The cool thing with the fiber optics is you can run a ton of them on one power source and even make them different colors depending on the bulb. Knowing Jim some of these will be red, some white, some yellow, some blue, etc...

Nico wrote:

The cockpit looks awesome Jim, great work man

Thanks bro! Glad you like it!

darthmatt22 wrote:

Jim, when you're all said and done, I want the total number of buttons and switches that are on the M.F.  

3,263,827 buttons, switchs, knobs, and lights... muhahahahhahaha

Quote :

Great job. Again, nice detail and you can tell that you're really putting your effort into it!

Good luck with the progression!

Thanks bro... I'm trying!

trappedtexan wrote:

The cool thing with the fiber optics is you can run a ton of them on one power source and even make them different colors depending on the bulb.  Knowing Jim some of these will be red, some white, some yellow, some blue, etc...

So many fibers... so little time! LOL Yeah, it'll be awesome when it's done! Thanks bro!

OK you merry peoples... here's the latest updates. I was looking at the floor in my cockpit and decided that it really needed to be fixed. But I really wanted to be able to maintain the tabs for the backwall. So I cut out a good size hole in the floor behind the front seats and decided to make my own flooring to look more like the floor of the actual cockpit. I cut out some pieces of sheet styrene and glued them all together and placed them in the hole and glued them in place. I think it's a pretty good compromise... what you all think?

Precise.. I think it was a great idea.

The cockpit LED effect is very cool!
Neat flooring. 3D printed?
Keep up the great work.

Jim any more progress? Can't wait to see it all up together.

Alright all you happy peoples... got a big update for everyone. Have been working on scratch building the nav chairs. I got out my reference photos and set to work with my putty and began working on the first frame.



My first task was get some kind of measurements. As far as I can tell from the photo the top of the nav chair is a head and a half taller then the front seats, but I also had to factor in the fact that the floor is also dropped a bit lower then then one the front seat is on (hence the reason for the lowered floor in the cockpit). So I took a stick and placed the front seat in place and eyeballed the measurement on the stick. I used that measurement to figure out the rest of my build. Using that measurement I pulled out some putty and started shaping it. I placed a couple of strips of styrene down to give a better ridge to it. Here's the result...



Althou it didn't come out too bad, I realized I was gonna have to repeat this process 2 more times and frankly, getting the putty to this point took about 2 hours. Didn't like it... so I basically started over again with styrene and think it came out looking better then the putty. I also have some styrene tubing that I thought would make the look a lot nicer, so using the thickness of the tubing, I figured out the width of the framing... Came out looking alot cleaner and straight-edged.



I needed to encase the tubing inside the frame but I also had to make two 90 degree tubes along the side that kinda of protruded thru the framing in the bottom of the top hole of the frame and the second to bottom hole. I used my dremel to make some concave cuts in the end of the tubing and then cut 6 little pieces to glue onto the tube in the proper places. I had to fit them into the holes to make sure I had them in the right places. I painted them black, glued two strips to the sides and then glued them onto the backs of the frames.



So far not looking too bad. I cut out the seats and backs and the back tops. I glued one together and I started thinking that maybe these frames were too big, so I placed them next to the provided seats to compare them and I guess not. Looks like I'm right on track.





More to come!

Great detail man

Nice work Jim. Enjoying the updates.

Thanks guys... glad you're enjoying this... here's more:

Now comes the fun part. The seat topper. This thing is completely wacky to try to build from scratch. Hard to make a template for it as well because you have to glue, let dry and shape and round and fix, then glue another piece, let dry and sand and shape, ad nausea... but I got one done. Here's how it looks...



Looks about right to me. So I glued it in place and started working on the line cushions... this time I turned to my trusty putty. Doesn't look too bad... Whatcha think?



Two more toppers to go... then the arms rests, the side greeblies, and the supports and I can start painting! Really starting to come together.

Jim, a couple of posts back you show the chairs that came with this right? They appear to be slightly shorter is that going to cause issue with the top going in place? If your not using the original chairs you might be able to cut that top piece off of them and be able to use them instead of making that from scratch. I am sure you thought this stuff out already, just figured I would check.

trappedtexan wrote:

Jim, a couple of posts back you show the chairs that came with this right?  They appear to be slightly shorter is that going to cause issue with the top going in place?  If your not using the original chairs you might be able to cut that top piece off of them and be able to use them instead of making that from scratch.  I am sure you thought this stuff out already, just figured I would check.

Yeah... thought about that, however, the tops of those are square... the toppers are actually all rounded and tapered... I did attempt to round one of them but it's not a solid part and is actually hollow on the inside, so it thinned out the plastic too much and couldn't quite get the look it needed. No matter. I think I've got it worked out. New update coming up!

