Building the Falcon

The dishes are done

2007-09-02T00:15:00.000-07:00

Well...just the master copy. I finished the back of the dish yesterday. The details were much easier than the front to create. However, because the parts that fit to it are more complicated than the cone, it still required some effort for a good fit. As promised, here are some images of my new dish master mounted to the rest of the Fine Molds radar dish assembly parts.
After a brief photo shoot (see above) and moment to appreciate the completion of the dish work, I took it all apart and prepped my new dish master for molding. More info on that later. For now, I leave you with this photo of the completed dish assembly mounted to the hull.

Details of the dish

2007-08-19T22:22:00.000-07:00

Creating a scratchbuilt dish for the FM falcon was no easy task. It required a lot of hours and some very tiny bits of styrene (many in the 1mm ballpark). The photo below shows the details for the front all in place before some minor filler is applied and the surface primed.Here's an earlier shot where you can more clearly see the lines I drew on the surface of the dish base to space out the parts correctly. The shine on the surface is from the superglue.It was truly a tedious task to rebuild this part. After putting it off for so long I was in no hurry to get around to it. However, I knew I couldn't finish without replacing the tiny FM one, so I just got to it. I'll post final pics of it front and back while mounted to the hull next time.

Painting the Sidewalls

2007-08-06T09:20:00.000-07:00

It has been way too long since I posted an update on this project. I picked the kit back up again a week ago and started back in on it after a very hectic month or two in the real world. I managed to get a good amount of work done in a rather small amount of time. Below you can see the upper hull paint job is complete with the spatter pass as well as some minor adjustments to the engine deck weathering (airbrushed neutral grey around the rear section of the turret sidewall and around the engine grills and streaks).The side walls are also complete now. I started at the outside of one of the mandibles as worked my way across the back and around to the front again. This process was rather painless and quite enjoyable seeing as it consisted of fairly low detail distressing. Seems like the ILM folks took it easy on this part of the ship.
From the rear right of the ship you can see how deceivingly simple the weathering job is. It's really several passes (as with the rest of the ship). I start by darkening the dirty, blackened/brown areas. Next, I go through and add in subtle orange, yellow, red, and light brown accents. With a wet brush loaded lightly with pastels, I add in rust marks, streaks, etc. And then hit it once more with a thinned out black to get some dark lines, runs, and smudges. A very gentle pass with the airbrush and neutral gray ties the weathering together. Top it all off with a super thinned out spatter that is almost invisible.
I'll be getting to the interior surfaces of the mandibles/jaw box next to complete all but the lower hull. This should go quickly but requires separating the hull in half again to really get in there. I'm glad it isn't screwed together just yet and that I opted to do all the extra work in the beginning to magnetize this model so that taking it apart is an easy task. It's paying off already. I'm very satisfied with how the paint job has turned out. There are a few more parts to customize before all painting is wrapped (cockpit and radar dish), but the bulk of the work is nearly behind me.

The Engine Deck

2007-05-07T08:04:00.001-07:00

Here is a look at the rear engine deck in all its dirty glory. It took a lot of will power not to do this area first (It's my favorite section) Basically more of the pastel work. some minor detailing with thinned out paint/wet pastel. And of always, I still haven't done the spatter pass!
I'm going to finish off the top hull with some minor airbrushing of Tamiya Neutral Grey around the rear section of the turret sidewall along with a few other minor places. Needless to say, it's a big relief to have the upper hull paint work behind me. It was fun while it lasted!

Deconstructing the damage

2007-03-25T15:35:00.000-07:00

As promised, I took some photos of the different stages of my hull weathering process so that I can better illustrate how I am going about adding all the grunge and grime. I hope this helps.

First, I want to show some closer images of how I do the streaks themselves. In the left photo, I'm using a thin piece of paper (a sales receipt in this case) like a mask to define the edge of a dark streak. In the right photo, you can see that I'm holding it in place while brushing black pastel dust onto the surface. I try to brush right along the edge of the paper to keep the streak as thin as possible.

After removing the paper mask, a nice streak is left on the hull. I go heavier at the top when brushing on the pastels and use less toward the end to make the streak fade off. Before doing the streaks in this manner, I have pre-shaded the area the streak will be made to soften the mark a bit. After this step, I make a thin mixture of water and black pastel dust to brush a fine line in the streak to make it pop.

This series of images begins with the hull quadrant free from any weathering. I begin darkening the areas with black pastel dust and a medium sized brush. I softly indicate where the streaks will be as well as dirty up any areas that are dark in the reference photos I have. Next, I add some color to the armor plates by brushing in browns, oranges, reds, yellows, etc. It's tricky to keep the balance so I go slow and step back to look at the area as a whole frequently.

Now I add the streaks using the technique described earlier. I use the method for both the black and rust streaks. Finally, I paint the blast marks using Tamiya German Gray with a super fine brush. Once that dries, I take my base hull color (50/50 Grime/Reefer White) and outline them looking at the reference. I also have added the chips in the red hull panel using this paint. The access wells/ports get weathered with black pastels, rust, and a little red. That's pretty much all there is to it.

Hull of a day

2007-02-19T09:34:00.000-08:00

I had a pretty productive day. The quadrant with the radar dish got a lot of attention as did the two escape pod walkways. I had a real good time weathering these parts. I brought out the airbrush and the Tamiya Neutral Gray to darken the turret sidewalls, back end of the jawbox, and a few areas with blast damage. I really like this photo:
This angle shows off the radar dish quadrant of the hull and a good look at the blast holes I cut into the hull. Still missing from the finish is the spatter/speckle pass. I want to get the upper hull completely weathered with paint/pastels so that I can apply the spatter for the top all at once. When the final coat of clear (Testors Dullcote) gets applied, I will call the finish complete.
Many images of the same area from different angles are required to do a thorough recreation of the weathering on this ship. Rob is starting to archive all the print-outs we've accumulated over the course of this project into a 3-ring binder. I will have to take a photo of that next time as it is an impressive volume.

What a dish.

