Hasbro Legacy Millennium Falcon Conversion

Hope to see more updates soon

Hey! I didn't realize you had started this thread. I'll be sure to look for more updates.

looking good, need your address so i can send you mine.

Hi guys, thanks for the compliments and encouragement. Gotta thank Rob for the photos and Eric for the inspiration. Eric's (Superjedi's) build, by the way, is totally awesome.

Here is where I'm at on my pathetically-slow conversion: I've cut out the rear discs, which according to the Chronicles are solar sensors but which I've read elsewhere are heat vents (thus the impeller-like things inside the 5-footer's discs. In another book they said that the lights (were they halogen on the 5-footer pro become hot so they required exhaust fans. Or maybe the design came first with the solar discs and then they thought they might as well use them for the exhaust fans. Whatever the truth is, these discs are a unique addition to the Falcon's design. And they attract hyper-detailists to giving them fans and real grilles. I'm happy with the current detailing so far - not the height, though, as they remind me of nuclear power plants.







The worst idea I've come across so far of what the discs are comes from a colleague at work who I proudly showed my build photos to from my cellphone (I lovingly stored them there). I was so sure he'd seen Star Wars on the big screen as well. I shouldn't have showed him the photos at all:

P : "What're you building - a pizza ship?
Me: "No, what made you think that?" (It must be the shape heheh. I would have felt better if he'd said hamburger)
P : "Well, the pepperoni's a dead giveaway."
Me: "Pepperoni"?, oh the discs, I thought. "It's the Millennium Falcon. One of the most famous sci-fi ships!"
P : "From Star Trek?"

Some modifications need to be done on the dimensions of the mandibles. Radwulfpino's contour comparison is very interesting. This is from his Photobucket album (Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket). Radwulfpino seems to have been comparing the 32-inch to Cory Harvey's (Mensaboy) Fine Molds Falcon. The green lines are the 32-inch's I believe. No doubt about those Finemolds mandibles needing a good cutting. Anyway, my mod is still based on the 5-footer (the one on the right), but I just found the comparisons interesting.



CNC seems to be the future of scale model building. I'm using CNC as well - only the traditional kind, though, of Carving and Cutting:















Using the Chronicles photo (blown upto Legacy Hasbro size), I thought about how to go about building a scratch cockpit. There's a thread here -
couldn't seem to find it - where someone mentioned why not slap on a cockpit of the old Kenner toy to the new Legacy Hasbro and that should do the trick. If you recall, Hasbro likes blowing up the size of the cockpit on its Falcons to fit play figures. Well, I drew out the old Kenner toy and compared it's cockpit to the plan - It does fit - surprise, surprise. With minor surgery this should make one swell cockpit.

VERY cool that the old cockpit fits! A stroke of luck like that doesn't happen enough!

The build is looking great so far. I can't wait to see it develop!

If you need a donor kenner falcon for parts let me know. After this is done I hope you tackle the new AT-AT

Oh, the old cockpit fits... Thats cool!

Mods looking good!

Pretty interesting concept..... I'll be watching this.

crackerjazz said:

Hi guys, thanks for the compliments and encouragement. Gotta thank Rob for the photos and Eric for the inspiration. Eric's (Superjedi's) build, by the way, is totally awesome.

Here is where I'm at on my pathetically-slow conversion: I've cut out the rear discs, which according to the Chronicles are solar sensors but which I've read elsewhere are heat vents (thus the impeller-like things inside the 5-footer's discs. In another book they said that the lights (were they halogen on the 5-footer pro become hot so they required exhaust fans. Or maybe the design came first with the solar discs and then they thought they might as well use them for the exhaust fans. Whatever the truth is, these discs are a unique addition to the Falcon's design. And they attract hyper-detailists to giving them fans and real grilles. I'm happy with the current detailing so far - not the height, though, as they remind me of nuclear power plants.

The worst idea I've come across so far of what the discs are comes from a colleague at work who I proudly showed my build photos to from my cellphone (I lovingly stored them there). I was so sure he'd seen Star Wars on the big screen as well. I shouldn't have showed him the photos at all:

P : "What're you building - a pizza ship?
Me: "No, what made you think that?" (It must be the shape heheh. I would have felt better if he'd said hamburger)
P : "Well, the pepperoni's a dead giveaway."
Me: "Pepperoni"?, oh the discs, I thought. "It's the Millennium Falcon. One of the most famous sci-fi ships!"
P : "From Star Trek?"

Some modifications need to be done on the dimensions of the mandibles. Radwulfpino's contour comparison is very interesting. This is from his Photobucket album (Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket). Radwulfpino seems to have been comparing the 32-inch to Cory Harvey's (Mensaboy) Fine Molds Falcon. The green lines are the 32-inch's I believe. No doubt about those Finemolds mandibles needing a good cutting. Anyway, my mod is still based on the 5-footer (the one on the right), but I just found the comparisons interesting.

