Falcon - ah, poo

So, start to glue the side walls on.

The instructions recommend to glue with Epoxy Resin and then back it up from the rear with Epoxy Putty.

Get the first piece and stick it on with Araldite Rapid.

BIG mistake - the side piece slips and slides, won't stand straight and, when i do prop it up, it sets wonky.

Not a happy bunny and had to think of a different way.

This is me a little further down the line. What i've decided to do instead is glue with Zap-A-Gap superglue then smear Araldite on the inside join to strengthen it. Maybe some Green Stuff as well just to be sure.

Falcon - accurising kits arrived...

... and i've cracked right on.

First part to tackle are the side walls. Here you can see some of the new one's with their original counterparts - new one's on top.

Falcon - cockpit finished

Pod Racer - engine

Here's the main part of one, with the blanking plate covering up the hole made when i removed the black bit.

Got to cover it with wire and stuff to disguise it.

Hellcannon - progress

Das Pronto for the body with the greeblies stuck in.

Falcon - entry corridor

Here's the decal. It attaches to the clear piece at the end of the box affair for the corridor. A simple matter to wrap the tabs on the decal around the edges.

Second photo shows it in place and with the LED sat behind it.

I know it was something i wanted to avoid with the cockpit, but i really had no choice in this case but to backlight it.

Falcon - cockpit seating

This is something that i needed to address.

If i was going to try and make the kit more accurate by altering the sides, engine and turret, i couldn't really have the manky cockpit interior suppied, especially as i was going to light it.

The trouble is - no "dashboard" and only two,very basic seats, as you can see here with my 1980 effort (apologies for the paintjob - was young).

First thing i did was ping Luke and Chewie off their chairs, scrape the glue off the seat area then affix them behind the new chairs in the new cockpit. The shape of all four are nowhere near accurate but there has to be a point where i go "enough" in the rivet-counting stakes.

Here i've painted them all black, along with the bottom of the cockpit piece. This is to stop light bleeding through the plastic when all done.

Next was the control area. I knew i had to scratchbuild one and that proved trickier than i thought it would. Not the building, the researching - there are so many contradictory versions on the net.

So went with a compromise that you can see i started here, built of cereal packet card and carefully measured so it'd fit into the nose of the cockpit.

Falcon - lighting the cockpit

Here we have the rear wall with decal attached.

I ummed and ahhed on how to light this. Was going to go with what a few folk have done and have it backlit.

They used light sheet though and i was worried that it'd look just like what it is if i used a LED in that manner - a light behind a piece of paper.

So went with drilling a hole at the bottom of the rear wall and feeding the LED wires through.

The LED is going to nestle between the two rear seats and, i hope, won't look too naff.

Falcon - getting started and lighting

So, i built the landing gear, guns for the turrets and glued in all the recessed blocks of details.

I assembled and painted the entry ramp and put it in place.

The decal set had arrived and i stuck the rear cockpit decal to the crappy clear piece that comes with the kit.

I had to decide what to use for lighting at this point and went with ultra bright LED's, powered by a 9 volt battery.

I marked on the lower hull where the floodlights should go. Should say at this point that i didn't go with all the floodlights the Falcon has by the time of Jedi but rather stuck with the one each side of the boarding ramp and two to balance it on the other side.

This pic shows the holes drilled and bulbs in place. Also wired in are the bulbs for the entry corridor, cockpit and turret.

The cockpit and turret ones are on connecting blocks as i need to attach the to other parts of the hull.

You can see the jack socket top left.

Accurising the AMT Millenium Falcon

I started this project back in July (!) and am about halfway now.

The reason for that - and also why i've not mentioned it before - is:

I wanted to get the Fine Molds Falcon but couldn't justify the expense all in one go.

Digging out my old AMT version that i built in about 1980 had me hankering to build one of those again as a substitute.

But i've always been put off by the totally inaccurate, far too chunky sides to it.

Changed my mind when i found an accurising kit. It was out of stock but i pre-ordered one and figured i could build the kit as far as i could in readiness.

Did that alright - but its been nigh on 4 months for it to be back in stock and so i've had to take the unprecedented step OF PUTTING A KIT BACK IN THE BOX.

You've no idea how alien that is to me.

Anyway, the kits on its way, so i though i'd let you in on what i've done so far.

Buy an AMT kit for £15.00 off eBay.

I'd also found by this point a decal set which has brilliant reproductions of the cockpit walls, the corridor at the top of the entry ramp and the engines. They were in stock at Cultvman and came quite quickly.

