AMT ERTL Millennium Falcon Build

[BLT]

Not much.
Had to sadly let work get in the way

I'll get some photos of some ideas I have for the engine light and get them up today if I can sneak away from work.
You'd think working from home I'd have set my office desk up next to my model desk so I could work on models while on Zoom meetings, but nope, didn't think of that did I.

Funny you should say that...


But no rush man.

Seeing you start this thing a while back made me go back to mine... I spend like 2 weeks measuring the ERTL one against the plans from RPF, I don't remember the guys name. I sanded and cut and got ready to make the basic shape from FDM, only to realize that the mandibles are really way off... So I decided to scratch them, but where to get all the blastic, or any other material for that matter... I did find some, tho I never got around to buying it. First work hit me full on... Then life in general and finally the realization that this would cost quite a bit and I hadn't even started to research all the greebles, some I figured I'd source, some I'd scratch...

But it's a can of worms... Ones you open it... It's out and it never stops.

Anyway... I put it aside and went back to my m41.

But I can tell you this. It's not a secret, but a lot of people still think it's so. The cockpit tube is not too small, just too long. And I still think reducing the side walls to 12 mm will make the biggest impact.

Anyway, I now have an excel sheet with the calculations on what the measurements of the ERTL model should be, if it was to have the same proportions as the ANH 5 footer.

I think the worst realisation was that it might actually be easier to just build it from scratch.

So... Take your time, and put it away when it just gets too annoying, but keep at it, for all our sakes.

Thank you

 

[andrewdick68]

Funny you should say that...
View attachment 87220

But no rush man.

Seeing you start this thing a while back made me go back to mine... I spend like 2 weeks measuring the ERTL one against the plans from RPF, I don't remember the guys name. I sanded and cut and got ready to make the basic shape from FDM, only to realize that the mandibles are really way off... So I decided to scratch them, but where to get all the blastic, or any other material for that matter... I did find some, tho I never got around to buying it. First work hit me full on... Then life in general and finally the realization that this would cost quite a bit and I hadn't even started to research all the greebles, some I figured I'd source, some I'd scratch...

But it's a can of worms... Ones you open it... It's out and it never stops.

Anyway... I put it aside and went back to my m41.

But I can tell you this. It's not a secret, but a lot of people still think it's so. The cockpit tube is not too small, just too long. And I still think reducing the side walls to 12 mm will make the biggest impact.

Anyway, I now have an excel sheet with the calculations on what the measurements of the ERTL model should be, if it was to have the same proportions as the ANH 5 footer.

I think the worst realisation was that it might actually be easier to just build it from scratch.

So... Take your time, and put it away when it just gets too annoying, but keep at it, for all our sakes.

Thank you

Yep, you've got the office and model area dialed in

 

[andrewdick68]

Engine Lighting Update.
I'm looking at different ways to do my engine lighting using the floor to ceiling clear plastic parts provided in teh kit.
I have so far a couple of options all using internal illumination.
1. Paint the clear with transparent blue on the inside, and use a grey stick on vinyl piece with holes cut in it and stick that on the outside, and illuminate from inside.
2. Use a piece of semi translucent plastic that came is some furniture from Ikea as packing and illuminate it with blue LEDs. Not sure If i will replace the clear parts. Still have to use the grey vinyl stick on mask.
As for the blue lighting I have string LED's (I got 15 of them on Amazon for $9), or USB LED strip lighting (from Marshals $7)
The string lights would need to be wrapped on a scratch built amature and mounted inside.
Still working out how to mount the LED strip.
Issue with the strip lights are the distance between the LEDs and the inability to wrap them like the string ones.
Various photos below.

Anyone else conquered the Engine lighting issues?

 

[BLT]

Engine Lighting Update.
I'm looking at different ways to do my engine lighting using the floor to ceiling clear plastic parts provided in teh kit.
I have so far a couple of options all using internal illumination.
1. Paint the clear with transparent blue on the inside, and use a grey stick on vinyl piece with holes cut in it and stick that on the outside, and illuminate from inside.
2. Use a piece of semi translucent plastic that came is some furniture from Ikea as packing and illuminate it with blue LEDs. Not sure If i will replace the clear parts. Still have to use the grey vinyl stick on mask.
As for the blue lighting I have string LED's (I got 15 of them on Amazon for $9), or USB LED strip lighting (from Marshals $7)
The string lights would need to be wrapped on a scratch built amature and mounted inside.
Still working out how to mount the LED strip.
Issue with the strip lights are the distance between the LEDs and the inability to wrap them like the string ones.
Various photos below.