2007-02-17T15:38:00.000-08:00

Here's a good look at the where I am on the dish assembly. I cleaned off the back of the donor dish and filled in the old mounting slots. I added new ones that fit the FM hardware and have begun recreating the details on the back of the dish. The front is going to be very time consuming, and so I started with the lighter work.Below is a quick comparison of the size difference between the supplied FM dish and the new correct-scale blank I created. I can't get over how small the stock dish is.
Somebody just got an upgrade! Here's one last photo to show how much of an improvement the larger dish diameter makes when presented with the rest of the falcon.

Year of the Falcon

2007-01-22T09:12:00.000-08:00

Welcome back. I've been away from the falcon project for a good month and it feels really good to get back into it. I've been working on the cockpit lately and it has been really fun. Here is a photo of the front seats all painted up.
To paint these, I wrapped a popsicle stick with blue painters tape (inside out) and then pressed the seats down on it firmly. For the front leather seats, I mixed a brown base color of raw sienna and yellow oxide and airbrushed it on. I aged the leather with pastels in passes or burnt sienna and raw umber. Next, I worked on the back seats:
I used the same method to secure these to a stick for painting. I mixed a dark grey base coat and applied it via the airbrush. Unbleached titanium was used to create the light pads of the seat. Again, pastels were used to give the seats the worn look.
Above you can see how the front end turned out. I took a break from the hull weathering after getting the left mandible and jawbox area completed. It's fun but I needed a break from it. I'll move on to the quadrant with the radar dish mount next. Then I can add some last minute airbrushing/spattering and call the front half (of the upper hull) finished.

Moving forward

2006-12-08T09:22:00.000-08:00

I took the right mandible weathering to a point that I felt acceptable to photograph. There are still a few details I want to add as well as some missing passes (airbrush/spatter) but it's really close to the final look I want. The final passes may only add about 5% but are so crucial to the overall feel in my opinion.
Below is the same section from the reverse angle along with a better look at how it integrates with the cockpit side front quadrant of the upper hull.
I can't wait to finish this part of the buildup. I am really looking forward to lighting the model.

Weathering the upper hull

2006-12-03T23:21:00.000-08:00

I spent a few hours today working on the dirt and grime on the upper hull near the cockpit walkway. It seemed like a good place to start since the walkway looked funny next to a clean hull. Using my trusty palette of pastels, I began the transformation.This quadrant of the hull isn't finished yet. I still have to add the chipped paint effect in the reds, airbrush Neutral Grey along some of the edges, paint the little dark cores of the blast mark near the jawbox, and apply the hull spatter over everything. Below is a photo showing the effect when looking at the whole ship.
I think I'd like to finish off this side of the upper hull (including the mandible). I'm going to work toward that.

Like an old friend

2006-11-27T09:00:00.000-08:00

After a long break from the FM kit (due to real world work), I finished the underside of the cockpit walkway. Weathering this piece was fun. There are some interesting colors, rust, the damaged corner, some greeblies, and another instance of the modeler's name that appears on the upper half of the walkway. I am definately getting faster at this pastel technique.I'm re-mastering the dish on this falcon. Fine Molds made theirs beautifully detailed but noticeably undersized (about 1/4 inch in diameter too small). The ERTL/AMT kits had an oversized dish (about 1/4" too large). I've decided to trim down an ERTL, shave off all the inaccurate details and start with a fresh blank in the correct scale. Below is an early progress shot:
I'm going to move on to weathering the hull while I work on the new dish. I should be able to make a large impact on the overall ship by banging out a few quadrants of the upper hull. I'll be back...

Back in business.

2006-10-08T20:09:00.000-07:00

The falcon received some more attention this weekend. I completed the upper portion of the cockpit walkway. I applied the same techniques used on the turret here. It's really starting to come together now with the weathering.
If you look closely, you'll see that I'm even including the hand written names of the modelers who built the original. They wrote their names on the model in various places knowing it wouldn't be picked up on screen. Rob and I decided early on that we wanted to include these details to make the ship more authentic. He made these tiny decals.One of the escape pods is finished (with the exception of a small blast streak I need to add). It's nice to wrap up the very first piece I assembled at the beginning of this journey. Because of the small details, this piece took longer to weather and detail than I imagined. There's a lot going on in there.
Here's a look at the other side of the same escape pod:
I'll be completing the underside of the cockpit walkway during the week (it's smaller but just as involved). And there's another name written at the cockpit edge.

Painting with pastels

2006-09-24T15:57:00.000-07:00

I've never used chalk pastels before. But, some great model buildups praise them and I decided to incorporate them into my weathering technique. Combined with some airbrush work they definitely are well worth the praise. Below are my results and a brief 'how-to' on the top turret:
I used a few colors from a set of 12 earth tone chalk pastels. Using sandpaper, I made chalk dust that I could load onto a small brush and then apply to the model. Thin washes were achieved by dipping the brush in water then picking up some pastel dust. For the scorch marks/blast hits, I took my airbrush with thinned down Neutral Grey and first created the soft burn-like pattern. With a fine brush, I hand painted the dark cores with German Grey. Then, I highlighted the core edges with a mix of Titanium White and Light Grey. Finally, I gently spattered some very thin Neutral Grey onto the entire assembly with a toothbrush.

The mystery piece

2006-09-18T12:12:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a good day for the falcon. I swung by Rob's place and started working on the 'mystery piece'. At least that's what I'm calling it. There is a small trapezoid shaped plate in front of the gun turret on the upper hull. I built this out of styrene sheet cut to size and then drilled the two holes out with a pin vise. It was then primed, painted, and glued on.
I painted the six large engine exhaust grills on the rear deck (as well as the three other grills on the escape pod walkways) with Tamiya German Grey. This color is dark but not black and has a tiny hint of blue in it. You can still make out the grill details with this color. Painting them was difficult because I had already glued the grills to their housings. I carefully painted the edges with a brush then filled in the centers and blended to the edge with the airbrush.
Here's some more missing pieces I added to the ship. On the lower hull jawbox, the studio model has what appears to be a piece of t-track with a flat strip of plastic running along the bottom edge.
At first I considered this pretty minor because it's on the under side of the ship. However, when viewing the front of the ship, the extra raised strip and the 't' cross section definitely change the silhouette of the lower jawbox. I masked off these new details and base coated the new details.
The last thing I did was to spray the pits of the lower hull with the same Medium Grey paint I used on the upper hull. No photo of that for now. The painting of the grills definately made the ship feel more like the falcon for me. I'll have to take a photo with all the parts in place for my next update. I believe I am about ready to begin the next phase of the paintjob...weathering.

