent I know!

Should fit spot on once I get the old holes filled and new ones cut on the engine deck.

Now that i know how much room these things are going to take. I have pulled the old engine lights apart to the bare box and clear parts, and will try and incorporate LED's into it instread whch should use less room.

As a memory jolt, I used cardboard for the box, and foil to light proof it. The clear engine vent things are from Plasterers screw gun strips. RE: The plastic strip that actualy holds the screws. It used to have a Fluro in it.

This is what it used to look like with the fluro in it. It had 2 modes, low!

And Hi

So I would like to do something simular.

Here is an idea. Has anyone tried sticking leds into silicon? (I mean the industrial type) If I made an LED strip and imbeded them into block the lenght of my engine jet (vents) would it refract the light around the silicon?

Suggestions?

Ozzy

 

[MARK M3]

The Fans look fantastic Ozzy! I need to get a set of those PE Covers!!

The engine lighting looks great, however, I will be going a different route. I think I'll have the Light, but no detailed engine..Like I saw it back in 77!

 

[ozzyguanche]

Hi BP, you just going to put a piece of defused plastic like the original?

It a hard call for me with the engine lights and the internal cockpit. Having sen your cockpit with studio scale detail in it, has me rethinking what road to take. Either studio scale all the way, or add the movie feel, of the engines, cockpit, gunn turret etc.

It shouldn't be too hard to frost the plastic strip that came with the MPC kit. may have a go.

Catch ya

 

[Blade90]

Most impressive indeed!

 

[ozzyguanche]

Thanks Blade90.

Cut and past post today, from SMA forum, didnt have time to re-type.

Back to the body of the falcon. Have filled in the engine holes. Sanded it back and marked it out for the new holes. Made some adjustments to the engine rings as well.

While thining the edge plating I realised that the raised areas inside the plating were the side walls attach were no were near as far back as the should be. The inner walls around the ship should be the same as the inner circle.

So I sanded them down so I could cut the walls and space the ship the right height.

I have marked how far in the walls will go.

I did the same around the mandables as I found the greebles I have made become too high when including the raised parts.

My new wall hight for this build is 1.6cm. So for the mandables it is a 1.2cm spacer, as the thikness of the kit top and bottom are 2mm each.

I have debated with others as to the hight of the curved side walls being the same as the mandables or slightly larger. I of the opinion that the spacers have to be higher, as they are further back in the body of the ship and therefore are higher by 1mm in this build. (sorry didnt take pic).

Other areas worked on are the front mandable strips, both top and bottom. (first pic) they have been lowered to the correct hight. And the piping all over the ship has been removed. I used a sanding disk in a hand drill. The hand drill on low worked much better than the rapid spin of the dremil.

This one needs a bit of work though.

Sorry its a long post.

Lastly after doing a dry fit with the walls in place (spot on 1.6cm) I tried the placement of a few scale parts I have made (none finished) to see if the side wall hight works. I think considering I did these parts from measurments of the real things and scaled them down against the AMT size, that 1.6cm is pretty close. Could actualy be higher, what do you think? Sorry bad pic.

Well thats it. Thanks for looking.

Ozzy

 

[MARK M3]

I think it looks great Ozzy!
This build can drive you crazy....You have to pick and choose your battles.

 

[ozzyguanche]

Hi guys,

I have been watching Jaitea's amazing AMT/MPC build which has encourages me to start working on at least the main body of my falcon, if not the greebles.

Last time I compaired an A4 print of the 5 foot falcon against the AMT/MPC and came up with some measurments and changes needed to turn the MPC into a version of the 5 foot. The fist time I started with the main hull dish size and worked from there.

Changes included:
Side walls too high
Dome too shallow/curvature
Cockpit tube and canopy too small
antenna too big
Mandables too long (They do toe in though)
Mandable pit holes too big and in wrong possition(and in comparisment so are all the other pit holes)
Docking rings too small
Engine deck rings too big
Outer ring feathers mismatch
Turret ring too big
Turret window too big
etc.

A lot of rebuilding to get this right.

This time I approached it differently including figures theived from the 5 foot falcon ID thread guys, crackerJaz's thread etc, and found many parts of the AMT/MPC falcon matched up rather well with the 5 foot. One that did not was the main hull dish size.

Everytime I had made comparisment with pictures (transparent) over the other (5'against amt, Amt against Joe Johnsons blue prints etc) I was lining up the main hull dish first. This was throwing out everything else.

Below is a pic of the plan view of the 5 foot and Rodmarts MPC pic. Most of the plan view works except the main hull dish. This is also obviouse when you compare the overhang on the 5 foot compared to the AMT.

The main hull dish does however match the plexy dome outer edge before plating was attached. So I am going to use it as such and just redo the plating.

What do you think.

Ozzy

 

[Jaitea]

Good to hear you're back into it again Ozzy, can't wait to see how this one comes along, how much does the turret & its window mismatch?

J

 

[ozzyguanche]

Good to hear you're back into it again Ozzy, can't wait to see how this one comes along, how much does the turret & its window mismatch?

J

Hi J, when it comes down to it, its only the taper thats missing from the Turret. The window is very close.

Ozzy

 

[ozzyguanche]

Hi,

I have had a few days off and have continued to establish exactly what I have to do to the main body to get it closer to the 5 foot falcon dimentions. As mentiond above I have been taking a different approach this time.

Myself and others have always compared the AMT and the 5 foot plan view measuring the hull disks first them rescaling othe parts to match. This has made it nessasary to cut down the jawbox, mandables, the maintanance pis too big etc.

It turns out that its the Main hull disks that are too small, not all the other areas.

As seen in the 2 pics below if you increase the size of the hull disks it all matches almost exact. The jaw box still needs to be shortend, but nowere near as much (It will have to be re-aligned anyway to allow for the hull curve), the maintanance pits are also a little to big, but are in the correct position. Even the plating is a good match.

So starting mods today:

Regards

Ozzy