Anyone else conquered the Engine lighting issues?

Maybe try having a look over at RPF. I know for sure some of those guys tackled this thing... Tho I feel I have to warn you... Some of those builds are crazy.

 

[andrewdick68]

Progress

 

[BLT]

Progress

Nice...

No matter the shape... The paint job on this thing is everything... And the fun part of the project.

 

[trekriffic]

Regarding your engine lighting I assume you are trying to do something like what I did for the nacelles on my Enterprise E ?


USS Enterprise E - Nemesis-WIP- Diffusers with Foam Packing Sheet Test 2 by Steve J, on Flickr

The key for me was having the LED strip spaced about a half inch away from the translucent milk jug plastic:


USS Enterprise E - Nemesis-WIP- Nacelle Light Check by Steve J, on Flickr

Another trick was adding a layer of foam packing sheet between the translucent panel and the LED's to further diffuse the light. I folded the sheet over on itself so was three layers thick:

USS Enterprise E - Nemesis-WIP- Foam Packing Sheet by Steve J, on Flickr

The final effect prior to adding the clear plastic nacelle cover. No hot spots:

USS Enterprise E - Nemesis-WIP-Nacelle Lit by Steve J, on Flickr

if this is not your goal please disregard this post.

 

[andrewdick68]

Regarding your engine lighting I assume you are trying to do something like what I did for the nacelles on my Enterprise E ?

View attachment 87288
USS Enterprise E - Nemesis-WIP- Diffusers with Foam Packing Sheet Test 2 by Steve J, on Flickr

The key for me was having the LED strip spaced about a half inch away from the translucent milk jug plastic:

View attachment 87289
USS Enterprise E - Nemesis-WIP- Nacelle Light Check by Steve J, on Flickr

Another trick was adding a layer of foam packing sheet between the translucent panel and the LED's to further diffuse the light. I folded the sheet over on itself so was three layers thick:

View attachment 87290USS Enterprise E - Nemesis-WIP- Foam Packing Sheet by Steve J, on Flickr

The final effect prior to adding the clear plastic bussard cover. No hot spots:

View attachment 87291USS Enterprise E - Nemesis-WIP-Nacelle Lit by Steve J, on Flickr

if this is not your goal please disregard this post.

That is awesome, Thanks so much for that advice.
I was thinking that it would need about 1/4" between the plastic and the lights, but the foam strip is a great addition.

Really appreciate it...

 

[stevethefish]

That Trek nacelle looks fantastic. When the time comes to do stuff like this, I forget to look at references such as this.

 

[trekriffic]

Thanks Andrew! Thanks Steve!

Oh, and Steve, my name actually is Steve.

 

[stevethefish]

My name's Greg. Steve was the pet fish I had in college I named my website after. It keeps the trolls confused, at least.

 

[andrewdick68]

Well, that was a minute between updates.

Although I've made little bits of progress over the last 6 months (Work has been crazy) I've gotten to the point where I'm starting to build the engine light diffuser. Not sure how it will look in the finish, but I'm trying this opaque piece of plastic that came is an Ikea box.

The trickiest part now is to get the mount posts trimmed off to the right height without breaking everything. The white plastic is the same height as the engine transparencies.

Note to self, in doing my lighting I've created a problem that I have lights on both top and bottom and didn't think how I'd join it all together. I have a plan that will use lots of wire

 

[BLT]

Great use of excess sprues mate.

I've actually started my mf build up again too... Funny thing. Anyway I still think you should considder reducing the hight of the side walls... They really are insanely out of scale.

 

[andrewdick68]

Great use of excess sprues mate.

I've actually started my mf build up again too... Funny thing. Anyway I still think you should considder reducing the hight of the side walls... They really are insanely out of scale.

I have heard a lot of people say the wall are too high.
I started out just trying to keep this one simple, then the cockpit mods, the lights, the engines, etc.

I've got another one of these, so I'll get all fancy next time around

 

[andrewdick68]

Great use of excess sprues mate.

I've actually started my mf build up again too... Funny thing. Anyway I still think you should considder reducing the hight of the side walls... They really are insanely out of scale.

just thinking on the wall height.