Progress report

2006-09-14T09:07:00.000-07:00

Here's a peak at the upper hull. Last night I added the little reddish-orange reflector looking rectangles to the jaw box, cockpit walkway, and one near the rear engine deck. These were more difficult to mask because they are so small. I used Testors orange mixed with a bit of crimson red. You can also see the yellow and red panels are finished as well as all of the little lines drawn in with the fine tip detail 'Gundam marker'. The ship is almost in a state where I can begin the weathering phase.Before I get there, there's a piece missing from the upper hull that Rob discovered. There are four good sized details missing from the sides of the lower hull jawbox. And I need to paint the engine exhaust ports and gun turret interiors with a nearly-black grey color.

Punctuation is important.

2006-09-07T08:53:00.000-07:00

Last night I decided to sit at my computer, pour over reference photos, and draw the little tiny lines and dots on the lower hull. I used one of those fine tipped Gundam markers (kit builders use these to draw in the panel lines on mechs I believe). It took a good amount of time to be as accurate as possible. I started on the bottom so I could get a good system down before approaching the upper hull which will be seen more on the finished model.
Here's a closer look at what these markings look like. There are hundreds of little lines and dots just drawn on the surface of the hull. I chose to do these before weathering so that the dirt and damage will make these appear less 'new'.
I dug up these photos of masking the lower hull panels. I use good old 3M painters masking tape (low tack) and cut it to small piece to form shapes around areas I want to airbrush. I write the colors to paint on the tape so I know what goes where.
Here's another shot of the lower hull back end. It looks more complicated than it really is, but that's because I try to mask as many panels as possible at once.
Finally, I made a small collage of a selection of additional bits and missing details discovered and corrected on Monday. Some are not pictured here (perhaps later) while a few others still need to be corrected. I know, it seems a little late in the game to change things, but I would rather nail them before this thing goes in a display case.
Above you can see a little cylinder shaped thing sticking out of the side of that greebly branching the upper hull and mandible. Next is a small detail with a wire on one of the escape pod walkways. The opposite walkway now sports two little curved bits that cover the rails near the small grill. And the rear engine deck receives complicated three-tiered wedge piece on both sides. After I built these additional pieces, I attached them, masked around them, and sprayed them with base coat.

Shades of gray

2006-09-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

Today I took on the task of masking and painting all of the various dark gray panels on the upper hull. The lighter, bluer, panels from the turret forward are tricky. I started with a mix of Light Grey, Flat White, and touch of Medium Blue. Then for the side of the jawbox and the top of the turret I darkened the mix a bit.
For the darkest ones, I chose Neutral Grey. I sprayed this on some of the engine flaps and the escape pod walkway opposite the cockpit. Next up was Light Grey which in reality was just a shade lighter than Neutral. I used this on the other dark fins (doesn't show in the photo) and one panel next to the escape pod walkway.
Next I'll give the cockpit walkway and the lower hull the same treatment. Then I need to start mixing the red.

Masking the hull panels.

2006-08-28T22:43:00.000-07:00

The hull panels of the falcon vary in color. It looks to me like there's a faint greyish tan color, a dark cool grey that shifts to a medium blue-grey at the front of the ship, boxcar red (what I've heard it called), and a pale yellow. I've started with the lightest color:I cut masking tape to outline the patterns/panels I wanted to shade and sprayed them with a mist of the desaturated tan acrylic paint.

Airbrushing

2006-08-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick glimpse of the ship all base coated. I started darkening the recessed pits on the upper hull but felt under the weather this weekend. Hopefully during the week I'll get some more done.
As far as painting tools go, here's what I have at my disposal (from left to right): Iwata HP-C, Iwata Eclipse HP-BCS, Badger 150, and a Paasche H.
I purchased the Badger a few years back, but I wasn't happy with the trigger performance. I am absolutely thrilled with my Iwata HP-C. And the fact that it's a gravity feed (cup on top) means easier transitions between colors with less cleaning time. The Eclipse was given to me when I purchased a friend's compressor (more on that later). In all honesty, the HP-C and the cheap Paasche H get all the work done. Although it's a single action cheap airbrush, the paint flow control is smooth and extremely variable. It also has a fairly wide and even stroke.
My main compressor is that little blue Cyclone II (by badger). It's got a moisture trap, pressure regulator, and that little black box at the end is a manifold I built. It has two quick connects so that I can attach two airbrushes. Why you ask? This way I can load two brushes with different paints, hook them both up, and switch back and forth with no down time. Sometimes it comes in handy. Behind the Cyclone is the compressor I bought from a friend. I haven't gotten around to testing it. Supposedly it's one of those 'silent' compressors with a big air tank. It needs oil before I put it through some tests.

Painting the falcon.

2006-08-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

This is a very exciting update for me. I've changed gears from 'building the falcon' to 'painting the falcon'. I started airbrushing some of the separate pieces with the base coat mix (again 1:1 mix of grime and reefer white). I'm shooting this un-thinned through my Iwata HP-C airbrush. Perhaps next update I'll show my painting equipment and give a little run down of how I go about doing what I do. Without further delay, here are the first pieces I base coated:
Rather than spending the time (and paint) to pre-shade the deep recessed areas, I decided to carefully control my base coat spray to allow some of the grey primer to show through areas where shadows would pool. I think it looks perfect for this scale.
Did I mention I'm excited?

