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Millennium Falcon (1:144 Finemolds)


Mike

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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 :)

hull1.jpg

hull2.jpg

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

hull3.jpg

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.

hull4.jpg

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

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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.

hull5.jpg

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 :hmmm:

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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. ;)

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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 :)

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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 :fish:

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

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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

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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 :fish:

Edited by Obi-Jiff Kenobi
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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 :)

damage.jpg

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Mike,

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

Picture624.jpg

Sorry about quality, took with phone.

Cheers,

Warren

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

t225_dd4cfb7c50bbaad5ce6de83eb45866c7.jpg

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

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