Racing A-Wing

[The Librarian]

I've been photographing a whole bunch of models today, including this little A-Wing in racing colours I knocked together a couple of months back. A bit of an exercise in refining wedge-shapes and locking upside-down sections in place.

Racing A-Wing by Librarian-Bot, on Flickr

Racing A-Wing by Librarian-Bot, on Flickr

Racing A-Wing by Librarian-Bot, on Flickr

Racing A-Wing by Librarian-Bot, on Flickr

Racing A-Wing by Librarian-Bot, on Flickr

[manglegrat]

Nice! Very sleek, and love the colours. 

So how did you lock those upside-down sections in place? 

[Moppo]

Impressive! I'm also intrigued about that upside-down slope. Looks a lot sturdier than I managed. :)

[The Librarian]

Thanks both!

On 11/06/2017 at 10:53 PM, manglegrat said:

Nice! Very sleek, and love the colours. 

So how did you lock those upside-down sections in place? 

Mostly through a cunning contrivance of 1x4 plates with two studs. In the right configuration, the flat in the middle allows them to lock sections together with studs in the opposing direction. It's a technique I've used elsewhere and in this case, it worked rather well.

[manglegrat]

23 hours ago, The Librarian said:

Thanks both!

Mostly through a cunning contrivance of 1x4 plates with two studs. In the right configuration, the flat in the middle allows them to lock sections together with studs in the opposing direction. It's a technique I've used elsewhere and in this case, it worked rather well.

Cool. Thanks for the description of the technique.

I can't get this to work in LDD but I think you're saying you used four #92593 plates in two pairs, one pair inverted and rotated at 90 degrees across other, with the smooth parts touching, right? Must give it a try in plastic sometime soon!

[Moppo]

I think I understand. Like this?

[The Librarian]

That's the basic idea, yes. In practice, I've used it in combination with other kinds of tiles and plates, but at it's heart, it's exploiting that kind of connection.

[manglegrat]

2 hours ago, Moppo said:

I think I understand. Like this?

That's exactly what I was trying and failing to do in LDD... 

53 minutes ago, The Librarian said:

That's the basic idea, yes. In practice, I've used it in combination with other kinds of tiles and plates, but at it's heart, it's exploiting that kind of connection.

Cool, thanks - good to have another zero-gap low profile SNOT technique in the toolkit! 

[icm]

Thanks for posting pictures of the stud inversion technique you used.  Whenever I try to build something complex, stud inversion usually defeats me.  How is the wedge in the center of the nose handled?  The A-wing itself is nicely shaped and nicely colored.  It looks just enough like an A-wing to be convincing, but is just different enough to be visually interesting, like a modified P-51 Mustang or F8F Bearcat used in real-world air racing.

[roadstermatt]

On 18-6-2017 at 0:06 AM, Moppo said:

I think I understand. Like this?

<snip>

now that's clever

Edited June 23, 2017 by BEAVeR
Please don't quote images

[brobert]

The front landing gear is my favourite idea, haven't seen this before, but it's so effective on this ship. Shame that TLG didn't do this with the stock A-wing

[Moppo]

They retired those hinges long ago, otherwise they'd probably have used them.

[Only Sinner]

I like it too. The build looks really sleek and sturdy. Air racing is a lot of fun to watch and I would love to see modified starfighters racing like this one.