Retraction

2006-08-20T21:25:00.000-07:00

I know I said that the hull was done. Believe me...I wanted it to be done. But today we discovered a pretty big opportunity to improve the Fine Molds falcon. It started with a little box I noticed on the cockpit walkway that was missing. As it turns out, there was a pipe that ran between this box and a detail Fine Molds included.
I confirmed this via a Star Wars reference book and the Master Replicas studio-scale. To replicate the detail, I scratched the box part and used a thin styrene rod for the pipe. I used a pin vise to drill a tiny hole in the upper detail and the lower box-like piece. The small gap between the pipe and the walkway is accurate and probably the reason this detail got broken off the real model. Here's it is with primer:
At this point I decided to fix one more area that lacked some of the detail that the 32 inch falcon had. It may be difficult to see below (the sun was pretty bright) but I added six new bits here. They are also hard to describe. To the right of the custom brass hoses I added is a tiny cylinder oriented vertically. Next is some monofilament line (three pieces) used to recreate what looked like a cable or wire over the 'T' shaped ribbed piece. Moving to the right, there is a cylinder piece and a more complex piece with a small box attached to the side of a cylinder. Now this area has the right look.I did some test spraying of the base coat mix on a scrap piece primed with the same primer on my bird. It looks like the 50/50 mix of Floquil brand "Reefer White" and "Grime" will be perfect (thanks Dean Dymerski for the tip). Sadly, my goal of base coating the ship was put on hold because of the additional work listed above. Almost there...

What the hull?

2006-08-18T00:39:00.000-07:00

The last piece of the hull is done. It's late, but I just finished snapping photos of the lower gun turret disc. It was missing many of the little styrene squares found on the original, some small raised circles, and a strange narrow block with rounded ends. Having done this type of work before on the upper turret, it was much easier. The difficult part is comparing what Fine Molds gives you with reference photos and temporarily drawing the missing details with a pen.After the glue set, I hit the new details with 400 grit sandpaper. I blow off any debris/dust with compressed air and head out to spray it with primer. A note on primer: when you get down to 25% left in the spray can, it may be best to start with a fresh can to ensure smooth coverage with no unwanted texture. Below is a nice example.
I am going to glue this one to the bottom of the ship permanently. There's no need to remove this one on my kit. Everything I need to get at will be accessible via the upper gun port. I won't be adding the rest of the parts for this assembly (window frame and gun) because the mounting point for my falcon is through this opening.

Cross off the cockpit walkway.

2006-08-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

This is the last update for today. I finished the walkway from the hull to the cockpit. I just need to glue the halves together and then attach it to the ship. I ended up using a combiniation of dremel and heated tools to make the dent/blast mark on the corner of the lower piece (top piece in photo). Then I added a few more details that are present in reference photos.
Here's another photo of the underside where most of the custom work was done.

Progress report

2006-08-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

I took the falcon outside this morning for some quick photos. It was a bit too bright (and hot I might add) so I apologize for the dark shadows. I'm moving on to the cockpit walkway next. I'll start by adding the dent to its underside.
I really liked this shot too:

Sidewalls are go!

2006-08-12T13:50:00.000-07:00

Today I attached all of the sidewall pieces to the ship. I chose to only glue the parts to the upper hull so I could separate the two halves later if necessary. It worked out great with the exception of one piece (near the cockpit) that wraps under the lower hull slightly. I will probably lightly tack this one with glue.
For the hoses below I recreated them by bending some brass rod. Fine Molds included some detail pipes that were too small and didn't have the right look to the bends.The magnetic escape pods worked great and with the small trapezoid-like sidewall panels installed on either side, they are snug and have perfect alignment.
Another sidewall piece glued into place. A note on construction: in order to ensure a strong bond, I scored the back of the sidewall sub assemblies with my trusty x-acto knife in a cross hatch pattern. I did the same for where the piece contacts the upper hull.
Here's the other side of the engine opening. On this sidewall, there are two small piping brackets (shaped like an 'H') that needed to be glued into place. I was able to glue them firmly to the sidewall without having to apply any glue to where they meet the lower hull.Scratch another item off the 'to-do' list. Did I mention the list is getting very short now?

The mysterious falcon fins

2006-08-05T18:20:00.000-07:00

First, let me start out by saying that my upper hull is officially complete. Rob pointed out a part that I had forgotten to glue to my hull that was still on my 'A' parts tree. Thanks! And a fellow RPF member (toddski) inspired this next improvement. The rear access port, or mandible pit on the right side of the upper hull is missing two detail pieces (seen reproduced here in white resin).I molded them from elsewhere on the upper hull, cast them up, and while they were still warm I curved them to fit the mandible pit. Below is what it looks like re-installed with the parts primered.
The under side of the Millennium Falcon had two fins located on the raised landing gear area aft of the gun turret. They were thin strips that had angled ends toed in towards the turret. I say "had" because these fins no longer exist on the studio model. They have fallen off, or have been broken off since the filming of the original trilogy.
Current photos of the screen used model do reveal the parts' attachment points. Some old glue residue and the lack of paint where tell the story. Using photos of the original and the MR lower hull, I was able to attach my fins properly.
Here is another photo that better illustrates the fin placement.
There's only some minor details to be added to the gun turret disc for the lower hull. I plan to move on to attaching the hull sidewalls next. Wish me luck.

Still building the falcon...

2006-08-02T22:18:00.000-07:00

This week has been very busy and hectic and so the model building took a back seat to other obligations. However, I thought I should post photos of the upper hull front plate notching that was completed and coated in primer. I really like the additional lighting/shadow detail these create. Here's one side:And the other side:
I made the executive decision not to go with the PE brass grills and internal detailing. Despite how cool it looks, it really makes the rear deck look too different from the shooting miniature in my opinion. I really agonized over this decision for a few weeks and held off from working on the rear deck exhaust ports. However, I've gone forward and just need to glue on the 4 remaining missing bits of pipe leaning up on the port housings.
At least the above shot shows you how the extra detailing (ovals, piping, styrene squares, etc.) looks when the grey primer unifies all of the components. As a side note, I am really itching to get to painting the hull. This is where patience really comes in to play. I know there are things I need to do that will improve the finished product before I can paint. The more the falcon starts to look complete the harder it gets.

