Thank you! Just got on the plane, well...first plane.
Studio Scale B-Wing Starfighter Build Thread
- Thread starter thibkaji
- Start date
thibkaji
Well-Known Member
Back from Wonderfest, had a great time, and some really nice conversations with folks about their models.
I was also fortunate to get to chat, for what turned out to be a few hours over the weekend, with Bill George himself about the B-Wing. He loved it! Thrilled to pieces to have met him, and now I HAVE to finish this as he’s expecting to see it all done next year!
I’ll be getting back on this soon. Until then, Cheers, all!
I was also fortunate to get to chat, for what turned out to be a few hours over the weekend, with Bill George himself about the B-Wing. He loved it! Thrilled to pieces to have met him, and now I HAVE to finish this as he’s expecting to see it all done next year!
I’ll be getting back on this soon. Until then, Cheers, all!
joberg
Legendary Member
You lucky dog you
Bill George is one of my favorite model maker (yes, I have a long list).
thibkaji
Well-Known Member
Back on the bench, have a few updates, mainly to the cockpit and the starboard wing. Let’s go!
The cockpit. One thing I learned at Wonderfest from Bill George is that the cockpit for the original B-Wing model wasn’t actually wired for lighting. He said it was too complicated to get the cockpit to rotate fully and light it, and so even though there are grain of rice light bulbs mounted in the cockpit, they were just colored with clear paint and not wired up to light. I’d been putting off adding lights to the cockpit because of the wiring, but learning this freed me to just add the lights and not have to worry about how it’s lit. So I started adding lights!
I had started adding these lights using CA glue, but that really wasn't working well. While at Wonderfest I was clued into using IC Gel, which is a CA variant, to attach parts to metal or odd materials to plastic. It's mainly used with coral in fish tanks, apparently. I gave it a try, and the bulbs stuck in place almost immediately, making installation a LOT easier. I still have 1-2 bulbs to install, but I ran out of them (they're 1.7mm dia, harder to find) and am waiting on more.
Next, I added some paneling to the lower collar section -- the one with the missing panel -- to try and get it finished off. It still needs armor plating across the front, but I'll get to that later, too.
Now -- the starboard wing. This was a fun one! Since I had already done quite a bit of work on the port side wing, I mostly knew what I was doing and what I had to correct to make this wing look right.
Here are me adding parts for the front wing wells. Mostly Morser Karl parts, but also an 1/20 Tamiya Ford engine part. The hinges are glued in with 2-part epoxy.
I needed to scribe the lines on the top and bottom wing sections before assembly, as well as scrape off the raised lines on the surface. I used an ice scraper tool with a flat razor blade to effectively skim across the top and take off those raised panel lines.
Contrary to what I'd done thus far with the port wing, I took some time to create the buck I needed to form the shape for the wing gun shroud. This shape here is my second attempt -- the first was WAY too wide, so I had to do a lot of modifications to the buck to make it pretty thin to get this shape. It looks and measures correctly now.
Also cut the Airfix Shuttle booster rocket "quarter" to fit as the front curve to the wing.
And now wing assembly! Attached the gun shroud, the wing front edge and the top to the wing base.
I need to create the armor plating that attaches to the shroud, and so this time I followed some advice I was given at Wonderfest and used tracing paper to create the proper shape. First I drew out the shape I needed on the shroud, then used tracing paper to copy it from the curved surface to a flat shape.
This worked out really well, and the shape fit pretty well. It still needed a bit of tweaking, but the process worked great! Definitely one to use in the future.
The next few pics show the plating added to the end of the wing to cover over the gap there, adding the shroud armor plating, and adding details to the wing top.
Make note of the trailing edge of the wing here, where the zig-zag cuts back. On the starboard wing only this section is cut in to make a small extended section that tapers to the end of the wing tip. It's a little quirk of the wing, but is present.
Adding kit parts and panel chips to the top of the wing...
and to the bottom.
