Pete in Lincs Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 Lots of lovely detail. Well played, Sir! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenBills Posted January 5, 2021 Author Share Posted January 5, 2021 Thanks everybody! The 3D model for this model is certainly something to behold. I have compared my printed body part to the 1/72 Bandai model, and it seems like all of the detail is present on my model. I'm pretty jazzed about how well these new parts have been coming out! Another update is on the way, this one regarding the engines and nose cones! SB 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenBills Posted January 6, 2021 Author Share Posted January 6, 2021 So I keep deciding to reprint parts, but instead of separating the parts out, I am combining them together and THEN printing them as one piece, like I did with the body. So I was working on the engines, and the way that I printed them left their joining surfaces a mess (that's where all of the supports were), so when I put them together, they looked like this: This is after a bunch of filing and sanding. There would have been a lot more sanding in the future to get these two parts to fit properly. So I combined them in MeshMixer and got this: I think the distortion is just from the photo. It looks all bendy here, but it's not that way IRL. So there we are. I'm going to see if there are any other parts that need to be reprinted, and then go from there. SB 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenBills Posted January 9, 2021 Author Share Posted January 9, 2021 Bit of an update today! I did some work on fitting the wings to the fuselage. The right side went first. Just filing and fitting, and filing and fitting, until I broke out the dremel and just made the opening in the fuselage bigger. I gummed up the edge in the process, but that shouldn't be a problem to fix later. And LOTs of friggen dust. So. Much. Dust. I ground out a notch out of the back of the wing where it is inserted into the fuselage, so that the wires have some room to bend. You can see in the photo above how it sits flush with the internal wall. I have used 24 gauge wire on all of my lit models so far with no problem, but the hole that runs the span of the wing is too small for two wires to fit through, so I ordered some 30 gauge. Hopefully that works. And here's the right wing and nacelle fitted: (again, I gummed up the edge where the pieces mate together. I'll fix that later) This was a big morale booster for me. This project got a little discouraging for me because things just weren't going together how I'd hoped (hence why I stopped working on it for a while). So I was pretty jazzed when this wing all came together! Rinse and repeat for the left side: It's starting to look like a Y-Wing now! Then I thought a bit about how I'm going to power the two engine LEDs. I have a little coin-cell holder, but it's about 1/4" too wide to fit into the back end here, even after dremeling out a lot of the internal structure (AND LOTS OF DUST!): Here's the coin-cell holder I have: It's only an inch wide, but it's still too wide to fit in the back, and I don't want to remove too much material just for structural reasons. So my question is this: is there a smaller way to power (have the model be self-contained) some 3v LEDs? This is pretty small to begin with, but I'm hoping someone here knows a bit more about electronics and wiring than I do. So that's the update for today! It feels good to be moving along with this one. Thanks for looking! SB 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsairfoxfouruncle Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 3 minutes ago, StevenBills said: It's only an inch wide, but it's still too wide to fit in the back, and I don't want to remove too much material just for structural reasons. Would it fit in the back of the cockpit underneath the seats and such ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenBills Posted January 10, 2021 Author Share Posted January 10, 2021 1 hour ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said: Would it fit in the back of the cockpit underneath the seats and such ? That's a good thought, but unfortunately it's still too big to put there. My plan was to use magnets to attach the back hatch on, and just slide in the battery with the holder into the back. Might have to re-think it? Hopefully I can figure something like that out. SB 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in Lincs Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 Maybe this is too obvious, but will it not fit diagonally? The fuselage looks good with the outriggers and engine pods on. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shin Posted January 11, 2021 Share Posted January 11, 2021 is this going to be held up by a rod in flight? any chance you can drill out a channel and run a wire up through the rod, with the battery pack in the base? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenBills Posted January 13, 2021 Author Share Posted January 13, 2021 @Shin This model is going to be used for photography purposes, and yes, it will only be displayed in flight. The problem with a rod through the bottom is that I then can't photograph the model from the bottom side without seeing the wires, etc... Little update time: The sun was shining today, so to avoid filling my hobby room with resin dust again, I sat outside and dremeled out the back section of the Y. Got it large enough to fit in my trimmed battery holder. Also did some cleanup on the engine sections. The L'eggs cones had a weird bulge in them, so I filed that out. Now I need to fill the hole in the cone that I made so that the resin could drain out. Next time (if there IS a next time), it would be way easier to hollow out this back section in the computer. It'd save on resin, as well. I think for tonight's work I am going to get the T-track cut. At 1/48 they come out to 5" long, so that's easy. Then I need to add all of the other greeblies onto the engines before they get glued to the wings and wired up. Thanks for watching! SB 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenBills Posted January 13, 2021 Author Share Posted January 13, 2021 Working a little on the LEDs today. The first shot is the bare LED bulb, and the second shot is with a little bit of sanded plastic added in front as some diffusion. Thoughts on this? Which one do you guys like better? I like how the bare LED has a white hotspot to it, but I really dislike seeing bare LEDs in model builds. I like how the diffused version hides it all a bit, but it does cut down on the light output somewhat. Thoughts? SB 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danbuoy Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 (edited) I think the bare LED looks best. A lot of the Star Wars spacecraft with round engines, be they Y-wings, X-wings or even Star Destroyers look to have a coloured circle with a bright centre, rather than it all being one colour. The diffused one looks a bit too furnace-like to me. Edited January 13, 2021 by danbuoy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsairfoxfouruncle Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 52 minutes ago, StevenBills said: Thoughts? Use the scuffed plastic but leave the center less scuffed should give it more clarity over the bulb but still diffuse it from most angles ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen W Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 I prefer the bare led but if it can be diffused a little it will help. Maybe go with Corsairfoxforuncle’s suggestion to see how it looks. Thinking back to my sign making days we used to use a very fine etch effect vinyl that gave a very light etch that might give you the effect your after, you just apply it to clear plastic. I am sure it should be available in small pieces from a model supplier or if know someone in the sign business they may have some lying around to try. