Studio Scale B-Wing Starfighter Build Thread

[thibkaji]

I began working on the wing gun section a bit ago but forgot to post anything about it. Rectifying that bit here.

So this is what I’m working on:

The core of this section is made up of this BT-46 engine part, the sides cut off and the middle cut down and sanded flat.

Take note of the upswept curve, which matches many of the ref pics I can find.

To this I attached another BT-46 part (oil pan?) and some F-14 parts to the sides.

Here are two more F-14 parts that are needed for this assembly:

The one gets cut down so it can fit properly.

I ended up creating from flat stock the form underneath to mount these parts to. I’m pretty sure some of this section is actually made from kit parts, but I cannot figure out which. If anyone knows, I’d love to know, too!

Attached the parts above, plus a few more F-14 parts, a Hasegawa F-16 part (the white wedge), and the Mörser Karl tanks to this frame.

I spent a bit more time shaping the front and fixing a few things, plus added another F-16 part (well, two together) underneath to get this “final” form.

I had beefed up the center section under the BT-46 section to give more “grab” for when I have to drill out a hole for the brass tube for the guns. Which actually brings me to where I’ve gotten stuck on this section.

Does anyone know what kit part was used for where the gun barrel actually connects to the wing gun “pod”?

I’m talking about this here:

Definitely a kit part (likely a few here), but I’ve not been able to ID it. Doesn’t appear to be in any of the kits I have — I’ve got pretty much everything needed for this build — or any other kits I have. I’ve been scouring kit scans, as well, and coming up empty. So if any of you fine folk out there know what this section is made from, I’d love to know. Cool with a DM, too, if folks don’t want to share publicly.

That’s all for now. I just built the one, wanted to wait on the other til I felt more confident in what goes underneath. Til next time!

 

[stevielewis]

Love this update! Video is perfect!

Wing gun section looks good as well!

 

[thibkaji]

Ok, so I really have no idea what I’m doing, but started working on an armature for the B-Wing. I got a block of aluminum, 1-1/2” x 1-1/2” x 6” and cut it down to 2-1/2” long. I measured that the distance from the rear mount point between the engines and the central mounting points on the body was about 2”, so 2-1/2” gives me a little meat in the front for the threaded holes.

Next I drilled holes through all four sides to thread.

I also drilled one through the back door that engine mount point. Once that was done I cut down my 3/4” OD rod to about 4.45” long, and then taped that end with a 1/2”-13 tap. Did the same with the 5 holes on the block.

I used some 1/2”-13 fully threaded 1” long rods to connect the threaded rod end and the block together.

And here it is with the cockpit/pod assembly attached. The height looks right, and it’s pretty straight, so happy with this so far.

And from the front — ugh, not so straight…

It’s off by 1/16” from center…

I’m sure I’ll be able to adjust for that somehow, but honestly not sure. Thinking of tapping another tube and just making sure the tap is slight off. Or maybe folks know of another way. I have extra aluminum block I can machine out if I need to make this over again. Open to easy suggestions, folks.

But overall I think it’s coming out OK. I feel I need to get something made to mount things to as I’ll be hitting a hard stop on sub-assemblies soon. So working on this, figuring out some hinges I can machine down and attach for the wings, and then really it’s all about the vac-former. And with that, small update is over!

We’ll see you next time.

 

[swgeek]

You could machine the larger side down to match the narrower side.

 

[thibkaji]

You could machine the larger side down to match the narrower side.

I’m not sure what you mean by the larger side vs narrower side. Do you mean shave some off the mounting block to make it square to the tube? Sorry, total newb to machining and just kinda winging it here…

 

[swgeek]

Yep, that's exactly what I meant.

 

[thibkaji]

Spent some time over the last few weeks working on the main engines for the B-Wing. Parts come from just two kits, the 1/48 Tamiya A-10 Thunderbolt and 1/32 Hasegawa F-16A, and some styrene — or in my case, also some resin casting.

Started with gluing the engines together

And then added a strip of styrene around the engine that lines up with the reference.

I then cut off a bit above the white strip to then round it over for the F-16 parts to sit on. But cut it too short so I glued on a disc of styrene to then sand down to the right height.

Here the missile clips are being attached:

I didn’t have enough of these to create a full ring, so I added enough to just over half and stopped. I then back-filled gaps with some putty and after drying sanded down to a nice finish. Image below is pre-sanding.

I then made a mold of the top ring once I was happy with it and cast rings to use to finish the top of this engine as well as the other three.

Last step was to add the extension out the back of the engine.

Rinse and repeat:

Next I sanded down the bottom of each engine bell to level them out so they’d stand straight vs on an angle.

Last thing I did was cut out a rear mounting panel for the engine bells. This is a tad oversized for what the final panel will be, but I’ll cut it down when I need to fit it into the vac-formed engine housing.

Next steps are working on getting some aluminum engine bells for these, and I’m working with someone on creating a CAD file to do that. Will probably 3D print them first, test for fit, then send off for manufacturing once I sign off on it.

Hoping it warms up soon so I can finish the vac-former — definitely becoming my bottleneck!

TIL next time!

 

[joberg]

Excellent engines and good trick to get those details all around the mouth

 

[thibkaji]

Excellent engines and good trick to get those details all around the mouth

Appreciate it. While I was playing around with 3D printing the engine bells last night I realized my spacing for the engines are inverted. They should be spaced further apart along the flat and closer together along the side they come to a point. Fixing that this weekend probably.