SirCharles77's Han In Carbonite Replica

[SirCharles77]

OK I am back!! And I have made tons of progress. But this will take a few posts so bear with me!

So I finished printing that jig and I was amazed how dense and solid ABS plastic would be when printed with 100% infill! Its like harder than the hardest woods! Works great for bending those aluminum rods.

Here is my jig in my vise.

After bending the first rod it looks like it's going to work pretty well!

Wasn't sure at first how I was going to mount it. Wanted to put a screw in the end but I don't have a drill bit for making a threaded hole so I chose instead to just use glue. It doesn't need to hold any weight so this should be fine.

So I cut some short rods out of a clothes hanger and drilled holes to match that size.

Here are the first 4 I made. Sold the two extras to a friend. I can make more if anyone needs em. I only charge $15 plus shipping for a set.

Here you can see how well it matches the holes on the Volvo Panel! I am VERY HAPPY with the results!

 

[SirCharles77]

Haven't made much progress on my box but I have been waiting on a new corner to corner cast of the Illusive Concepts HiC sculpture because its much more accurate and detailed than the one I have atm. So I have put this on hold a bit but I did finish up putting in supports on the backside. Here's a pic of its current state.

 

[SirCharles77]

I went on vacation to visit family in there for a few weeks so during that time I didn't make much progress. But I had almost all of my 3d Printed Volvo Panels ready before I left. So I took them with me and managed to get about half of them sanded down while I was away. Then when I got back I sanded the rest of them in the first week I was back. That was a HUGE milestone! There are 8 panels on the HiC. They are about 2" too long to fit a whole panel on my print bed so I had to split the 3d model in half and print them separately.

The big half took about 26 hrs to print one. The small half took about 19 hrs. So one panel took about 45 hrs to print. Multiply that by 8 and we are talking 360 hrs of print time! Then it took me about 1.5 hrs each half to sand them down to get them smooth enough that my OCD was happy with them. So another 3 hrs each for a total of 48 hrs per panel. 384 total hours to get those panels made!! A friggin marathon!!

Here's one right off the printer. I had to remove all of that support structure which was not fun.

Here's one in progress being sanded.

Here they are all done being sanded and printed.

 

[SirCharles77]

Oh also while I was on vacation, there was a little hardware store called Runnings in the town we were visiting that has the most awesome selection of screws I have ever seen! I was able to get almost all of the screws I needed to make these panels! So much easier than trying to order them online! Might have to go back there and make screw packs people can purchase so they don't have to hunt them down!

 

[SirCharles77]

Hey gang, I am wondering if any experts out there might have some info on these topics that I don't have. I have come to a bit of a stalemate with my panels. There are a few elements that I am trying to replicate on the hero panel. I can't seem to locate the exact part that was used for them on the original (or even any replacement parts that are close enough to my liking to use). And 3d printing them just doesn't seem to be working out.

So here's an image to help explain what I am missing.

The 4 microchips on the main display window appear to be old Russian chips that I have found on ebay. Problem is ordering them reliably from a company from Russia called the Russian Federation doesn't sound too safe or reliable to me (plus I have no idea the dimensions so even though they look right visually they may be too big or small). But maybe I am just a paranoid American. But I was hoping to find a more local option. Plus, if I were to order them it could be months before they arrive and I am in too much of a hurry. I was then thinking I could maybe 3d print them, and I think I could reliably print the body, but the little metal teeth that come out of the side are just not working.

Then on the knobs. I had been doing alot of research on these, and I thought they look alot like Fender Tele or P-Bass knobs. So I have been digging into those and while they are very close, they are just not quite right. Mostly in size. Comparing these in the image to the dimensions of the Volvo panel I am estimating that they are both around 15-16mm in diameter. And the left one is around 19mm tall while the right one is close to 16mm tall. None of the guitar knobs I have seen match these dimensions.

So then I was looking around therpf and came across darthchromer thread. And that led me to his images on Photobucket where he has this image.

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In there he states he believes they are swing arm counter weights from an old record player. So I have been digging around and haven't seen a single record player that looks like it has counter weights that look anything like this. So now I am not sure. It's highly possible that the record player is so obscure that I am just not finding it. But if there's a chance I can locate the original parts I gotta try right?


Anyway, that was really long winded. I hope someone out there can help! And nuggets of info you have are of use so don't hold back just because your not sure!!