Front of the wing...
Playing around with the wing gun bottom insert. I'm not installing it yet, as I have still to ID the parts that make up where the gun is mountedl Again, if anyone knows what those parts are where the gun barrel connects to the wing, I'd be thrilled to know!
And a few more pics of the wing as it stands right now.
And here it is mounted to the rest of the B-Wing. Very happy with how this is coming along!
That's it for now. I'm doing a ton of searching for the parts that go into the wing shroud where the gun barrels mount to try and get it right. I might scratch it to get something that looks close enough, but I'll delay this part of the build until near the end to give more time to figure out what the parts are. Until then, next up I will likely pull the other shroud housing, get that installed, and finish out the wing sections. Need to find some brass hinge pins, as that's what Bill said he used. Also, apparently this entire hinge section was cast as a single piece, and the wings themselves were also cast which I though was very interesting (but makes sense if they planned to make more than the 2).
After the wing, I'll come back to shaping the buck for the main wing so I can get that going. I can see the finish line coming on this, but still probably a few months to go. I'm starting to think about the display base, mounting, and paint... so much still to do!
Til next time!
The cockpit. One thing I learned at Wonderfest from Bill George is that the cockpit for the original B-Wing model wasn’t actually wired for lighting. He said it was too complicated to get the cockpit to rotate fully and light it, and so even though there are grain of rice light bulbs mounted in the cockpit, they were just colored with clear paint and not wired up to light. I’d been putting off adding lights to the cockpit because of the wiring, but learning this freed me to just add the lights and not have to worry about how it’s lit. So I started adding lights!
I had started adding these lights using CA glue, but that really wasn't working well. While at Wonderfest I was clued into using IC Gel, which is a CA variant, to attach parts to metal or odd materials to plastic. It's mainly used with coral in fish tanks, apparently. I gave it a try, and the bulbs stuck in place almost immediately, making installation a LOT easier. I still have 1-2 bulbs to install, but I ran out of them (they're 1.7mm dia, harder to find) and am waiting on more.
Next, I added some paneling to the lower collar section -- the one with the missing panel -- to try and get it finished off. It still needs armor plating across the front, but I'll get to that later, too.
Now -- the starboard wing. This was a fun one! Since I had already done quite a bit of work on the port side wing, I mostly knew what I was doing and what I had to correct to make this wing look right.
Here are me adding parts for the front wing wells. Mostly Morser Karl parts, but also an 1/20 Tamiya Ford engine part. The hinges are glued in with 2-part epoxy.
I needed to scribe the lines on the top and bottom wing sections before assembly, as well as scrape off the raised lines on the surface. I used an ice scraper tool with a flat razor blade to effectively skim across the top and take off those raised panel lines.
Contrary to what I'd done thus far with the port wing, I took some time to create the buck I needed to form the shape for the wing gun shroud. This shape here is my second attempt -- the first was WAY too wide, so I had to do a lot of modifications to the buck to make it pretty thin to get this shape. It looks and measures correctly now.
Also cut the Airfix Shuttle booster rocket "quarter" to fit as the front curve to the wing.
And now wing assembly! Attached the gun shroud, the wing front edge and the top to the wing base.
I need to create the armor plating that attaches to the shroud, and so this time I followed some advice I was given at Wonderfest and used tracing paper to create the proper shape. First I drew out the shape I needed on the shroud, then used tracing paper to copy it from the curved surface to a flat shape.
This worked out really well, and the shape fit pretty well. It still needed a bit of tweaking, but the process worked great! Definitely one to use in the future.
The next few pics show the plating added to the end of the wing to cover over the gap there, adding the shroud armor plating, and adding details to the wing top.
Make note of the trailing edge of the wing here, where the zig-zag cuts back. On the starboard wing only this section is cut in to make a small extended section that tapers to the end of the wing tip. It's a little quirk of the wing, but is present.
