Building The ANH 5'Millennium Falcon

Hi guys!. A small update on the cockpit cone & its fabrication. I'll have another of my videos up very shortly on the making of this, but for now a few pics & brief description.
This new cone is updated to correct size of 6". My previous cone was incorrectly made to 5 3/4" & didn't work with the blueprints. The 6" just gels perfectly & is now a firm measure for Falcon builders!.
Funny though...the donor kit parts still worked equally as well for both sizes, a strange anomaly & something that i couldn't get past, but moved on & it all works!.
So the process was as before. A vacforming tool was made out of wood & vacformed in styrene in 2 thicknesses. One for the thicker cone shape & the other for the plating. The front window was taken off my old cone & used on the new as it was still the exact size required fortunately. Windows were marked out, then cut out, sanded & then the plating marked out & added & then finally the window edging added. And done!.
Oh and the underside kit parts to add also. I already have the Stug IV part in place too, with it being modified to match the ref.
Now onto the cockpit interior itself...
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Nice work eagle 1. Again your clean, crisp construction. A repeating trademark. I must confess that visiting your thread and the video installments can cause the reader a severe case of envy. One of the 7 deadly sins.
 
eagle1 said:
Hi guys!. A small update on the cockpit cone & its fabrication. I'll have another of my videos up very shortly on the making of this, but for now a few pics & brief description.
This new cone is updated to correct size of 6". My previous cone was incorrectly made to 5 3/4" & didn't work with the blueprints. The 6" just gels perfectly & is now a firm measure for Falcon builders!.
Funny though...the donor kit parts still worked equally as well for both sizes, a strange anomaly & something that i couldn't get past, but moved on & it all works!.
So the process was as before. A vacforming tool was made out of wood & vacformed in styrene in 2 thicknesses. One for the thicker cone shape & the other for the plating. The front window was taken off my old cone & used on the new as it was still the exact size required fortunately. Windows were marked out, then cut out, sanded & then the plating marked out & added & then finally the window edging added. And done!.
Oh and the underside kit parts to add also. I already have the Stug IV part in place too, with it being modified to match the ref.
Now onto the cockpit interior itself...View attachment 1571800View attachment 1571801View attachment 1571802View attachment 1571803View attachment 1571804View attachment 1571805View attachment 1571806
Click to expand...
Wow! She is a thing of beauty and perfection.
 
Most excellent job vacu-forming that cockpit!! What's the thickness of your plastic sheet?
 
Beautiful vac-forming work, Stu! Can you give a bit more detail on that actual process? Specifically, how do you avoid radial wrinkling along the rear portions as the flat styrene sheet tries to conform to the cone? I see one tiny wrinkle in the one formed cone but the others look really clean.

Dan
 
3DImpact said:
Beautiful vac-forming work, Stu! Can you give a bit more detail on that actual process? Specifically, how do you avoid radial wrinkling along the rear portions as the flat styrene sheet tries to conform to the cone? I see one tiny wrinkle in the one formed cone but the others look really clean.

Dan
Click to expand...
Sure can Dan. So regarding the wooden tool, no matter how smooth the surface feels & looks to the eye, you will always get an uneven surface that shows on the finished styrene pulls. It was minor though & not a problem at all as a light sand over the styrene pull takes care of that.
I actually sanded this cone after all the windows were cut out & ready for plating & window edge framing.
Or perhaps do you mean the 'webbing' that sometimes can happen at the base of the pulls?.
I only got webbing on a few pulls as doofus here didn't get his oven mitted hand out fast enough under the frame & the full suction was not achieved.
But this tool was designed with a hole right through top to bottom to allow suction down through the tool & as always with vacforming the tool was raised up on a base (this was part of the tool). This allowed perfect forming at the base of the cone & even thickness.

Hope that explains your questions Dan?.
 
Thanks Stu! Yeah, the 'webbing' - it seemed to me that any time you try to wrap a flat sheet onto a round surface like that you inevitably end up with wrinkles. But I guess when the styrene is warm and flexible that helps avoid that. I've only done the merest sampling of vac forming myself so the process/results aren't that 'intuitive' to me yet...

Dan
 
3DImpact said:
Thanks Stu! Yeah, the 'webbing' - it seemed to me that any time you try to wrap a flat sheet onto a round surface like that you inevitably end up with wrinkles. But I guess when the styrene is warm and flexible that helps avoid that. I've only done the merest sampling of vac forming myself so the process/results aren't that 'intuitive' to me yet...

Dan
Click to expand...
Yes webbing can be quite the problem, but it wasn't an issue here, just me not removing my hand in time. The little vacform machine i use has terrific suction even with the high rise of the tool. If the tool is designed right & the styrene temperature is optimal, then successful pulls will happen. I find thicker sheets of styrene easier to pull than the thinner sheets for some reason. Thinner sheets seem to stretch a whole lot more.
As an example, for the plating i chose to go with 1mm to start with, but it was coming out pulled to like 0.5mm, way too thin!. I ended up using 1.5mm stock styrene sheet toget just under a 1mm pull...perfect!.
Vacforming is truly a hit or miss process, but with thought & a good tool design, great looking parts will result!.
 
eagle1 said:
Yes webbing can be quite the problem, but it wasn't an issue here, just me not removing my hand in time. The little vacform machine i use has terrific suction even with the high rise of the tool. If the tool is designed right & the styrene temperature is optimal, then successful pulls will happen. I find thicker sheets of styrene easier to pull than the thinner sheets for some reason. Thinner sheets seem to stretch a whole lot more.
As an example, for the plating i chose to go with 1mm to start with, but it was coming out pulled to like 0.5mm, way too thin!. I ended up using 1.5mm stock styrene sheet toget just under a 1mm pull...perfect!.
Vacforming is truly a hit or miss process, but with thought & a good tool design, great looking parts will result!.
Click to expand...
Hey Man ! Love that little vacuum former. What size angle did you use on the canopy windows. Thanks,

Joe
 
Searun said:
Nice work eagle 1. Again your clean, crisp construction. A repeating trademark. I must confess that visiting your thread and the video installments can cause the reader a severe case of envy. One of the 7 deadly sins.
Click to expand...
Well thank you so much Searun. I much admire your cockpit cone in metal, wayyyy more harder to fabricate i think than plastics!.
 
Another great video. When carefully listened to, offers not only a preferred process on a specific part but a host of “other options” based on experience. Valuable stuff on other structures. Fore example: Drilling corner holes, drawings, scribing circular water lines, nibbling, scavenging material, etc. Thanks again eagle 1.
 
Great video, thank you for sharing your thoughts and design processes. Very educational.

I'm tweaking the mpc kit atm. And your work, along with the other guys who made the blueprints and some of the other threads on this forum, is just invaluable.

And yes I know... It would probably be easier to build a Falcon from scratch, than trying to correct the old mpc. And I will... One day... Not studioscale but I'll build one from scratch... One of these days.

Thank for sharing and inspirering us.
 
Great vid once again and thanks for that nibbler trick for opening holes and making windows(y)(y):cool::cool:
 
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