Comic-Con = inspiration.

2006-07-24T09:01:00.000-07:00

Comic-Con was great. I spent most of my time at the MR booth looking at the studio scale Falcon replica they had on display. It looks very nice. They certainly captured the studio look with this replica. If all the production copies sold to consumers match the accuracy of the paint work, this will surely be their most impressive offering (so far).

In my quest to complete the upper hull, I have decided to cut out the notches where the front plating meets the mandibles. I've also taken an x-acto razor saw blade and created a small undercut like the real model. It's subtle and this angle doesn't show it off. I'll take another one after I spray the primer.
I wasn't happy with the detail level of that large damage scar on the lower hull. So, I went back and re-worked it. It wasn't quite long enough, not wide enough at the center, the edges didn't have the right look, and the trench was too smooth.
I went around the lower gun turret taper with small sheet styrene details. They are pretty close from what little reference I have. I will admit that they are not 100% correct.
Minor side note: After seeing their engine glow of the MR Falcon in person, I am debating my LED color choice. I think I will order up some cool white LEDs and test those as well.

Are we there yet?

2006-07-19T12:04:00.000-07:00

I haven't had much time this week to devote to the Falcon. This weekend Rob and I did manage to get some things wrapped up. He has his upper and lower hull together and the sidewall pieces glued into place. We both finished the greeblies in front of the lower hull gun turret. Below you can see I've got the last two brackets on as well as my taper completed.
I just need to recreate the square-like details on the turret sidewall and I can call my lower hull complete. Here's a look at the bottom:
Saturday will probably be the first chance I get to sit down with the kit again (possible update that evening) On Sunday, I'm heading down to San Diego for Comic-Con. I'm pretty much going just to check out the Master Replicas studio scale prototype on display. I'll be taking a lot of reference photos so that I can do a final check on my ship before I begin painting. Should be a fun day.

Low blow

2006-07-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

I'm almost done with the lower hull. The damage is done. I used a dremel with a small triangular shaped grinding bit to get the big gash started. I used the heated ball-end tool technique described in my first damage post to finesse the scar. It should look great when painted.
I also took on the tedious task of completing all the mandible pit pipes on the lower hull last night. This morning I went back and did some filling and sanding to clean them up a bit.In front of the gun turret sidewall, I noticed some pipes were missing connecting the greeblies to the jawbox. A few bends in a simple 1/32" brass rod completed the look. Also missing here (but not pictured) are some pipe-like brackets going from the turret taper to the jawbox. I have to taper the turret sidewall before that can happen.

Unlearn what you have learned.

2006-07-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

Fine Molds tried to pull a fast one on us. I actually realized this had to be corrected right after I did it, but I put it off until now. The instructions have you add little flap-like pieces to complete the ones on the outside edge of the hull. Below is an example (upper hull pictured):
The studio 32" model did not have these. There was just a nice smooth ledge all the way around. So I had to pop all of them off. Now this wasn't easy as some of them were really melted on from the plastic weld glue. Once they were off, two holes per flap needed to be filled. Finally, after some sanding and a shot of primer, it should look like this (lower hull pictured):
I also completed the piping on the rear engine deck. You can see I added the 'V' shaped pipes to the left and right of the pipes completed in the previous update. There are actually a couple more tiny pipes I'll add but they lean up on the exhaust port housings, so I need to wait until those are glued down.
Both sides of the rear deck also have these little boxes next to the part that looks like a subwoofer. I made these with some thick sheet styrene. It's difficult to see, but I beveled the upper edges a tiny bit with sand paper.
Work has finally shifted to the lower hull to get that wrapped up. I need to get this kit ready for paint soon or I will lose my mind.

Late night, little progress.

2006-07-11T07:43:00.000-07:00

I got home from work late last night and didn't have much energy left in me. I figured I could at least fabricate the missing piping I mentioned in my previous update.
I used 1/32" brass rod to create these two details on either side of the center exhaust port in the rear row. The outer end touches the hull while the inner is glued to that long 'U' shaped pipe with the 'Y' split ends in front of the exhaust port. Rob tipped me off to the idea that Fine Molds had put half of what may be a separate piece and molded it to the 'U' part.

Hit the deck.

2006-07-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

Once again I have to admit that I must have some form of O.C.D. because I can't stop finding and fixing some tiny details. There are about 20 little raised oval shapes missing on the rear deck around the engine exhausts. I took a quick mold of a part on the side of the jawbox that had the same scale ovals and pumped out some copies.
In addition, there are some small raised rivets (though they look square to me) on some of the plates in this same area. So I whipped those up too. Here's a look at the overall effect when completed:
To complete the upper hull details, I will be scratch building some missing piping/brackets in this same region. I also need to drill out all the engine exhaust housings to install my PE grills from the underside. I can't wait to get that out of the way.

For my next magnet trick...

2006-07-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to installing the magnets on the inside of the escape pods. I used a tiny bit of 2-part epoxy to fix the magnets to the inside of the pods (two magnets are used on each). Inside the hull, I fabricated two small stainless steel brackets that the magnets would pull toward. Installing them at the right depth is crucial so that the pods sit completely flush when in place. I drilled a tiny hole on the bracket surface mounted to the hull This increased the surface area the glue would grab. They work perfectly.

Missing pieces.

2006-07-05T08:08:00.000-07:00

It seems as though Fine Molds simply left out some details. For instance, there is a pretty small but interesting set of pieces used on one side of the jawbox. I will admit that making these tiny bits was difficult due ot their size. But when I looked at this area it seemed a little empty compared to the 32" studio miniature. To finish this area, I still have to notch the hull plate edges where they meet the mandibles. There are three pipes running into the side of the jawbox (seen in the upper right corner of the photo above). One of them runs up the sidewall of the jawbox on each side. Yet another missing detail...

