Just finished a couple of new pieces for printing.  These will replace the cockpit corridor walls which are terribly unaccurate in any way! These are located in spot #9 in my map!

Jim, how much of this model are you upgrading? Is there anything besides the basic shell body?

Yours is likely going to be close to the screen model before all is done.

trappedtexan wrote:

Jim, how much of this model are you upgrading?  Is there anything besides the basic shell body?

Yours is likely going to be close to the screen model before all is done.  

Well the exterior is pretty much spot on... but the interior is a mess... its almost as bad as the old Cutaway Falcon that came out in the 90s (which was completely messed up). Most of the stuff I'm doing is all interior stuff... but that's enough to keep it going for awhile. I just want my interior to look at least semi-respectable!

Just had a quick read and this is an epic project!! Its looks amazing, the detailing is superb and the effort should be admired.

Excellent job can't wait to see the finished Falcon

Lobotic wrote:

Just had a quick read and this is an epic project!! Its looks amazing, the detailing is superb and the effort should be admired.

Excellent job can't wait to see the finished Falcon

Thanks bro... it's a labor of love!

Am really stoked. I got my ESB Port Wall from SW the other day and finally got around to painting it last night. I tell you what... this thing looks AWESOME! And I haven't even put the light or the tubes/wires/cubby hole in it yet. Take a look for yourself!

Wow, what color is that? Has a metallic look to it.

trappedtexan wrote:

Wow, what color is that?  Has a metallic look to it.

It's Model Master Buffing Metalizer Gun-Metal... really makes it pop!

I wondered if it was a gun metal color. It really pops, looks great.

Keep up the good work Jim, I'm enjoying all the updates and seeing the progress. That latest port wall part looks good, nice paint job  

Well I got my latest shipment of Shapeways parts in the mail yesterday and am pretty pleased with the results!  The Starboard wall although has some nasty print lines in it (hoping to get it reprinted for free) fits the slotted holes on the floor perfectly.  Also the greeblies that glue into the recesses of the wall fit perfectly as well.  I had it printed in White ABS plastic Here's how everything looks on it.




Now, also got my front wall printed and ran into a slight problem.  Althou the tabs fit into the holes perfectly, the detached tube on the back is off  and doesn't quite fit for some reason.  May have to repair that and reupload a new version onto shapeways.  I had it printed in Black ABS plastic and it doesn't look too bad!  I shorted the frames up a bit on both sides to allow room for details on the bunk wall and the Port Side wall.





Here is my Turret Alcove replacement.  Came out looking grate and the fit is perfect.  Gonna be an awesome addition to my kit!  This is printed in White ABS with the Resin Ladder (not pictured):





And finally got my Cockpuit Corridor Wall Replacements... these came out looking AWESOME!  The fit was a little tight but with a little sanding of the front tabs, they slid right into place with no problems!  Here's how they look prepainted!





Now I can really start painting and getting everything together and I feel so stoked about how things are coming together!  Lemme know what you think!

It all looks good, but I can see the printing lines on that wall your talking about. almost looks like it has a gritty texture. May look decent when covered with paint?

Alright folks... time for a new update.  I've gotten a bunch of my Shapeways parts that I've made printed and delivered and have been painting them up, but my Front Wall Replacement had a couple of small issues (that I've fixed since then) that have cropped up that I figured I would address here.  The biggest being that the tube wall doesn't fit in the the back properly.  Well it's a pretty easy fix.  If any of you have ever had after market parts to detail your model would know, not all of them are perfect and you usually end up having to "fix" them to get them to fit properly.  This is a pretty easy fix.  All you need to do is trim about 1mm off the front edge of the tube itself on both sides with a dremel tool.  Easy right... well here's what it would look like.

Using the dremel, sand down both ends of the tube about an inch (pictured here I did it at an angle).



Test fit as you go to make sure you don't overdo it.




Once you get them trimmed properly it all falls right into place and even the tabs at the top and bottom fit into the slots properly.


Welcome to the wonderful world of after market parts!  Now I've since fixed this issue with the front wall replacement.  So if you were to order it today you wouldn't have this problem, but for those that have ordered it prior to today, it's an easy fix so you don't have to worry about buying a whole new part!  Easy pezy!

Well I've been been painting my Turrent Tube Replacement and I gotta say... I'm very happy with it.  Here's what it looks like (before I add lights to it!)






And here's a comparision of my part against the supplied stock part.  You can see, mine definitely looks more movie accurate (even if it doesn't connect the turrets together, but then it never would be able to!)

Jim, I meant to tell you yesterday how awesome the latest work looks here.

This keeps getting better and better.

The hype train is real!

trappedtexan wrote:

Jim, I meant to tell you yesterday how awesome the latest work looks here.

Thanks bro... just chuggin along. I may not be fast, but at least I try to be good!

darthmatt22 wrote:

This keeps getting better and better.

Thanks bro... I hope I'll be able to finally get my interior done soon. Still have a few more parts to make before I can say it's done but it will be completely lit up which is one of the reasons it's taking so long!

OK all... here's the latest updates to my build.  I decided to go with the Paragrafix corridor photoetch kit.  I like them over the 3D printed hallways.  Why?  All the corridors have these little floor slits that emit light.  Here's a screen cap of the floor lights.