Adding kit parts and panel chips to the top of the wing...
and to the bottom.
Front of the wing...
Playing around with the wing gun bottom insert. I'm not installing it yet, as I have still to ID the parts that make up where the gun is mountedl Again, if anyone knows what those parts are where the gun barrel connects to the wing, I'd be thrilled to know!
And a few more pics of the wing as it stands right now.
And here it is mounted to the rest of the B-Wing. Very happy with how this is coming along!
That's it for now. I'm doing a ton of searching for the parts that go into the wing shroud where the gun barrels mount to try and get it right. I might scratch it to get something that looks close enough, but I'll delay this part of the build until near the end to give more time to figure out what the parts are. Until then, next up I will likely pull the other shroud housing, get that installed, and finish out the wing sections. Need to find some brass hinge pins, as that's what Bill said he used. Also, apparently this entire hinge section was cast as a single piece, and the wings themselves were also cast which I though was very interesting (but makes sense if they planned to make more than the 2).
After the wing, I'll come back to shaping the buck for the main wing so I can get that going. I can see the finish line coming on this, but still probably a few months to go. I'm starting to think about the display base, mounting, and paint... so much still to do!
Til next time!
stevielewis
Sr Member
Great update!
thibkaji
Well-Known Member
Super small update — some main wing goodness going on up in here!
Got the bucks made. They’ll need tweaking, but probably won’t know how much until I make a few pulls and check measurements.
First pull — starboard side main wing, and port side small wing gun shroud.
Not bad…
Looks OK held up against the rest of the ship. I can tell the angle is off slightly, needs to come a hair forward. I’ll correct that on the buck and make another pull.
In the meantime, mapped out where the panel lines would go so I could judge if the sizing aligned. It’s pretty spot on from front to back, and top to bottom, so I’m pretty thrilled with it.
Now to modify the buck, make another pull, match up against the body again, and if happy, make the other buck match and make a pull from there. I also need to work up a better mounting rod for the main wing. The SS model had a 1/2” dia rod through the wing that ended with a 3/4” dia female threaded fitting on the end. This allows the rod to fit through the end of the wing, which gets tight in space, and widen out in the gun section. Should be easy enough to do with a 1/2” dia rod threaded one end, cut to size with a 3/4” coupling added to the other end — some Loctite, too, so it won’t move!
Will update again soon, I hope!
Got the bucks made. They’ll need tweaking, but probably won’t know how much until I make a few pulls and check measurements.
First pull — starboard side main wing, and port side small wing gun shroud.
Not bad…
Looks OK held up against the rest of the ship. I can tell the angle is off slightly, needs to come a hair forward. I’ll correct that on the buck and make another pull.
In the meantime, mapped out where the panel lines would go so I could judge if the sizing aligned. It’s pretty spot on from front to back, and top to bottom, so I’m pretty thrilled with it.
Now to modify the buck, make another pull, match up against the body again, and if happy, make the other buck match and make a pull from there. I also need to work up a better mounting rod for the main wing. The SS model had a 1/2” dia rod through the wing that ended with a 3/4” dia female threaded fitting on the end. This allows the rod to fit through the end of the wing, which gets tight in space, and widen out in the gun section. Should be easy enough to do with a 1/2” dia rod threaded one end, cut to size with a 3/4” coupling added to the other end — some Loctite, too, so it won’t move!
Will update again soon, I hope!
thibkaji
Well-Known Member
Some test-fitting.
I Reduced the dia of the main wing mounting rod to 1/2” and will flair out to 3/4” dia at the end for the wing gun mount itself. This will let it fit between the ends of the main wing shells, which has an internal size smaller than 3/4”.
This is now my third pull of shells.
The first pull had the angle wrong at the top where it meets the collar. Second pulls were good, but I scribed lines in the wrong location — forgot to make sure the wing housing sat where I denoted the wing cutout needs to go. So third times a charm, and making sure it sits right per the wing guns.