Tapering the turret sidewalls: Part II

2006-07-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning I packed up the falcon and headed over to meet Rob. We were both at the point where recreating the greeblies on the sidewall of the newly tapered turret was on our list of to-do's. I have to say that this was some tedious work. I went through many failed scratch built parts trying to match our reference photos. These details are tiny. Pictured below is my completed taper with the details added. You might notice that I recreated the dents and dings in the putty surface like the ILM model. Insanity!
With that out of the way and the t-track for the upper hull completed, it was finally time to spray some primer. I really look forward to this step because it brings all the parts together. I've started detailing the upper turret plate with missing styrene squares. That's why it wasn't primed and little white blocks are starting to appear.
It's also good to take a few steps back and see how the modifications work with the rest of the ship as a whole. Yes, things are starting to look more correct now.

Tapering the turret sidewalls: Part I

2006-06-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

If you’ve done some research on the studio miniature, you’ll know that the sidewalls of the upper and lower gun turrets on the Fine Molds Falcon are too vertical. The studio model has more of an angled taper from the top edge down to the hull. Rob has completed this modification and after crossing some other ones off my list I got around to attempting it myself. Using filler putty, I recreated the taper going a little thicker than I needed so I could sand it down just right once it cured. Here’s what it looked like…

Then I broke out the 220 sandpaper and slowly started refining the contour. I would do a little work, blow off the dust with compressed air, check my progress, and continue. After a while it was looking very nice. Next I cleaned up where it filled panel lines, and made sure that surrounding details were not accidentally filled with putty. A pass with 400 grit yielded a smooth taper all around.I need to replace the thin rectangular details on the sidewall now with sheet styrene, and also the piping connectors that I removed before filling. There were several greeblies missing and/or inaccurate that I will fix before priming. Also, looking closely at the 32” studio ship, it appears that they puttied this taper as well. It looks rough, and has small pits around the circumference. I may add some pitting to mine too. Rinse and repeat for the lower hull.

Trivial pursuits.

2006-06-26T07:44:00.000-07:00

I'm halfway through replacing these little ribbed details on the pod walkways with t-track. The process goes something like this: cut molded ridge off with a sharp blade, sand down flush with plating, cut new t-track to length, glue to hull, cut top at proper angle.
From this angle, you can see how the top edge is angled to be level or parallel with the top surface of the walkways. You can also see on the left the stock molded in detail and on the right the completed t-track modification. This is a subtle improvement, but it is noticeable because of the more pronounced "T" shape.I took some time to finish the last of the damage on the upper hull. I wanted to include the little dents and dings that are barely visible where the hull paint is chipped away. I think these marks will help sell the damage that is primarily a paint effect on the finished model.
Here you can see I've added some more tiny impressions for the damage where the front edge of the hull meets the mandible next to the jaw box. You may also notice that I've replaced the undersized tapered cylinders at this point with larger scratch built ones (thanks for the help Rob) as I mentioned in the previous post.
Next up on the list is to correct the taper on the sidewalls of the gun turrets, drill out my engine exhaust housings for the PE grills, then I'm going to do a few quick fixes on the lower hull.

Jawbreaker.

2006-06-24T21:11:00.000-07:00

Today I got together with Rob and did some garage building. He has been working on improving the raised t-track ribbing on the angled sides of the escape pod walkways. His escape pods are getting a taper upgrade, and his rear engine exhaust deck is getting populated with parts. I started with drilling holes for the headlight LED leads. A good size hole was needed to allow the leads to bend to the side and get around the internal post used by the screw. And while my sidewalls are not glued on, it was a chance to power up the LED for a sneak peak at the effect.
Moving along, it was time to get serious with cosmetics. When I look at the front of the jaw box on the Fine Molds kit, it's missing something. Some very important detailing that adds a ton of character to the nose of the ship. I'm surprised because it could have been molded into their master. I recreated the shapes with the smallest gauge steel wire from the hobby bent and glued in place.
After that, I pulled a tiny mold off of one of the A15 parts on top of the jaw box because I noticed the studio model had one left of the narrow "V" shaped piping at the front of the jaw box. We cast up an extra for each of us.Tonight, I'm finishing up some replacement parts. If you look at the photo above, you can see the emaciated cylindrical thing where the lower edge of the jaw box meets the hull. Look harder, it's tiny. Rob came to the rescue with some styrene half tubing that looked the part. Some dremel work, a little sand paper finesse, and bondo filler means new parts for everyone! Ok, just us.

Doing some damage.

2006-06-18T09:48:00.000-07:00

The falcon has so much character. One of things I like is that the ship shows a ton of wear and tear. The hull has blemishes, scrapes, chips, and of course blast marks. I started with the damaged panel near the dish on the upper hull. Here, I've laid out the pattern roughly with a marker.
Then, I heated up a metal ball end tool that I use when I sculpt in clay. I heated the ball end over an open flame, then pushed it into the plastic. It would slowly deform a little as the metal ball rapidly lost heat. I repeated this process until I had a little crater. Puncturing the hull inside the craters was easy with my soldering iron. Using an x-acto knife and the ball end tool, I cleaned up the molten flash left over from the soldering iron and created some detail in the blast marks. I sanded away the excess roughness with 400 and 600 grit sandpaper.Here is the finished damage with a light coat of primer applied to check my work.Making the covers to the screw access points on the hull was pretty simple once I had all the right components. First, I went out and grabbed some 3/16" round styrene tube (seen below). With the hull already screwed together, I used my digital calipers to measure the depth from the hull surface, down to the top of the screw heads. I subtracted the thickness of the magnet (in this case 1/16") and cut a piece of styrene tube to length.
The magnet is glued to the end of the tube. A little super glue joins the tube to the cap detail. Voila! A nice magnetic cover for easy access to the screw points has been created.
Last night I decided to end the night finishing some less than exciting work. Escape pod number two still needed the upgraded panel lines and detailing. I haven't found any clear reference of the greebly on the top so I made something temporary that resembled what I could make out from my reference. I'm going to do some more searching and make a new piece.

Some cutting edge stuff.

