I was sat idly at my bench after lunch, feeling a bit spaced out and listless. It must have been the space that did it... I began my first sci-fi build since I was a teenager. The new Millennium Falcon from Finemolds.

Have a quick read of the review here to see my initial thoughts on the kit if you like. I don't mind waiting

Well... first item for work was to clean up the central sprues that sit in the middle of the two hull parts. Easy to do, and so I moved on to snippiing off a couple of the round equipment bay inserts on the cargo jaws up front. Because of the way they're sprued up, all you have to do is nip them close to the attachment lugs and clip them in. They really are THAT good a fit. A little dribble of liquid glue, and some pressure for a short while, and we're done. The same process was used for all of the many inserts, the detail of which is excellent! No shadow of a doubt, the detail is the crispest (as previously mentioned in the review), and extra spruelets have been added around the edges to ensure that the detail gets a full fill of styrene during the moulding process. Well worth the effort of nipping them off.

I had a few misgivings about simply gluing the side walls into the bottom of the hull, as I felt that if I didn't get them perfectly square, it could cause fit issues with the upper hull when it came time to close it up. As a precaution, I installed a few parts, and did a test fit - no problems encountered at all, as the mounting lugs are precise, so I ploughed on. Here you should take the time to remove any mould seams on the edges of the parts, as although you can't see some of them, others are on view.

The instructions show you attaching the big round endy things (yes, those again) being attached later in the build when the hull is joined. I didn't want to have any hull parts lying around to be painted off the hull, so I joined them to the bottom half, again, checking alignment by test fitting the top hull as I went along. Everything fits beautifully, and I will be able to keep the two hull parts separate until after painting, so I can paint the cargo jaws insides easily with my airbrush. The cockpit amd crew tube would also be able to be click-fitted later if you so choose, but I suspect I'll be attaching mine once I have the cockpit painted, which fits INSIDE the tube parts, so can't be left off until later.

So how does it look so far? Good... the build has been a breeze, and I think has taken me about 30 minutes so far. The quality of the moulding really shows in the speed and ease of construction





That chunk of blutak was just there to hold a joint closed while the glue set.



The front panel of the jaws locks the two halves of the hull together, so would have stopped me from splitting it for painting, so I lopped off the lugs from the top of the hull to solve that issue. I clipped the hull halves together while the glue set though, just to make sure they ended up in the right place.



I've also built up the antenna and am working on the cockpit area now. Just need some refs... Jeff?

Looks nice matey, bit small for 1:48 though

There's always a smart arse!

Always 2 there are: a master and an apprentice.

I can see the way this thread will go

Too bad the kit doesn't offer the Lando Calrissian and Squid looking dude figures instead of Han and Chewie!!

looking good mike, I feel the force welling up with this build!

The squid looking dude is called Nien Nunb The model looks amazing, I'd love to get one!

So are you going to build a 1/144 star destroyer it can rest on?

Maybe








No!

Some odds & sods of additional work done - not pictured is the completed antenna, 7 landing gear legs, some adaptations to the cockpit to make it slide fit into the tunnel, and a little bit of general tidying up of the remaining small parts.



On the subject of painting, which will probably begin soon, did you know that the used the Federal Standard a long time ago in a galaxy far far away? Me neither

What colour are you going to use to paint the main hull?.
On the original filming miniature, they used a Polly S colour called Grime.
You can get a close match to that using Tamiya Deck Tan, mixed with white.

Btw, could you take a pic of this next to a Coke can or something familiar (other beverages are available ), just so we can get an idea of the dimensions. Pretty please.

Very interesting Mr Smiff. I'll try & remember to put something in for perspective, but in the meantime, it's 9" stem to stern, and 6" across

Looks like construction will be a breeze, so you can spend more time on painting and (most importantly) weathering.

I'll sort some refs out for you shortly.

Obi-Jiff

Cheers Jeff - construction WAS a breeze... the only caveats were of my own making to ease painting

There's a nice selection of reference pics here: Starship Modeler 'hunk of junk' piccies

Obi-Jiff

Gracias Jeff - I'll have a look in a minute... furiously sanding something off a less well-fitting kit at the moment

Some more refs for you.
Linky 1 Click on the Seite links for more pages.

Linky 2 Scroll down the Rebel section 'til you reach the 32" Falcon bit.

Cheers Paul

Mike

There is a very good book available called "Sculpting a Galaxy - Inside the Star Wars Model Shop" which looks at many of the vehicles, ships, aliens and buildings of the 6 films. There is an 8 page spread on MF studio model, including a short write up.

Be careful though as the standard version is about £23 but the special edition is £250!!

Good build so far, looking forward to the painting and weathering, as an F1 modeller weathering is not something I am very good at so the more explinaton the better.

I hope the force stays strong with you on this build.

Cheers,

Warren

Great links, Paul. I think they supercede my references, which appear quite limited by comparison!