Ok all... big update... I realize that I should update daily, but work keeps me too busy to do so, so I update at least weekly if possible.  So... on with the progress...

I know I wanted to greeble out the hell of this sucker, so I finally found some really good refrerences online... I believe they were by Maruska if I'm not mistaken... but they helped me get a lot of the details that I needed to put into this.  Here's a couple of reference pics I used for my detailing.



With those pics I was able to at least get close to the detail I needed and I set to work on the details.  The hardest part was getting the toppers right... I think I did but on with the pics.



One thing you have to remember is that I had to do this 3 times... but I realized that I wanted the chair in the lounge to look the best so I made it my hero chair.  Its also a but taller with a few more added greeblies that I will add later.  Note the top is hollow just like the real chair.



And here is all the pics of the chairs with all the detailing done before painting (don't worry, they are coming up next).









More to come...

And now the completely painted and finished chairs (except for the Lounge chair... still gotta add more greeblies to that).













I even drilled out the holes in the topper so that light shines thru properly. I hope you all enjoy this... let me know what you think! I really do enjoy reading your comments!

Your attention to detail is awesome. The holes in the top are for ambient light?

trappedtexan wrote:

Your attention to detail is awesome.  The holes in the top are for ambient light?  

Actually no... the nav chairs themselves were actually jet fighter ejection seats. The hollowed out head rest was where the parachute was stuffed and the holes all over the top were where the lines were attached. But you know me... I attempt to be as authentic as possible and recreate as much detail as I possibly can!

Its funny that you mention they were ejection seats. I am sure they were repurposed here so ejection was not a thing that could be done, but someone once pointed out (think it was Alex) that there is a scene in the first film when they are flying in the trenches and someone is hit and about to crash they yell out to him to eject. Where could he eject to? They are in space. Even if he could eject he would depend on gravity to bring him down, and even if there was a gravitational pull it would be to the death star that they are attempting to blow up, so that part of the scene makes no sense. I never noticed it until it was pointed out to me. Just thought it was funny since these seats are ejector seats.

Jim, any progress?

trappedtexan wrote:

Jim, any progress?

Yeah... sorry... been a busy few weeks lately. OK... I finished the Hero Nav Chair for the Cargo Lounge. Added the radar dish to the top, and made a set of headphone/microphones out of a piece of beading wire that I hammered flat and then carved the "speaker" end with my Dremel. I also added all the rivets... wish I could have gotten them more uniform but at this scale even using a needle doesn't work consistently. So on with the pics and lemme know what you think!

Well I did a bit of comparison of size... as suspected, this chair is about 5mm too tall. But I designed it so I can easily shorten it if I had to. I can shorten the pedistal about 2.5mm and can pop the topper off, shave about 2.5 mm off the top of the backrest, and glue it back on and it should provide me about the size I need. The top of the chair should be about the same height as the top of the nav computer. Right now it's above it, but will be able to fix it soon. Since the cockpit chairs are already shorter, and I've compared them to the backwall (the topper is about the height of the top bar light), they are pretty much perfect. This one will have to be fixed before I can truly call it complete. But such is the life of us modelers! Especially those of us who eyeball everything! LOL

OK... here's where things get a little wonky... using the measurement of the top of the backwall lightbar for my main measurement of the nav chairs like in this pic...



I made my nav chairs to that scale and they came out perfect for the cockpit. I took a couple of comparative pics to see just how they look in position after lowering the lounge chair. Now they are all the same height. The cockpit look to be about the right size, but the lounge chair is still too tall. So something is wrong somewhere... I will either have to rebuild from scratch again, or just get the 3D printed ones!

So now I've got a problem and like any problem, it means I won't let it go until I have a solution.  And here's what we've discovered about this kit:

- The interior details that are provided leave ALOT to be desired.  Most have to be redone.
- The cockpit scale isn't right... it's actually off and squeezed into the space.  We've been crunching the numbers and what should be 1:43 (the scale of the whole ship) is actually a condenced 1:41.5 scale which explains alot.
- The interior is also off scale and the numbers show it's more 1:47.3 scale.

So I have been doing what anyone in my position can do while working on a problem and waiting for parts to arrive... I've been working on other things to keep myself busy... I'm playing with alot of stuff in 3D for printing and sharing with everyone on Shapeways!  Here's a sneak peek at some of the things I've got while waiting...






Yes all of these you can be found in my Shapeways shop online and can get for your own build!  There's alot more stuff there... been a busy guy!

Here's my shop: https://www.shapeways.com/shops/satyrsmodels

Jim, the chairs are just a shade high, but is that back wall to scale correctly? Perhaps the back wall light bars are a tad lower than they should be?