 

[SirCharles77]

Ok time for another update. I had been working on painting greeblies and trying to figure out what paints to use. I purchased a lot of different metal finish type paints from various stores to try to find a few that worked. I think I found a pretty good mix.

Here are a few pictures of some of the tests I did.

This is some of the paints I bought.

Here are a bunch of parts test painted with the ones above. You can see the Brilliant Aluminum, Brilliant Silver, and Metallic Finish give good metal looks. The others look a bit too much like paint...

Ultimately this is what I ended up using as I think it gives some variety to the finishes and looks pretty close to the Identities Model.

Then I also finally was able to get a good print of my Metal Grid. This is another piece where I felt like all of the ones I found for sale out there were not accurate enough. It was nice that they were metal, but the shapes of the holes was wrong, or the cut on the edges was wrong with each of them so I figured out a way to get it more close. I wish the metal look was smoother, but in real life, it looks way better than it does in this picture!

Here it is before painting and only a bit of sanding for some initial cleanup.

Here it is after final cleanup and painting.

I also finished up the polish and painting of the two small parts on panels D and G. I mixed up some paints I had gotten for my Falcon build and came to some colors that pretty closely match the colors I was seeing on the Identities prop. They look pretty smooth!

I will touch on two more parts in this post for tonight. Here are the UFO and Cutout knobs from Panel B.

This one was a pain, I was finally able to get those little screws on the outside to print with some definition in them. And then a small bit of cleanup with the edge of an exacto knife I was able to make em look pretty good.

Unfortunately my painting skills on such a small thing is not quite what I wish they were...If any has any tips for painting super small things like this I am all ears!! But after inserting the screw I bought for it I think it looks pretty darn good!!

Here's a shot of the finished Cutout knob! Also turned out pretty good. One thing I am not liking about this Metallic Finish paint is that even after drying for days, the slightest touch with your hands dulls the finish on it. I tried on a test piece adding a gloss coat over it and it just melted the chrome finish. So that didn't work. Not sure what to do other than maybe get some white gloves to wear when handling them. But that's probably gonna cause the same issue.

So anyway it ends up with a bit of a weathered dull look if you have to touch it too much. Still looks pretty good though.

Ok more posts to come soon. I have A LOT more done than this atm...but I need more time to post. Spending all my time building it right now! HAHA

 

[Drew Baker]

Not being versed in the HIC, I have to ask: has that part been identified? It looks like it could be the same thing used to hold the upper D-ring on the MoM Vader lightsaber.

 

[SirCharles77]

Not being versed in the HIC, I have to ask: has that part been identified? It looks like it could be the same thing used to hold the upper D-ring on the MoM Vader lightsaber.

Not that I am aware of. But if someone knows I would love to also have that info! I wanted to id as many parts as I could during the process. Haven't had much luck overall.

 

[Drew Baker]

Not that I am aware of. But if someone knows I would love to also have that info! I wanted to id as many parts as I could during the process. Haven't had much luck overall.

Okay. I was hoping, but can't say I'm surprised. Thanks!

 

[SirCharles77]

Next big update. Gonna try to get completely caught up now. These last few updates have been from a while ago now. Probably like 3 weeks behind. Oh well!

So the next big step was to assemble the Panels. I got them all sanded before. Now I needed to glue them together. I did this using an ABS Slurry which is basically ABS plastic scraps mixed with Acetone. You apply it between ABS parts and it melts them together. And when the acetone evaporates you have a bond that is basically as strong as if it were printed that way. Pretty cool. Also you can use the ABS slurry to fill in gaps at the seams and then sand it down once dry to make it a smooth transition.

Here's a pic of them right before gluing them.

And After...

Then once done I did a paint job on them. I used the rust-o-leum Filler Primer shown in the picture before. To get them as smooth as I could I primed them once, then did another pass to sand down the filler primer which helps fill in a lot of the little imperfections. Then did another coat. I did this a few times in some areas to make sure they were really smooth.

I had already done Panel H as a test and glued on the aluminum backing as you can see in the above pic. Here's a shot of all of the parts for that panel laid out. Ready to be assembled.

Gluing the panels down was a process. Had to use some extra old busted prints and clamps to keep the clamps from damaging the print. The Gorilla Glue 2 part epoxy works great for these though!

Here is all 8 of the panels in their current state. With all of the aluminum backing glued down and all painted. I noticed here that I forgot to paint the Hero panel a different color as it is in the original prop. I will take care of that later!

