Building The ANH 5'Millennium Falcon

[Searun]

eagle1,
Your pictures of “a man at work” are incredibly valuable to me along with the build philosophy. Bouncing around from location to location strategy no doubt gives you an opportunity to come back, and confirm multiple measurements.

The armor lines, nibbled notches and kit parts intersections all seem to be holding hands. Change one and the puzzle pieces can shift noticeably. Some sections are certainly very complex and give me a devil of a time. Your precision in those areas clearly reflect many, many hours of reference material study. Your build thread is really priceless to the pilgrimage.

 

[eagle1]

Bjorn, Dan, Joberg, Read, jcoffman99, Searun...thank you so much, it really is deeply appreciated & glad you all enjoy seeing this come together.
These latest pics were 'staged', but they give a good idea of the size & i do work around the ship doing things similar to these pics.

Many areas on the go at once is ny method i guess, so no boredom sets in...something always to think about & get back to it later if it gets a tad tedious.

Oh & no...the Katiusza is not a Falcon donor, i just bought it cheap off a natiinal auction site & its sat on the floor since.

 

[Searun]

Georgeousness and Georgeosity!!

Is that Katiusza on the floor meant to taunt us, or teach us? Either way, it's working...

Looking at eagle1’s reply below, I am pretty sure he did not intentionally put “bait” on his floor. Interesting how you floated your question without getting hooked. Savvy folks on this site.

 

[eagle1]

 

[Bjorn]

Thoroughly enjoyable watching this take shape. It is getting there!

And another great vid.

Incidentally, I'm keen to see how you work with the castings around the waist when you get to them.
Specifically, how thick do you think the castings need to be at this point, and will they bend readily?

Cheers,

 

[Larsen]

"Everythings wonky on the Falcon!" great statement... I for one was baffled when I learned the equipmentbays on the mandibles where no where near aligned to each other.

Strangely gratifying to watch, somehow I get the feeling that the proces is more important than the goal? or maybe the the goal is to love every part of the proces... and the goal, ones you reach it?!

Anyway, thank you for sharing.

 

[joberg]

Great update/video once again I think it's an understatement concerning the SW models; they're all wonky

 

[jcoffman99]

Great update/video once again I think it's an understatement concerning the SW models; they're all wonky

So are the people that build them.

 

[Studio Kitbash]

I like the realism of this video: at 12 minutes a part, times 2500 greeblies, this "should" only take about 500 hours.

That's only... 24 days with no sleep.
That's only... 31 days if you're retired and sleep 8 hours per night.
That's only... 62 days if you're working 8 hours a day, model-building 8 hours a day, and sleeping 8 hours a night.
That's only... 250 days if you can only get to it 2 hours per day.
That's only... 500 days if you have a wife, kids, other friends, interests, and hobbies, and can only give it 7 hours per week.
That's only... 3650 days (10 years) if you're like most people, and spend most of your time obsessing, compulsively, and going back and forth between build threads, measurements, re-watching the movies, building the PG Bandai Falcon, getting sidetracked by other interesting models, trying to persuade your spouse it's going to be worth it, and plodding along at a snail's pace because it's such an enjoyable torture...

The video gives fair and realistic warning: don't start this monster unless you've got the time and patience to learn how to tame her.

 

[jcoffman99]

Spent my lunch break watching this. Thanks for posting.

 

[eagle1]

Thank you all for the great comments, they are very much appreciated.

So good to see more builds appearing. Dimitri, yours is rapidly taking shape & Searun, well yours is just something else & much admired for materials used!.

So here i am at the last pit to be cut out, well it is cut out now haha. I've been all over the place really on the model of late, working on the rear exhaust strips mainly & kind of been putting this pit off, not sure why, but back on it!. Now the cutout is done with working out the lines & styrene plates I need to make the pit 'tray' for the casting detail plate to sit in. Then add the rest of the plates & pipes & kit parts & oh yeah...all that glorious chipping!.
I guess i am on the wind down so to speak of the build. Quite a few things yet to do on the list, but really the end is well in sight, nothing major now to build out!.
I'm particularly looking forward to hacking out the rear for the lightbox to be inserted (how ILM did theirs) & the Falcons 'heart' turned on for the first time...but LED tech...not the ever so hot halogens back in the day!.

 

[joberg]

Never tired of seeing your wonderful update mate

 

[Studio Kitbash]

Wow! Those are some NICE, SMOOTH, STRAIGHT, PRECISE, FLAWLESS cuts. Would love to know the secrets to not making ANY mistakes on this kind of cut.

 

[Larsen]

Amazing work.

Thank you for sharing.