2006-06-16T08:28:00.000-07:00

After looking at some more reference, I found that the hull plating around the recessed ports are also notched (with the exception of the round ports on the mandibles). So I decided to replicate this on my kit. This time I couldn't use the micro file so I used my x-acto knife to quickly cut out the box shapes. This really creates a nice effect.
After figuring out how I'm going to mount the PE grills to the exterior exhaust port housings, I cut them out and thought it would be nice to see them in place for the first time. A lot of dremel work will be needed to get the grills to mount from the underside properly. It will be worth it.
Last but not least, my tiny magnets came in last night. I should be able to start installing them this weekend. Look for a pretty big update on Sunday.

Guns revisited.

2006-06-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

This is just a brief update today. I prepared the top and bottom gun ports and did a quick test fitting. I'm thinking of installing the interiors with glue and using magnets to secure the top disc where the gun mounts to the hull.
Anyway, the magnets should be here soon and I'll start experimenting. Finally, Rob and I have been contemplating the tapered side walls around the raised gun port disc. On the studio model, the taper looks like it's about 45 degrees yet the Fine Molds kit has it nearly vertical. Due to the number of parts already touching these sidewalls, I am not going to attempt correcting the inaccuracy.

West coast custom.

2006-06-11T23:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, I live in California...but this quick post doesn't have anything to do with your favorite "ride-pimpin" reality show. It does however have to do with customizing the Fine Molds Falcon kit. So, I mentioned earlier that I was thinking of tackling the escape pods and their inaccurate plating lines? Well I finished one of them today (the photo is the same pod just turned 180 degrees).
I gathered a bunch of reference from the 32 inch model and copied the line work onto the parts with a pen. Next, I used a micro file to scribe the lines into the plastic. Then, I used bondo spot putty to fill where old lines were incorrect. I glued really thin bits of styrene cut into square shapes onto the new surface, matching the reference as best as I could. To do this modification, I had to pull the exterior ring of the pod off and glue it back on again. I think it makes a big improvement.

Burning the midnight oil.

2006-06-11T09:27:00.000-07:00

I stayed up late last night because I was making great progress. I notched the upper hull armor plates at the perimeter as I did with the lower hull. Next, I built the radar dish assembly. I completed the piping on the hull surface. The pieces that house the headlights at the front of the mandibles got drilled out to 3mm. The remaining sidewall pieces got prepped and primed for paint. This morning I temporarily tacked the parts in place to snap some progress photos.
I liked this one:Here's a close up of the dish. I decided to use superglue on the structural supports on the back of the dish and the struts connected to the swivel base. I just don't trust the plastic weld on parts that have to take any sort of weight load no matter how little styrene weighs.The tiny pipe pieces that extend the molded pipes on the hull into the recessed ports were difficult to work with. I thought it would be good to describe the method I used to eliminate gaps. By using the plastic weld to melt the end of the pipe I could butt it up to the molded pipe and gently massage the gap away. Once the glue dried, I came back in with an x-acto blade and sand paper to smooth over the transition area.What's next? I think I'm going to start putting the blast marks on the falcon. I'm going to have a look at fixing the plating pattern on the escape pod rings as well as adding the missing greeblies there. I have some tiny 3/16" diameter x 1/16" thick magnets ordered so that I can secure key parts of the ship without glue and allow me to field strip the model if necessary. The gun ports still need work. I'm trying to mount the model to a base like the studio scale through the bottom gun port. Some planning is needed before those parts are finished.

Guns guns guns!

2006-06-09T08:32:00.000-07:00

The top and bottom guns are finished. I plan on displaying my falcon like the ILM studio scale model that has a rod supporting the ship through the lower gun port. So, I probably will never use one of these guns, but I built it and will paint it just in case. Construction note: I used superglue to bond the 'Y' shaped piece the gun pivots on to the large base piece for strength.Here's how the ship looks today. The hull side wall details are not glued on. I put them on temporarily for this progress photo. Some of the parts are primered, most are not.
Next up on my list of things to do is the radar dish. Then, I'll add the pipe/hose pieces to the hull and fill in their gaps. I forgot to notch the armor plates in the upper hull! The gun ports need to be completed...and there's still the matter of lighting keeping me from final assembly. I need to get my lighting circuit worked out.

Let me see your grill.

2006-06-08T08:05:00.000-07:00

Last night I received my MMI photo etched (PE from now on) grill set for the Fine Molds Falcon from starship modeler. Inlcuded are six large engine exhaust port grills and three small grills for the walkways over the escape pod areas. These are very high quality PE brass parts that are sharper than I imagined they could be. The resin fan-like inserts are very crisp and appear to have been pressure or vacuum cast in a quality white resin. No bubbles are present and they should look great installed.I am really impressed with these parts. If I had to criticize one thing, I might say that the thicker bars are too thick in proportion to the thin ones. However, this may have been necessary to give these parts some strength. I am very interested in doing some photo etching of my own now.

LEDs

2006-06-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

Here's an LED tester I made after reading an article on starship modeler. It's basically a 9V battery connector with a 470 ohm resistor soldered into the positive wire. I also soldered on some testing clips so that I could quickly and easily attach the device to various LEDs. A little heat shrink tubing and you have a nice little tool that won't overdrive your LEDs.The illuminated LED in the photo above is a "Yellowglo" 3mm LED by Miniatronics. Basically, it's a white LED that has a warm incandescent glow to it. It feels very much like a bright light bulb. I got some of these for another project but thought they could work well for the headlights on the falcon since they most likely used incandescent bulbs on the studio model. Now I have to place an order for a bunch of blue LEDs.

Is there room for improvement?

