5 Foot Falcon Replica - ANH

Thanks for the confirmation. Two sources are always better. ;)
I thought you guys were using magic tool to transfer anything on any surface, I was far from imagining something that "simple".
No curve or contour gauge or anything. Let say you do not laser cut anything like in 1976. :cool


Treadwell is right maxhebus! The rough contour is figured out, laser cut out of acrylic (for the walkways at least), then I use a combination of a belt sander and dremel to get the contour closer, then fine tune with varying grits of sandpaper. It's very much raw fabricating in order to get a flush fit. Particularly with making the bevel, all hand ground and sanded. Same goes with the cockpit tube, but with that fella, I cut a paper template, draw an outline on the tube, rough cut with a dremel, then fine tune again with dremel drum and then sandpaper. This is truly 'old school' hand labor, but the results are quite nice.

Joberg and other folks, thank you again for the kind comments!!

I'm off for a business trip this week, but will get some updates next weekend. I plan to have the engine deck bonded together then.
Thanks,
Sean
 
Sean,
What are you using to cement the clear acrylic? I’ll be starting on the clear acrylic armature for the Excelsior soon. I bought a product that came from the place I bought my acrylic from - a water thin, and a thicker product. Just seeing what you’re using.

Tracy
 
Outstanding work Sean!
I got a question, where did you get the domes for that falcon for that size? im looking for 32" for a falcon build of my own.
 
Thanks!
Tracy (Vidar), I use both the liquid and the gel Acrylic solvent. When bonding two larger flat surfaces, like 'plates', I use the thin runny stuff. For bonding say a 1/8" side wall to a flat surface, I use the thick stuff. They both work great. Make sure you don't use them with any styrene though, it'll melt it!

Apophis and Faustus, I had the domes custom made by a skylight/plastics company. They are formed/blown from 3/16 acrylic to the specific diameter and height. It took about a dozen blows to get 3 good/accurate domes. (The company definitely lost money doing that for me, but they were committed to making it right for me). Because the tooling was too expensive, instead of going past the core, I chose to stop it at the edge, then will add the proper dome extensions. I had them 3D printed then cast (I'll post some pics soon of how those will accurately extend the dome and support the plating.)

Here's the latest update. I have bonded the lower engine deck and the two lower Docking Ring walkways, and did a first shot of primer on them. I'll probably wind up priming the rest of the lower dome before adding more plating as it will be a light leak blocker (and follows the same approach they did back in the day)

The bottom engine deck in place
deck1.jpgdeck2.jpg

The detail plate bonded down and dry fitting the engine extensions.
deck3.jpgdeck4.jpg

Walkways primed, bottom deck down with some plating started, and starting to dry fit the parts (Centurion Tank part rough cut)

deck5.jpgdeck6.jpg
 
Kewel , what are you using that is compatible for cementing the styrene to the acrylic shell? When I start attaching my clear vacuum formed hull sections to the armature, I don’t wanna ruin any of the pulls.

Tracy
 
Tracy, I use CA for Styrene to Acrylic. Just rough up the acrylic a bit, leaves a lasting, good bond.

I hope to post some new pics/updates tomorrow night.
 
Here's a few progress updates.
Added most of the parts for the underside engine/landing gear deck. This was a really fun part of the build, finally getting kit parts down onto the actual body. I shot some primer down first (similar to original model) to keep out any potential for light leaks). Still have a few minor greeblies to add, and sand down some of the glue mess (had to move the Centurion deck). Started putting in the Underside Starboard Plating, created the damaged hull areas. I basically cut out a hole, then placed some reinforcement pieces back in, placed thin styrene over it, heated the styrene and cut through and melted the overlap.
under1.jpgUnder1a.jpgunder2.jpgunder3.jpg

Plating started

under4.jpgunder5.jpgunder6.jpgunder7.jpg

And in the foreground, begun deforming the plating on the outer rim area.
under2a.jpg
 
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Here's some more closeups of the damage. For the main damaged hull 'hole', though not a 'perfect' representation, it's close enough, and once the paint/weathering goes down, it should look fairly close. I did make the hole a bit too long and not as 'oval' as I intended, so I may do a bit of tweaking. The most enjoyable part was placing the 8Rad casting under the hull. The Bandai 1/72 Falcon really helped here for orientation - You'll see it in the last photo, it's so Tiny compared to it's original big brother here, but as you know, Bandai really hit it well on accuracy. I also included a pic of the top S/B rear maintenance pit of the Bandai kit to the Studio Scale pit there.

under8a.jpgunder9.jpgunder10.jpgunder11.jpg

And the 8Rad part inside the damage area.

under12.jpg
Here is the Bandai 1/72 Falcon Upper S/B Maintenance Pit (Light Grey) sitting on top of the Studio Scale pit.

under13.jpg

This is where I'm at now, roughing in the next row of plating.
under14.jpg

And Check Out the Bandai Falcon underside to the Studio Scale! Just slightly bigger than the gun turret platform!
underBandai.jpg
 

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