I could generate a ratio on my Fine Molds using saucer width and wall height and back calc that onto this hunk of junk

Is there a known ratio?

 

[BLT]

just thinking on the wall height.

I could generate a ratio on my Fine Molds using saucer width and wall height and back calc that onto this hunk of junk

Is there a known ratio?

3.5 I think
It's early morning here, but I'll check when I get home from work. I think I'm going with 3.6, but I can't remember right now... I'll check.

 

[BLT]

3.5 I think
It's early morning here, but I'll check when I get home from work. I think I'm going with 3.6, but I can't remember right now... I'll check.

Ok...

People have been doing all sorts of things and going by all sorts og referencepoints. My thought is that you can live with most of it, but the hight of the side walls is by far the biggest thing, and correcting those will give the most bang for the buck.

Then you could go for shortening the cockpit tunnel, fixing the radardish diameter, enlarging the dockingports... in that order...

If you really wanna get that 5 footer feel, I think the curvature of the hull is the way to go... but nough of that.

Alot of people seem to agree on the conversion rate beeing 3.5. but honestley shes all over the place. I'm personally gong with 3.6.

But: working from the RPF Millenium Falcon plans, the mandible sidewalls hight should be 2", which translates to 50,8 mm... sorry, I'm from Denmark, I just don't understand your system. I'm just more comfortable using the metric system. Anyway, thats the box, and you then have to add plating on top. Anyway, going with the 3.6 cerversion, that will give you 14,11mm in hight of the bare box, but you have something like 2 mm of material in the top and bottom mandibles as is, so you could comfortably take away 3-4 mm from that number. So I'd reduce the sidewalls to something like 10-11 mm for the mandibles. Remember to give the 0,8 mm top and bottom for the sidewall sections around the hull, since they are further inside the curvature.

Does that make any sence?

 

[andrewdick68]

Ok...

People have been doing all sorts of things and going by all sorts og referencepoints. My thought is that you can live with most of it, but the hight of the side walls is by far the biggest thing, and correcting those will give the most bang for the buck.

Then you could go for shortening the cockpit tunnel, fixing the radardish diameter, enlarging the dockingports... in that order...

If you really wanna get that 5 footer feel, I think the curvature of the hull is the way to go... but nough of that.

Alot of people seem to agree on the conversion rate beeing 3.5. but honestley shes all over the place. I'm personally gong with 3.6.

But: working from the RPF Millenium Falcon plans, the mandible sidewalls hight should be 2", which translates to 50,8 mm... sorry, I'm from Denmark, I just don't understand your system. I'm just more comfortable using the metric system. Anyway, thats the box, and you then have to add plating on top. Anyway, going with the 3.6 cerversion, that will give you 14,11mm in hight of the bare box, but you have something like 2 mm of material in the top and bottom mandibles as is, so you could comfortably take away 3-4 mm from that number. So I'd reduce the sidewalls to something like 10-11 mm for the mandibles. Remember to give the 0,8 mm top and bottom for the sidewall sections around the hull, since they are further inside the curvature.

Does that make any sence?

Yes that makes sense>
I work better in Metric, coming from Australia, so your measurements are good.

I'll have a look at what I've got to work with and see what I can do.
I'll probably leave this one as is and do some of these mods next time round. (I've got 7 more of these to practice on before I do my Fine molds and Bandai)

 

[BLT]

Yes that makes sense>
I work better in Metric, coming from Australia, so your measurements are good.

I'll have a look at what I've got to work with and see what I can do.
I'll probably leave this one as is and do some of these mods next time round. (I've got 7 more of these to practice on before I do my Fine molds and Bandai)

7 OMG...

oh wow... imagine all the versions you could make...

I've allways liked the Ralph McQuarrie concept design.

Anyway... nough thread stealing from me... sorry!

 

[unclepine]

The cockpit seating.
I need some finer brushes

I also see a bit of plastic I should have cleaned off, and a couple of brush marks in spots they shouldn't be.

Maybe a new set of glasses before the finer brushes
As for the paint, I'm just using old craft paints for the moment and a couple of Tamiya colors

Hey buddy, a neat trick to save time and offer a neater look, use a toothpick to add a small "dab" of paint for the tiny control knobs and buttons
View attachment 1695View attachment 1694