And here are some test fitted pics. Threw it on a better background so you don’t have to look at all my sloppy tools and junk in the background — the B-Wing was disappearing into it!
I’m still not 100% on these pulls. I may make one more tweak to the angle at the top and pull one more time. We’ll see.
I Reduced the dia of the main wing mounting rod to 1/2” and will flair out to 3/4” dia at the end for the wing gun mount itself. This will let it fit between the ends of the main wing shells, which has an internal size smaller than 3/4”.
This is now my third pull of shells.
The first pull had the angle wrong at the top where it meets the collar. Second pulls were good, but I scribed lines in the wrong location — forgot to make sure the wing housing sat where I denoted the wing cutout needs to go. So third times a charm, and making sure it sits right per the wing guns.
And here are some test fitted pics. Threw it on a better background so you don’t have to look at all my sloppy tools and junk in the background — the B-Wing was disappearing into it!
I’m still not 100% on these pulls. I may make one more tweak to the angle at the top and pull one more time. We’ll see.
thibkaji
Well-Known Member
lol! I wish! Would be a dream to work there!Wow...I just cannot believe how clean those vac-forms are
I think the clean lines require well-made bucks, proper heating of the plastic, and a former that gets great suction. I’ve been very happy with this former I built, very few issues with pulls.
thibkaji
Well-Known Member
Working on the main wing some more, specifically on the big wing cutout and front edge notches. Ended up not pulling another set, these are close enough for what I’m doing.
The main wing cutout has two curved surfaces that meet together over an approx .1” thick plate. it occurred to me that the curvature matches pretty closely to the curve of the front edge of the wing that I could probably use the cutouts for those notches to create the curves.
Here’s the cutout:
And leftover:
Looking on it further, this curved section doesn’t follow the wing’s front edge and is more parallel to the ships vertical orientation as a whole, and so the curved cutout pieces won’t line up quite right. There is SOME curvature to the front edge (maybe sanded down to try and straighten it?), but not enough for me to feel good about using the cutout pieces.
Good thing I had a few extra pulls I’m not using! I cut my notches out of those instead and made them perpendicular to the front edge to get the proper shape I wanted.
I then rough cut two curvy parabolic pieces from .03” stock to use as the side pieces that will hold the wing cutout filler.
I notched them out for the .1” thick center plate and dry assembled.
Test fitting inside the wing for positioning.
Let’s add a curved section. Cut out the side sections to fit around the curve.
Test fitting with the curved part. Liking how it looks!
I added the bottom curve, too, and test fit both sides assembled.
I cut down and sanded the top side wall sections to bring them flush with the wing edge.
At this stage this section is attached to the starboard wing section but not the port. That cannot occur until the wing is permanently sealed shut, so the side walls will also still stick up a bit on that side.
Next are the front wing edge notches. Mapped those out to get the size and shape set:
And cut them out:
To create the back and side walls of these notches, I cut out a a few shapes that matches the notch shape and wrapped it with .01” sheet stock, since that’s thin enough to curve around without issue. I then made 3-4 wraps, effectively bringing the wall size up to .03-.04” thick.
Wrapping two together also lets me keep the wrapped walls straight and knock out two notch wells at one time. Cut in half, I have now have two wells:
Now the front edge of the wing curves down where these will have to be mounted, so the edges need to be sanded on a curve so the far ends extend out further than the longer top/bottom.
And installing to the front wing edge:
Close it up and see how it looks.
Good from the top, a gap on the bottom, which is due to variations in thickness from this port wing pull. Rather than pull another one, I’ll just thicken up the wall with some styrene to close the gap.
Thickened it some here, needs a bit more.
Another view of how they’re mounted inside the wing. I added some vertical supports behind them to help make sure they don’t move out of position and give another mount point for stability.
And test fit both notches closed up.