As the cockpit was going to look the nuts, i decided it had to be lighted. And, if i was doing that, i must do the entry corridor too. And why not the floodlights underneath?

This was getting to be ambitious.

Even more so when i found a guy in Germany doing detailed Gun Turret interiors. So i bought one of them. And it'd be a shame not to light that as well.

Getting power to the ship was something i had to consider and i went with an exterior source, fed through a minature jack plug.

Figuring i could disguise it as a power feed (which of course it is) in a docking bay, i hit on the idea of a Tatooine-style location - what i'm aiming for is something like the shot above.

Podracer - pastelling the panels

I'm going over the pencil marks i'd made with pastels, applied with a flat edge brush.

I'm using a mixture of black, grey and browns.

At this stage i'm just starting to outline them - not proper dirtying down yet.

Pod Racer - starting to put the panels on

Not too clear here, but i've started drawing on panel lines with pencil.

Using a sticky label as my ruler as i can get it to stick to the curved surface and stay in place while drawing

Hellcannon - bits and pieces

Some of the parts i'm planning on using.

The ribbed barrel is the lid of a Brut aftershave bottle (not mine), beads for eyes, and nice 'n nasty bits of kits to have ripping through the skin.

Hellcannon - chassis

Here i've removed the catapult section and glued a piece of Foamboard into place as the support for the body of the beastie

Nurgle Hellcannon

I'm getting a Nurgle army together but the one thing its lacking is artillery.

I'll be stuffed if i'm gonna fork out 30 quid for the shop version so decided to make my own.

This is the start:

toy catapult for the chassis and wheels.

Top of an aftershave bottle for the barrel

and the blue thing is off some toy and'll be the basis for the body.

I have it in mind to be some hideous bio-mechanical device, masses of rotting flesh with machinery tearing through it.

The barrel i wanted ribbed like that as i want it to be chunky and rusty and grimy and... 'orrible.

Pod Racer - hacking

Back to the craft and the first thing to do is remove the large black plastic section between the engines.

Its there to hold them togther and house the grappling hook that fires out the side.

I've unscrewed and taken it apart for ease of cutting with the hacksaw.

Pod Racer - Sebulba

First thing i did was prime the fella in Skull White.

Didn't make it too perfect a coat as i'll be painting him pretty much the same colours he already was.

The white that is on there though shows what a terrific sculpt he is. Big too - 1/24th i'd say

Pod Racer

What, ANOTHER project underway?

Well, yeah, afraid so.

Still fired up hardware-wise and Star Wars in particular. Taking part in the Pod Racer scratchbuild contest in Nottingham got me hankering to have a go back here at home.

Was toying with the DAR route of scratchbuilding an original design but i did like Sebulba's one in Phantom Menace (Sebulba too, but don't tell anyone).

Anyway, got this off eBay for only a tenner still mint in sealed box and - what a shock!

It's MASSIVE!

And, like the toy Sandcrawler i redid, very accurate. The only downside i can see is the lack of actual engine nozzles on the pod. There's pretty good decals in their place though so at some point i've got to decide whether to go with them or add my own.

All keen to get going on this so afraid the other projects might be neglected.

Macrobinocs - 8

Bit of progress here.

This wheel thing on th front was going to be a bit of a problem. On the original they used a part from the "Revell Visible V8 Engine" - which is a pretty hard to get of kit and when you do find one, its too pricey for just one piece.

Went for a compromise that i think doesn't look too bad.

The green disc is the top to a milk carton, the next layer is a 1/35th wheel of a WW2 truck and the actual spindly thing is, i think, from the same kit. Dunno the name but its def Tamiya.

Tug - 1

Pic 1 - Really shouldn't take anything on right now, but i was having a rummage through my bits box and come across this and really like the shape.

Pic 2 - Its some sort of Kryptonite armour for a Lex Luthor action figure and, when held horizontally, really looks like a the prow of a spaceship. Neat green clear cockpit too.

Anyway, i thought about building it length-ways but i really like it short and dumpy.

It quickly came to mind to have it then as a sort of Tug ship pulling a load around a Space Dock or somesuch - bit like the Nostromo and the Oil Refinery, but on a much smaller scale.

Pic 3 - Here i've filled the rear with plasticard.

Pic 4 - What to use for the load? I knew i wanted flat, straight surfaces to counter the curves of the Tug. At first i was going to with a toy lorry body for the basis, and found one for 3 quid, but it'd make the finished model about 2 feet long. In the end went for this container, a snip at 49p.