Also just started assembling Panel B at this point. Cut out the plexiglass for the back of the main display. And cut out the little knob that sticks into the view where the Viewfinder panel goes.

Also had to cut out a few holes to put in some screws for display purposes.

Now I laid them all out so that I could do an inventory of all of the parts I have ready for assembly and what I was missing. Overall I am pretty close. Just gotta nail down these last few parts and finish these things up!

More posts incoming!

 

[SirCharles77]

And more updates! HAHA

So next I wanted to start assembling as much of the panels as I could so here I go. This was a lot of back and forth of painting, drilling holes, gluing and waiting, etc. But it really only took me the better part of 1 weekend to do it all so it wasn't too bad.

Here are the tiny little screws I found to go into my Camera Viewfinder piece. I found that 3d printing these just wasn't gonna be good enough so I found some screws in an old busted laptop and used them. They are the perfect size! But they were the wrong color so I had to paint them to match.

Then I started assembling the panels. Here is the first one completely assembled. This is panel H. Bottom left when facing Han.

For each of these panels, they all use the Metal Heat sync clips but each one if you look closely is mounted slightly differently from the rest. I made sure to match where they were in relation to the viewports on the panels. But also in the orientation of the screws so that they look the same as the original prop! Here is Panel B with its Heat Sync holes drilled out.

And here are all 6 of the non-hero panels assembled. Other than the missing stickers, and one missing screw that I am tracking down still, these are done! You can see in this pic what I meant regarding the heat sync clips.

 

[SirCharles77]

While I was working on all of this my White Acrylic backing for the Hero panel arrived. I ordered the 32% transparent acrylic from Amazon. It's a 12x24 inch sheet. Should be more than enough!

Problem is now I am not sure how to get the green LED that comes with the Fettronics kit to illuminate it properly from the back. Since it's just a small 5mm LED it doesn't spread the light very well. Gonna have to fashion some form of light box for the back of the panel to diffuse the light into.

This is the LED about 1" away from the acrylic.

This is about 3" away. Still not great.

Gonna come back to this one...

 

[SirCharles77]

Now it's getting exciting!!! My Corner to Corner Illusive Concepts cast arrived and I am super excited!!! This is a much cleaner cast than the one I bought earlier with a lot more detail in it! Also since its corner to corner it means that the Carbonite pattern around the body will be mostly accurate to the movie which was one point of contention on this project for me. Not only was I NOT looking forward to trying to use bondo or PVA glue to try to create a pattern I liked, it was driving me crazy that there is no way to get it to have the same landmarks and shapes as the original. Now I don't need to worry about that anymore!

As soon as I got it upstairs and set it down I saw this!! Thats a finger those damn mailmen had poking out the side!! I was flipping my **** worried that a hand was busted!!

But alas it was not!! All is in good shape!! Whew!!

So I had to take a break from the panels and go get moving on this bad boy! I took him down to the garage and placed him on my box to see how he fits! Looks pretty good to me!!

Next day I started trimming the fiberglass with my Dremel to make the edges cleaner. Also drew some lines to show where the edges need to be. Only problem I have here is that I didn't account for the Corner to Corner cast when I built my box. So now my cast is going to stick out about 1/8th of an inch higher than it should above the surface. I think if I trim it back just right and get it mounted pretty flush down I can smooth out the edges and it won't be that noticeable.

Oh before I did the trimming I also used a wet rag and wiped the whole cast down. There was a white film over it from the primer that needed to be removed. It did help clean up the details alot!

 

[SirCharles77]

Ok now back to the panels!

Working on Panel B, the second hero panel. I got the Aluminum backing on and I painted up my plexiglass along with a few drilled holes that I needed. Tried to rely on the film over the glass as a mask for the paint. Worked well on 3 sides, not so much on one. Hopefully it won't show up too much in the end. But oh well if it does. Once I have the dots sticker over it I don't think it will be that noticeable.

Put the screws I painted earlier into my Camera Viewfinder. Looks pretty good!!! Placed on the glass it's going to work well I think!

Next problem I had was that I didn't have a good way to mount the 8 LED light strip to the back of this thing. It looks like its black behind there in the reference photos so I decided to go to Maya and make something I could print. Here's what I came up with.

Here it is in Maya lined up the way I imagine it working.

Here's the printed prototype (which ended up being perfect first try so it's the final also!)

Assembled to test the fitting.

Painted black...

And in place!

Pretty snazzy!! Man I love my 3d printer!!!