 

[eagle1]

Wow! Those are some NICE, SMOOTH, STRAIGHT, PRECISE, FLAWLESS cuts. Would love to know the secrets to not making ANY mistakes on this kind of cut.

Thank you.
Not really any secrets, just a steady hand & confidence in my sawing ability.
I of course mark out the lines, then drill a number of holes in each corner, say 3 or 4 each way as close to the marked edge as possible & use a saw to cut. The saw i use makes short work of the ABS.
The pit cut edges don't need to be neat & clean as evidenced in ref of the actual miniature. You can see saw marks & they probably didn't bother cleaning up the corners of which aren't visible anyway, which is how mine are.
I do prefer a hand saw over a moto tool with a cut off wheel though, much more control & straight lines that need virtually no clean up i find with a hand saw.

 

[Studio Kitbash]

Thank you.
Not really any secrets, just a steady hand & confidence in my sawing ability.
I of course mark out the lines, then drill a number of holes in each corner, say 3 or 4 each way as close to the marked edge as possible & use a saw to cut. The saw i use makes short work of the ABS.
The pit cut edges don't need to be neat & clean as evidenced in ref of the actual miniature. You can see saw marks & they probably didn't bother cleaning up the corners of which aren't visible anyway, which is how mine are.
I do prefer a hand saw over a moto tool with a cut off wheel though, much more control & straight lines that need virtually no clean up i find with a hand saw.

Very helpful -- thank you!

Having chipped, cracked, splintered, shattered a fair bit of acrylic, I'd be keen to know precisely which hand saw you are using, and what size drillbits on what speed setting on the drill. My favorite acrylic cutting tool, thus far, is the super-slow and super-tedious Micro-Mark mini-jig saw, which needs a straight edge guide unless you want it to wander all over the place, but it goes slow enough that you don't get any cracking/splintering, and the adaptor base has a variable power setting which translates to variable speed. But maybe hand saws ARE the way to go, so I'm all ears as to which one you recommend, as this is the stage of the build at which you can't afford to make a single mistake and/or risk having your dome shatter.

I also appreciate that your answer to my query wasn't this: try and fail for ten years before finally figuring out how to cut acrylic! (Even my dome fabricator shattered/fractured/destroyed a fair number of domes trying to put a center hole in it, or trying to bevel the edge, and he'd been doing this kind of work for thirty years!)

 

[eagle1]

Very helpful -- thank you!

Having chipped, cracked, splintered, shattered a fair bit of acrylic, I'd be keen to know precisely which hand saw you are using, and what size drillbits on what speed setting on the drill. My favorite acrylic cutting tool, thus far, is the super-slow and super-tedious Micro-Mark mini-jig saw, which needs a straight edge guide unless you want it to wander all over the place, but it goes slow enough that you don't get any cracking/splintering, and the adaptor base has a variable power setting which translates to variable speed. But maybe hand saws ARE the way to go, so I'm all ears as to which one you recommend, as this is the stage of the build at which you can't afford to make a single mistake and/or risk having your dome shatter.

I also appreciate that your answer to my query wasn't this: try and fail for ten years before finally figuring out how to cut acrylic! (Even my dome fabricator shattered/fractured/destroyed a fair number of domes trying to put a center hole in it, or trying to bevel the edge, and he'd been doing this kind of work for thirty years!)

I'm afraid i can't advise you on acrylic cutting Read, as my domes are ABS.
Acrylic is a super tough, PIA to work with material. It's heavy, its brittle, a pig to drill & sand & generally not an easy material to work with.
I can let you know my preferred saw & drill settings if you wish, but our materials of choice are quite different.

 

[Studio Kitbash]

I'm afraid i can't advise you on acrylic cutting Read, as my domes are ABS.
Acrylic is a super tough, PIA to work with material. It's heavy, its brittle, a pig to drill & sand & generally not an easy material to work with.
I can let you know my preferred saw & drill settings if you wish, but our materials of choice are quite different.

Ah!

This explains a lot, and somehow I had forgotten that yours were ABS.

Wish I had know about the structural material differences between ABS and acrylic back at the beginning of this project!

Are you still offering ABS domes in quarter sections? In retrospect, I probably should have started there.

 

[eagle1]

Ah!

This explains a lot, and somehow I had forgotten that yours were ABS.

Wish I had know about the structural material differences between ABS and acrylic back at the beginning of this project!

Are you still offering ABS domes in quarter sections? In retrospect, I probably should have started there.

PM sent

 

[joberg]

Yep, acrylic is, really, a PITA to work with...I did my 1/6 EVA Pod with it and this was a lesson in patience and sheer luck
Any drilling, cutting of acrylic has to be done real slow (many stops/go are a must), if not; it becomes an industrial accident very fast!!