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenBills Posted January 26, 2021 Author Share Posted January 26, 2021 Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I ended up going with the bare LED bulb, set back into the engine a little bit so that it's less obvious. Okay, a little update for today. As I said earlier, I roughed up the edges of the slot in the engines where I had to insert the wing. Next time I will scale the wing part down by one or two percent so that it fits together more easily. So here's the gnarly edge that my dremel created: I used some Apoxie Sculpt to help reinforce and fill that joint a bit: And here it is after some sanding and a bit of primer. There's nothing like primer to let you know that your putty job is crap! I have begun assembling the little control vanes that are at the back of the T-tracks. Those parts are pretty delicate, and I'm lucky that nothing has broken yet! In order to make painting easier, I'm going to paint the L'eggs first, then the blue on the Saturn V cans, and THEN put the T-tracks over that. Unless anyone has any better ideas...? That's about where I am right now with this. Not really much of an update, but it's coming along slowly. Thanks for watching. SB 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenBills Posted January 31, 2021 Author Share Posted January 31, 2021 Little update for today. I glued the rest of the greeblies onto the body and hit it with some primer. It really makes the details pop! I'm very happy with how the body is coming out. Then I did some masking and painting on the engines. Feels good to get some color down, finally. The blue is waaaay too blue. I'll knock that back with some thinned base color eventually. Hopefully lessen the contrast there. That's all for now. Next step is to paint the clamps and T-track, and stick 'em on. SB 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenBills Posted February 2, 2021 Author Share Posted February 2, 2021 Pipes! So I guess I lied about finishing the engine nacelles and then moving on to the body. I figured it'd be easier to do all of the piping without the brittle t-tracks and engine vane thing on the back. I mixed up some baby powder and some CA glue and made a CA paste. I inserted the paste into the fuselage and stuck the wings in. Then onto the plumbing. I'm using the Bandai Y-Wing instruction manual to see where all of the pipes need to go. I'm using 3/64 brass rod for the main pipes, and 1/16 for the larger stuff. There's a few smaller pipes around the back that I need to figure out, but this is where I am at as of this evening: This definitely isn't perfect, and there's a few areas I'm not too happy with, but I think it's alright for my first go at it. Maybe I should have attached the cockpit head before fitting the neck pipes? I'm figuring this out as I go along here. Thanks for looking! SB 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in Lincs Posted February 2, 2021 Share Posted February 2, 2021 Wow! That's a LOT of plumbing. I like the paint too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomjw Posted February 2, 2021 Share Posted February 2, 2021 She really is coming along very nicely. Impressive work. Cheers, Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenBills Posted February 2, 2021 Author Share Posted February 2, 2021 Thanks @Pete in Lincs and @Tomjw. It's coming along. I ordered more 3/64 brass rod, as I ran out shortly after I took the pics above, and there are still a few more pipes to do. I also ordered a 1/8" square tube to act as an "armature" of sorts for connecting the cockpit to the body, that way the connection is more secure than just glue on resin. It's hard to explain, but the design for that area of this ship is kind of weird. Anyway. I'll update when there's something more to show! SB 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen W Posted February 7, 2021 Share Posted February 7, 2021 looking good, enjoying seeing this take shape Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenBills Posted February 20, 2021 Author Share Posted February 20, 2021 Thanks for the comments, guys, it means a lot. Helps me going on the build, sometimes. Okay, so I managed to combine all of the cockpit parts together in Meshmixer, so that I didn't have to fiddle around with getting everything to fit right and use lots of putty, sanding, etc... This includes the seat and console and controls, as well as the landing gear pod on the bottom. Here it is lightly sanded, due to some finger-printing: 'm pretty happy with how this print turned out. I tried printing out the head piece as two separate parts, but I could never get them to line up correctly, and I think the head of the Y-Wing is a very distinct form, so I didn't want it to look too fat or tall or what have you because I couldn't get the parts to line up right. Really glad this print turned out. Next it's on to mating the head with the body. That means trimming a few of the pipes that connect to the rear cockpit bulkhead. I should have connected the head to the body before I did the pipes, but that's easy to fix. Thanks for looking, SB 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenBills Posted February 27, 2021 Author Share Posted February 27, 2021 Little update today. Finally had some time to work on this model a bit. I managed to get the head attached with the body. I strengthened the bond with two aluminum tubes that extend back into the body and forward into the cockpit. Didn't take any photos, but it worked. I think I might have made the head stick out a few mm too far from the body, but the pipes kind of hide that. And speaking of pipes, I think that I'm done with the plumbing on this one. It's not ALL of the pipes that are on, say, Gold Leader, but there's enough on there to get the point across. the canopy is just set on for the photos. It's not the prettiest of jobs, but it works. The next step, after all of this has dried, is to prime the body, plumbing, and cockpit, and see how it looks! It's been a lot of work up to this point, but I'm (mostly) happy with how it is turning out. Thanks for looking! SB 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsairfoxfouruncle Posted February 27, 2021 Share Posted February 27, 2021 5 minutes ago, StevenBills said: but I'm (mostly) happy with how it is turning out. Thanks for looking! As well you should be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in Lincs Posted February 28, 2021 Share Posted February 28, 2021 Seconded! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danbuoy Posted February 28, 2021 Share Posted February 28, 2021 That is coming along very nicely! Nice job with all that pipework! Is this model going to be based on any specific Y-wing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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