 

[SirCharles77]

Working on my own sticker sheets that I can use on these. I will likely be selling copies of these but it will probably be a limited run. Not sure yet how many I am going to get. These are my test prints on my printer to make sure my sizes were correct.

 

[SirCharles77]

Now back out to the garage!! Needed to get some more progress on the box. So this last weekend I took my trusty orbital sander to the edges of my box and smoothed them out. Not as clean as using a router but I didn't have one at the time, and I figured I would have a chance to make it smooth enough. I think it will work well once I get a coat of paint on there.

I am a little nervous about the MDF having this sorta grainy quality about it after sanding a bit. I plan to go over it by hand with finer grit sandpaper before I paint. But after some tests I am not sure it will get smooth enough and I am worried its gonna make the pain look spotty.

You can see it here also.

 

[SirCharles77]

This last weekend I spent a lot of time at the computer, either modeling or ordering the few laste needed parts I had to find. Mainly the Circuits and Resistors for the main Neon Display screen section. Here is what I ended up finding.

I hunter everywhere trying to find the right microchips. And all of the terms I searched for came up with nothing of any use. So a neighbor of mine who works in networking told me to look for Shift Registers and Integrated circuits! Once I started using the correct terms a whole new world opened up to me. Surprisingly was still hard to find what I needed though. But after many hours of hunting I finally came to this.

There are 4 Microchips, and 8 Resistors on the Hero Panel.

I even attempted to model them in Maya and print them. But they are just too small to reliably print.

I found these that I think will work perfectly assuming they are the sizes I think they are. Once they arrive I will test fit them to be sure!
You will notice that the 2 top chips have 8 pins on each side while the smaller ones have 7. This is important when searching.

Here are the small resistors I picked out. These are 2.3mm diameter and 6mm long.

This is the large ones. 4mm diameter x 11mm long.

I ordered extras of these so assuming them are correct, I will probably be putting together a package if anyone is interested in purchasing a set!

 

[SirCharles77]

I have been searching for a while for what the original part was for the 2 knobs on the hero panel. I thought for a while that they were Fender Telecaster and P-Bass knobs for old electric guitars. But after searching high and low there doesn't seem to be any that quite match.

Someone also told me that they thought they were counterweights on an old Record Player of some form. I searched and discovered that there is a player from 1977 which is called a J.A. Michell Reference Electric Turntable that has a sweep arm with a counter weight on the end, and a knob on the surface of it that do look pretty similar. I have no idea if they are correct or not but when I saw that just a sweep arm was gonna cost around $200 and the whole turntable to get the knob close to $2000! I decided to just 3d print the darn things and call it a day.

Maybe if someday I happen across the right part I can swap them out.

So here is what I ended up with. for the first one. I am in the process of painting the second one right now.

And here it is with a coat of Metallic Finish paint on it. Overall it looks pretty good considering those knurls on the sides are about 1 mm across. It could be alot worse!

 

[SirCharles77]

And in my never ending search for original parts (which sadly has come up VERY short on this prop!) I found out via darthchromer that the original displays for the Hero Panel are Valvo ZM1551 Gas Discharge Neon Displays for old pinball machines. Which is awesome but as expected they are pretty rare and expensive.

And on top of that I had already bought the Fettronics kit which has great electronics in it. But if your going for an accurate prop replica then the external bits are not up to snuff. So I found some reference for the Valvo displays and started tweaking around what I have from the Fettronics kit.

Here's what I came up with:

Here is the reference.

I build a shape replica of the Fettronics displays in Maya and started modeling around it.

Had to build it in 2 layers in order to get the surfaces smooth and flat so things would fit so here is the first test print.

Fits like a glove!!! It even kinda clicks into place so I wont have to glue it!!

And here it is with the top on it. This first version is pretty rough and needed work. I have since printed a slightly thicker version with some of the features exaggerated a bit to make them work better. It looks pretty good to the non-zoomed in human eye.

Once I paint them blue, and put the tinted transparent glass over them i twill look pretty close to the original.

 

[SirCharles77]

One of the last parts I needed to figure out for the panels is the mysterious side display piece on the Hero Panel.

This guy!!

I don't have any reference worth anything besides this image which I don't know what this is from. But it looks close enough so I decided to just copy it. Modeled it in Maya and 3d printed it. Worked pretty well. Had to do a few revisions to get the threaded part to print nicely but its done. I will post a pic of the finished piece later when its painted. I am working on that now.