Something I’ve also now noticed is that plate running up the center is no longer straight along the wing. I think it’s because the front curves are slightly different between port and starboard, resulting a the edge around the main cutout being off center above and below. I then centered the plate to those edges, and the result is this.
I think I can sand this down some to straighten it, then bulk it back up with some .01”/.005” sheeting. Or I can leave it, as nothing else on this ship is exactly straight anyways!
Next time I’ll update with final main wing changes, and maybe — just maybe — I’ll have made the buck for the main wing gun shroud. That’ll be exciting!
And let me know what you all think about that plate. Should I fix it to center? Or leave it. Decisions, decisions…
TIL next time all!
The main wing cutout has two curved surfaces that meet together over an approx .1” thick plate. it occurred to me that the curvature matches pretty closely to the curve of the front edge of the wing that I could probably use the cutouts for those notches to create the curves.
Here’s the cutout:
And leftover:
Looking on it further, this curved section doesn’t follow the wing’s front edge and is more parallel to the ships vertical orientation as a whole, and so the curved cutout pieces won’t line up quite right. There is SOME curvature to the front edge (maybe sanded down to try and straighten it?), but not enough for me to feel good about using the cutout pieces.
Good thing I had a few extra pulls I’m not using! I cut my notches out of those instead and made them perpendicular to the front edge to get the proper shape I wanted.
I then rough cut two curvy parabolic pieces from .03” stock to use as the side pieces that will hold the wing cutout filler.
I notched them out for the .1” thick center plate and dry assembled.
Test fitting inside the wing for positioning.
Let’s add a curved section. Cut out the side sections to fit around the curve.
Test fitting with the curved part. Liking how it looks!
I added the bottom curve, too, and test fit both sides assembled.
I cut down and sanded the top side wall sections to bring them flush with the wing edge.
At this stage this section is attached to the starboard wing section but not the port. That cannot occur until the wing is permanently sealed shut, so the side walls will also still stick up a bit on that side.
Next are the front wing edge notches. Mapped those out to get the size and shape set:
And cut them out:
To create the back and side walls of these notches, I cut out a a few shapes that matches the notch shape and wrapped it with .01” sheet stock, since that’s thin enough to curve around without issue. I then made 3-4 wraps, effectively bringing the wall size up to .03-.04” thick.
Wrapping two together also lets me keep the wrapped walls straight and knock out two notch wells at one time. Cut in half, I have now have two wells:
Now the front edge of the wing curves down where these will have to be mounted, so the edges need to be sanded on a curve so the far ends extend out further than the longer top/bottom.
And installing to the front wing edge:
Close it up and see how it looks.
Good from the top, a gap on the bottom, which is due to variations in thickness from this port wing pull. Rather than pull another one, I’ll just thicken up the wall with some styrene to close the gap.
Thickened it some here, needs a bit more.
Another view of how they’re mounted inside the wing. I added some vertical supports behind them to help make sure they don’t move out of position and give another mount point for stability.
And test fit both notches closed up.
Something I’ve also now noticed is that plate running up the center is no longer straight along the wing. I think it’s because the front curves are slightly different between port and starboard, resulting a the edge around the main cutout being off center above and below. I then centered the plate to those edges, and the result is this.
I think I can sand this down some to straighten it, then bulk it back up with some .01”/.005” sheeting. Or I can leave it, as nothing else on this ship is exactly straight anyways!
Next time I’ll update with final main wing changes, and maybe — just maybe — I’ll have made the buck for the main wing gun shroud. That’ll be exciting!
And let me know what you all think about that plate. Should I fix it to center? Or leave it. Decisions, decisions…
TIL next time all!
thibkaji
Well-Known Member
I did… it bothered me too much! LOL!
It still looks off from some angles, but I put a straight-edge to it and it’s in line.
And I like how it looks here, so I’m satisfied! Although looking at this pic it looks a hair crooked… in real life it’s damn straight now.
stevielewis
Sr Member
It's an obstacle illusion.