2006-06-04T18:18:00.000-07:00

I started the weekend working on the cockpit. I really want to light the cockpit to give the ship a better sense of scale. Plus, it would look sweet. From the look of it, the cockpit is a little more cramped than it would be at 1:1 scale. Despite this, it looks really nice once the canopy is on. It is going to be a huge challenge to add illumination which may require recasting the parts in clear resin. More on that later.
While I formulate a plan of attack for the cockpit, I decided to move on to customizing some other aspects of the Fine Molds kit. The panels/plates of the upper and lower hulls are molded in on the kit. At the outer edge, notch depressions are present but are not fully cut as they are on the studio scale model. Using a square file I quickly zipped through the thin styrene completing the lower hull. Let me say that this definately makes a huge improvement! In the photos below you can compare the upper and lower hull edges.
The upper and lower hulls are nearly 100% complete. I'm debating on what to do with the 6 exhaust ports at the rear of the upper hull. Ideally, I'd like to cut the holes out and add the small fan details below the surface. However, I'm concerned that I won't be able to find mesh grills to cover them that look right. The photo etched grills I've seen look nice but they don't seem fine enough for this scale.
Finally, here's the two halves of the hull together. You can really see the difference that those notches make on the edge.
I have begun testing LEDs for the lighting of the ship. And I'm starting to take stock of just how many LEDs this kit will require as well as what type of power source it will require. With any luck, I'll be able to power all the lights with a single 9V battery by wiring the LEDs up in parallel.

Sub assembly required.

2006-06-01T08:25:00.000-07:00

Last night I focused on sub assemblies that finish off the holes on the upper hull. Then I started with the assemblies that make up the sidewalls of the ship. Some of these attach to the kit via screws while others use conventional glue. I will definately primer and base coat these parts prior to attaching them to guarantee sufficient coating/coverage. However, I'm not sure if I want to detail and weather them separately. In any case, here they are. To date I have completed over 300 parts.
It seems odd that I haven't posted some sort of step-by -step how-to. I think I was so anxious to make progress on the kit that I forgot to share how I'm going about things. Here we go:

First, I locate the parts needed and remove them from the tree using the Xuron sprue snips. Be careful no to trim off any bits the part is supposed to have.

Next, I use my X-acto knife to trim any excess sprue that might remain on the part. It's important to be careful here and not gouge the part. I sand the resulting area to make sure the surface is smooth.

I carefully brush on plastic weld anywhere it will contact the joining part. Try not to get it close to edges where it may seep out and be visible when cured. Use micro brushes to apply the glue to smaller parts. You have to work quickly before it evaporates. Join the parts and apply some pressure for 10-15 seconds allowing the styrene to bond.

There you have it. A I personally like to prep a good 10 parts at a time prior to gluing. The prep work takes more time, and once I've got the glue out I like to do as many parts as possible before closing the cap (to avoid unwanted spill accidents).

Little things make a big difference.

2006-05-30T09:50:00.000-07:00

The 3 day weekend was nice and I made some good progress. I feel like I've got a good workflow now and things are progressing faster. I'm still focusing on steps where the parts are from similar sprue trees and where modifications for accuracy/lighting may not be necessary...yet.
You can see what used to be a bare upper hull is now transforming into the hunk of junk we all know and love. There are so many little parts on there. Photographs just can't relate how impressive the level of detail is in 3D.Rob mentioned (on the RPF) that he also had difficulty removing some of the smaller parts from the trees. The right tools will definately make working on this kit easier. So here's a quick overview of what I consider some of the most important ones:
Xuron sprue snips for removing parts from their trees. Plastruct Plastic Weld is the adhesive I mentioned in a previous post. It is low viscocity and evaporates very quickly. A Hi-Liter helps track progress within a given step. There are so many tiny parts and numbers flying around each step that it helps to cross them off as you go. An X-acto knife with lots of sharp new blades. Finally, some tweezers for holding parts that your fingers just cannot handle.

Day 1

2006-05-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

Rob and I got together Saturday at his house for some BBQ and bird watching. OK, so we did actually do some bird building. But, first we grabbed our trusty digital cameras and captured the pivotal moment I would like to call "the reveal". As we pulled the kits from their cardboard cage a smile came accross my face.
Before we got underway, I thought no buildup of a Fine Molds Falcon would be complete without a comparison to the ERTL kit. Luckily Rob had one that he had finished about 10 years ago. Here they side by side:

We were ready to get started gluing tiny pieces of plastic together at last. First stop, a nice bath in warm water and mild dish soap to get rid of any mold release or oils on the parts.
I decided to start with step 7. One of the reasons I skipped the first steps is that they involved some decision making that I didn't wanted to waste time on now. For example, step 1 is assembling the cockpit. I know I want to illuminate the cockpit as well as the instrument panels which means some of the parts may need to be recreated in clear plastic. Since I just wanted to jump in and get something on the ship finished, I decided to target some simple sub-assemblies. Rob worked on his dish and the cockpit while I focused on the escape pods.

This is where I got my first taste of how insane the Fine Molds pattern makers are and just how difficult this kit is going to be. I snapped two little pieces (I repaired them) in the process of attaching them to larger pieces. The key is to be patient and careful. Using Plastruct brand "Plastic Weld" glue is a challenge. It is definately the right stuff for the job as it lightly melts the styrene together on contact. However, it evaporates so quickly that you must really get a feel for how much to apply and when to join the pieces. At the end of the day, I didn't have much done, but the escape pods look beautiful.

They're heeeere!

2006-05-26T11:54:00.000-07:00

Two birds landed on my front doorstep this morning. But wait you say...two birds? Yes. That's right. My good friend Rob (PHArchivist for those of you familiar with the RPF) and I will be building these simultaneously. I will feature his buildup here as well. The shipping box is huge. I was surprised that they came in what appears to be an original Fine Molds cardboard box with their logo and some Japanese on the side:

Sadly, I did not open the box yet. I ushered it inside an scurried off to work.

You have to start somewhere.

2006-05-24T23:39:00.000-07:00

I thought it over in my little brain and came up with a brilliant idea. I'll build a Millennium Falcon. Ok, so I'm not going to build a real spaceship...but I could if I wanted to. It just so happens that I don't need a real one at the time of this post so a small scale model will do. I pulled the trigger on a Japanese kit made by Fine Molds. It's 1/72 scale and contains over 800 pieces. This is going to be a challenge.