But you have to trim the sides down but leave the spots where the cushion rings fit. That was a major pain in the tush! However... after trimming my floor plates... the first thing I wanted to do was get these floors looking at least somewhat accurate.  That meant gluing, alot of cutting, and repainting.  Here's how they came out.




Now, notice the step to the cockpit corridor... this really can't be avoided due to the pit on the bottom of the hull, but this PE kit comes with a nice little plate to put there to light up that section.  It also comes with the "hidden floor comparatments" but I'm not gonna use them at all... I just glued them into place.  Why?  Well... in order to actually do them would mean that I would have to scratch build a little compartment under each floor section, cut out the hole in the floor and then figure out a way to still light up the floor slits an avoid the compartments.  Besides, I don't think they will be seen once everything is together, but those floor slits will be, so they are my priority.

Ok... so I got a plan. Now that my floors are all painted and grunged properly, I need to think about how I'm going to put the lights under them. The first task is to paint the areas under the floors white. Why white? I could paint them silver but they wouldn't quite look right and would generate alot of hot spots. White on the otherhand would disperse the light more evenly with less hot spots and would be more visually appealing. So I masked off my corridor tubes and started painting.





With that done I had to see just how good the light gets dispersed. So I tossed a couple of white LEDs on the floor, put the floors over them and VIOLA... I think we've got a winner here.





Of course I won't be using just regular LEDs here... I'm waiting for my LED strips to come in. So... while I wait for them, I decided it's time to paint these cushion rings to match the rest of my interior. Of course I'm talking about using the Buffing Metalizer Gun Metal... love this stuff. Spray it on, wait for it to dry, buff it to a shine and it looks like metal... used it on the floors too with a little bit of weathering powders to dirty them up a bit if you were wondering!



Well that's it for now troopers... more to come... I assure you!

The strip lights will also disperse the under lighting better than those LEDs you used to test, so it will look even better. This build is pretty epic, but I am thinking I will be a thousand before it is done.

trappedtexan wrote:

The strip lights will also disperse the under lighting better than those LEDs you used to test, so it will look even better.  This build is pretty epic, but I am thinking I will be a thousand before it is done.

LOL... I know I've been working on it when I get a chance... Work comes first! But last night I did start working on the upper hull. Started putting the frame together on it to at least get it going. That'll be alot of fun when it's done! I'm gonna see if I can put the whole top hull together this weekend. Should be alot of fun! Only 6 more shipments to go before this is done!

Well weekend is over and even thou I didn't get the panels on, I did complete the top frame!  Yes it's all held together with screws but boy is it solid!  That's issues 48 thru 72 on my work bench... yeah it's pretty messy!




There's still quite a bit of parts painting and assembling I have to do yet.  First I ended up getting the SW 3D Printed Nav Computer.  I'll be putting fibers in it soon!




Next I did some work on my seating area... still have more work to do on it (painted areas, fiber optics) but mainly wanted to make sure my seats looked realistic enough.  I used Flat Tan with some Mud pastels to make them look "well used".  Also going to be putting some fibers in my Dajarikk table and up in my upper bunk.  Am going to remove the light above the seats to use my Light Pipe.  Last pic they are just mocked up, not glued together yet.  Starting to look good.  Will work on the lighting and see what I can come up with for these.





Yeah I know... not perfect, but will be!  Lemme know what you think!

If your going to put lights in the dajarik table there are some dajarik pieces that are small and made of translucent plastic. They may be the wrong scale as I think they came with a hot toys item or something, but would be cool to see some lighted pieces.

trappedtexan wrote:

If your going to put lights in the dajarik table there are some dajarik pieces that are small and made of translucent plastic.  They may be the wrong scale as I think they came with a hot toys item or something, but would be cool to see some lighted pieces.

I did actually think about that, but at the scale this thing is, the figures would be much too small to print. What you see there, the table itself is about 1/4 inch tall. Which means the print of those figures would have to be about 1/32 of a inch for the whole figure. Now when you're dealing with that small, remember that each figure would have arms/legs etc which would put the arm widths to about 1/215th of an inch. Now... when the printers smallest limit is only 1/64th of an inch, they would come out looking like blobs. And I don't know if you've ever tried sculpting at that scale, but I think I'll pass for now! LOL It wasn't the Hot Toys, it was the Hasbro Hero Falcon that had 2 characters and they were WAYYYYY out of scale.

Ok... new update!  I got a few parts from Shapeways and one of them was the electrical room where Han and Leia kissed (otherwise known by my friend and guy who designed it the Kissing Booth).  He did a really good job on it.  Only thing missing were the various wires and pipes that lined the wall randomly.  But I can understand that those are really difficult to print.  So, getting out my trusty epoxy putty, I made some wires and pipes as close to the movie as I could possibly get and added them to the part.  Now I'm not fretting over the paint job because this area won't really be seen very well.  I basically started with a base of Buffing Gun Metal (to tie the color to the rest of my interior) and then did some dry brushing of light gray, dark gray, silver and light tan weathered with pastel mud.  The only lights in this section are on the panel on the wall (still need to add the fibers to it) and the overhead light.  But the effect came out looking pretty phenominal.  I'll let you judge for yourself. (NOTE: The light by the doorway is lit up and ready to go! )

Wall seen in the movie:


After painting the piping/wires:



Unseen wall:


Room Assembled:



Mocked up in place (Here's how it will look when it's in place):





Needless to say, it's coming together nicely! In the immortal words of George Peppard "I love it when a plan comes together!"