CNC seems to be the future of scale model building. I'm using CNC as well - only the traditional kind, though, of Carving and Cutting:

Using the Chronicles photo (blown upto Legacy Hasbro size), I thought about how to go about building a scratch cockpit. There's a thread here -
couldn't seem to find it - where someone mentioned why not slap on a cockpit of the old Kenner toy to the new Legacy Hasbro and that should do the trick. If you recall, Hasbro likes blowing up the size of the cockpit on its Falcons to fit play figures. Well, I drew out the old Kenner toy and compared it's cockpit to the plan - It does fit - surprise, surprise. With minor surgery this should make one swell cockpit.

Click to expand...

Very nice job, I will be watching this

Fantastic work so far! Can't wait to see more!

Rich

Cut the cockpit tunnel:



Fixed the detachable panels in place with some gorilla glue. The glue expands
so I'll need to chisel the excess away:





The donor cockpit:







On the left is the donor cockpit. On the right is the Legacy Hasbro's
that I've cut off. Notice how big it is.

That is crazy in size.

Another beauty about the older toy cockpit is that it looks better, porportionally.

What a great conversion so far! Are you planning on having it lighted as well? Also, are you going to have it based in a landing position or will it be flying? I look forward to seeing the finished model!

Not much done, except fixing the detachable panels in place. The upper crab-shell's taking shape.



Rectenna dish area will need to be redone. It's oversized on the toy.

PHArchivist said:

Another beauty about the older toy cockpit is that it looks better, porportionally.

Click to expand...

I can't quite put my finger as to why but that's true - it does look better proportionally. And it's got more of that B-25 bomber cockpit feel that, I read somewhere, influenced the Falcon's cockpit design. It "moves" while staying put, while that bigger cockpit is just like a stationary slab, for some reason or another.

darthweezy said:

What a great conversion so far! Are you planning on having it lighted as well? Also, are you going to have it based in a landing position or will it be flying? I look forward to seeing the finished model!

Click to expand...

The size does beg for lighting. I never intended to at first and I'm still debating. But I've seen some highly-detailed lit-up FM cockpits here on RPF and the Finemold's half the size of this Hasbro. The 5-footer's cockpit wasn't that detailed at all, though - a couple of seats, and what look like round gauges in the back, a bare control panel and a couple of real LEDs sticking out by their leads. So I'm torn between going for that prop look or detailing the cockpit.

In-flight is what I had mind. The Falcon looks "fast and dangerous" that way. It takes up too much space on a desk so, as suggested by my kid, it'll be suspended from the ceiling along with similar- scale 1/48 X-wings flying on either side zooming away from an exploding Death Star. The Death Star's taking it too far, of course - 5-year-olds and their wild imagination. Why do I find myself riding along? The model's going to be way lighter. The toy was 15 pounds originally and has now shed a ton after de-gutting.

Another option for thde ockpit might be to contact Frank Cerney... Brudlefly. At one time he was making castings of the 32 inch cockpit for scratchbilders... He was going to take a break from the hobby a bit ago but its worth a PM It "should" be close scale wise.

Jedi Dade

crackerjazz said:

I can't quite put my finger as to why but that's true - it does look better proportionally. And it's got more of that B-25 bomber cockpit feel that, I read somewhere, influenced the Falcon's cockpit design. It "moves" while staying put, while that bigger cockpit is just like a stationary slab, for some reason or another.

Click to expand...

Well put...

Now that is one sweet build! The work that you're throwing into this is just crazy! Have you crunched the numbers and determined the scale..... maybe 1/48?

Scratchy said:

Now that is one sweet build! The work that you're throwing into this is just crazy! Have you crunched the numbers and determined the scale..... maybe 1/48?

Click to expand...

Going by Wikipedia which gives length and width as 34.75 (111.2 ft) and 25.61m (81.95 ft), respectively, then this Hasbro mod (with mandibles cut to proper length) is 1:45th scale.

The 5-footer prop, interestingly, is 173cm (around 68.11 inches) as mentioned in Chronicles p. 95, which puts it at 1/20th scale based on Wikipedia dimensions.

Some sources, Chronicles included, give the full-size length of the fictional ship at 27m (86.4 ft), which puts this Hasbro mod at approx 1:35 scale and the 5-footer at approx 1:16 scale.

I faintly recall the full-size prop built in England being longer than just 86.4 feet, though. I thought I read it was over a hundred feet long. But they could have built the prop according to blueprints of invented dimensions, as long as the proportions were right and as long as it looked huge on-screen. Some people say it's an imaginary ship - all dimensions were imaginary and only the proportions count. I would think so, too. But who knows, the original designer might have really cared enough to scale it up with the other ships and the people riding them and a definitive source exists, perhaps hidden in a forgotten ILM vault somewhere.

How's working on this type of plastic? Is it pretty close to "model grade" styrene? Or softer?
I noticed you're working with what looks like a really fine jeweler's saw and wondered how easy/difficult it is to cut and clean up.
I did a couple of SW toy mods years ago and remember the plastic being pretty difficult to sand smooth because of its softness. It was a pain!