Mike, if there are any specific areas you need reference on, let me know, I might be able to fill in any gaps that those links have.

Obi-Jiff

Will do Jeff.

Funny... I've just had a look through all the pics, and there's only one bit of battle damage that required me to dig into the plastic, and that's just outboard of the forward looking antenna on the port topside. I Dremelled the basic shape, then used a curved blade to roughen them up, and dropped a little liquid glue to melt the rough bits a bit. While the glue was still wet, I pressed the tip of my blade into the sloped edges in a spoke pattern, to give it a bit of texture

Mike,

Damage looks good and ties in with shot in Sculpting a Galaxy book.



Sorry about quality, took with phone.

Cheers,

Warren

Polly S and the brand Floquil are now owned by Testors, so this should be the base color:



Think I can probably knock something up that's close to that

Hi Mike!

When I built the old AMT one I painted mine Light Gull Grey!

That could be a good match (but then it could be entirely wrong)

I'll have a look at the various light gull greys I've got - see if they match

You know - Xtracrylix Light Gull Grey (XA1137) ain't a bad match

Go for it Mike!

I bit the bullet and painted the cockpit today - a base coat of Lifecolor Panzer Grey highlighted with Barley Grey, the front seats hand painted and highlighted with Polish Officer's uniform color, and some white dots here & there to simulate lighting. The white strip across the back of the cockpit is a small strip of white decal from a left over Tamiya sheet.

It looks a lot better at 100% magnification with a pair of eyes, and everything is toned down when placed under the cockpit glazing.



I also gave the two cannon bays the same treatment, giving each one a bit of extra depth with some black wash in the recesses (not pictured).

I though one of those special "sculpting a galaxy" tomes went for 80 odd quid the other month on ebay could be wrong. Wheres the 1/144th chewie Mike?

Glad I could help.


Well, there are a couple of scars you could add on the underside, if you wanted too.

Thanks Paul - I've added a scraggy looking strip of damage like the big one of the two on the rear underside - a lot of the other less serious damage is paint effects, so I'll probably do the rest that way. I've put her on her legs, glued on the cannon bay glazing and masked it with Tamiya tape - I didn't bother with the masks, as by the time I'd cut them out, I may as well have cut tape in position. Didn't take too long, and it was easier to cut the circular central windows in situ than cut out the circular masks

WOW!! I didn't realize Fine Molds made Weekend Editions!!

Dumbass... Seriously though, it's a very easy kit to build. Hats off to the tooling guys, as everything fits perfectly - I've hardly had to sand anything, and the cap has stayed on the filler


Saying that, the leading edges of the landing skis will need a dab, as will the undersides of the cannon packs, due to some small sink marks there

I got round to putting the first layer of paint on the Falcon today, after using up a bit of Panzer Grey to apply some shadows to the recessed equipment bays. I used Xtracrylix XA1137 - Light Gull Grey, as it appears to be an almost perfect match to the elusive (in the UK at least) Polly S Grime that the original models were painted with. it also has the benefit of being acrylic, which suits my mode of operation, and in stock, which suits my wallet

It's just a lazy, drifted on coat at the moment, and I'll review, adjust and tidy it up tomorrow when I've had a chance to look at it in daylight. I think a quick thanks should go both to Smiffy for the tip on the correct color, and to Daz for pointing out a useful alternative

[DarthVader]Impressive, most impressive.[/DarthVader]

Obi-Jiff

"I want that ship"

This is looking very nice Mike - good call on the base colour, not far off at all. With the paint on you wouldn't know it was 1/144th.

The Falcon sure is an attractive vessel.

Cheers guys - I've started putting the decals on now, and they're surprisingly good Pictures later

Mike, shouldn't that be unsurprisingly good, this is a FM kit after all and you wonldn't expect anything else.

Looking good Mike

Slightly dissapointed you are not lighting it up like this...

>> ModelmanToms Falcon <<

thats cool nice find andy, come on mike some more pictures

"The boy has no patience."

Obi-Jiff

no just trying to convince the wife to let me buy one!

I'm currently running my PC on Ubuntu, so can't process any pics I take yet. I'm downloading some new packages though, so once that's finished I'll flip back to Windows and take a few... kids!

are we nearly there yet!!!













sorry dad!

Rumour has it, you were no different when Yoda taught you.

Ok... flipped back to Windows so I could get a fix of Queens of the Stone Age/Eagles of Death Metal, and took a photo...

Each decal has to have its carrier film removed, or trimmed Danger Close as we used to say in the Special Forces The decals are perfect for size, they just need to lose the excess film so that they'll snuggle down properly. plenty of Mr Mark Softer was applied and some pressure with the end of a cotton bud was used to get the decals to settle over the raised detail



I'm just working on the last of the underside decals now... slow going

Looking very nice Mike!

looking good, is it as easy to build as it looks, im so tempted and may even add a few led's to the engines