darththeling

Bricklinked UCS Super Star Destroyer Executor (10221)

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Five years ago when the Super Star Destroyer 10221 came out, I couldn't dream of buying it. In Canada, with taxes and possibly shipping combined you were looking at around $600.00 for it - which I'd already dropped on the Death Star playset and that was, I felt, the maximum I would ever spend on Lego. I simply decided that the SSD wasn't happening in this lifetime and that was that.

But after MOCing the rest of the major OT locatons/ships, five years later this one slot remained empty into an otherwise comprehensive collection. I had to have that Executor, I thought. Checked out some listings on eBay, Kijiji and of course Bricklink. The markup would have made me spit coffee at my screen - if I drank coffee. The prices were lowest at $1400.00 CDN. There was one complete and assembled going for $1100. Unreal - but understandable. It's a limited edition high demand item.

A compromise was made and I started to Bricklink Pellaeon's brilliantly designed Midi Scale Super Star Destroyer found here. It would cost me about $70 to get the parts I needed for it on Bricklink. It is a beauty of a design and TLG would be smart to adopt this kind of scale for such a distinguished and iconic OT Star Wars ship.

But it nagged at me - in the back of my head - if I did build this, would I be satisfied with the scale? Despite already ordering parts for the midi scale, I started to sink deep into the abyss of Bricklink and multiple blogs, posts and threads on the subject of Bricklinking large sets. I was hooked on the idea of this huge set I couldn't afford. But I also discovered some very important information - the UCS Super Star Destroyer contains no super special, highly priced parts that only appear in that set, 10221. Encouraged by this, I found a great price on replacement stickers and that was that - I was invested and there was no turning back.

The goal was to get this half price. If I got the price down to $300.00 ($200-250 USD?) I could do it. It wouldn't break the bank so to speak and the full size SSD could be realised. It would just take several long nights alone working out which pieces to buy, who from, and what sets I had that I could cannibalize for parts...

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...especially wedges. There are over 100 wedges of the 3x12 type in this model. It ended up being mostly a scramble to see if I could get the right number of the right color and how cheap.

Here's where it got weird: the light grey wedge pieces are very common in both Star Wars and non Star Wars kits. They are, for that reason, highly in demand because people want them to build all manner of MOCs. This was reflective in the prices. So what I ended up doing was only using those more valued light grey wedges for the top and the absolute bottom layer of the base. The rest of the build I would use dark grey 3x12 wedges, of which they were much more available and cheap. So if you are willing to cut costs down with a bit of color changes, I'm sure the choice saved me close to $100.00.

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The build of this thing was very exciting. There are 4 main stages, the base, the spine, the "cityscape" on top (with the bridge) and the perimeter neckline that gives the SSD its distinctive shape. Building these stages, I was serious about getting the base and spine as accurately built as possible, lending some flexibility to the top bits which are arguably more cosmetic.

Lots of rainbow colors came out to help put the base together. Sadly this resulted in a lot more work near the end, as I had to rip apart the whole thing to replace some of the rainbow bits that were visible from the lateral strips that hug the sides of this giant beast. Most of the rainbow bits were contained but I was surprised how deep into the ship you can see once you've got a lot of light coming in to the display.

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The spine was tricky - I had used a bunch of smaller beams in my haste and once the Bricklink shipment with all the long technic beams came, I was compelled to replace some but not all of them. The stability was and still is decent. I'm proud to say that it ended up being rather swooshable (with a firm grip of course!)

Once I got to the cityscape part of it, I started taking a few minor liberties. There were a couple of areas where I got lost, in particular with the intricacies around the recessed bridge scene. In the end, I took a leap of faith based on assembly videos and

was invaluable. Even though it didn't show every step (the instructions were good for that) it was super helpful to see everything in real three dimensions. I spent a lot of time reviewing and pausing Brickbuilder's helpful video to check the build. I'm sure it wasn't made to assist in a build but it certainly did.

One area that I went completely "off book" was the triangle-shaped bit that brings together the front taper of the ship with the back end - I hadn't ordered enough 4x4 wedge plates and I was getting impatient. I just rammed together some bits to make it work and so far it seems perfectly sturdy and I have no plans to revisit it. The discrepancy might stick out to owners of the official kit, but no worries for me.

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Finally I had one last Bricklink package arrive with dozens more 2x12 plates and 2x4 plates to help fit together the two large strips that make up the outer edges of the top. Since I'm still not 100% finished with it (it's done but I plan to work more on it when time allows) so for that reason I haven't anchored down the two strips using those 12 door hinge plates on the undersides. So those parts are a little loose - with too much shake the end plug can pop out and send the two strips flying off. So I reinforced them a bit more to survive ejecting to the floor. That's why there are a few extra wedges attached to the underside of these strips. It may look a little wonky but the reinforcement it provides is well worth it.

As for the figures, Bossk is a major holdout. I will buy him eventually. For now, I'm satisfied with the stand-in involving the Chima croc head.

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It's certainly worth mentioning that I didn't bother with the stands (or the plaque) but I plan to build them someday. My shelf actually allows it to be displayed without the stands. The only issue is it cannot be displayed flat on a table - it needs to dangle off part of the table to avoid ramming the engines into it and have an engine array collapsing on the floor in a million pieces. That only happened once, so far.

There are a few bits on the underside that use the wrong dark grey. Those will be swapped out eventually. I'm surprised there wasn't more.

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We've got some stand-ins for 4-Lom and Zuckuss, too!

Thanks for reading this. I am super thrilled with it. It was a satisfying build that I managed to pull off within budget and about three months of spare time. What a satisfying and mighty sight. Although I regret not getting it an retail, having one slightly imperfect at half price is a great thing.

Questions, comments, etc welcome.

Oh yes, of course, the obligatory "no disintegrations" scene!!

"You are free to use any methods necessary, but I want them alive..."

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Edited by darththeling

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What an undertaking. I remember waiting in queue in front of the Copenhagen lego store when this came out :)

I would suggest modding the engine area just a bit, it looks better with an extra bit of detail :)

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That is huge - fab job taking this on via BL....only 16 years before I can move the kids out and turn one of their rooms into my BL'cave...

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What an undertaking. I remember waiting in queue in front of the Copenhagen lego store when this came out :)

I would suggest modding the engine area just a bit, it looks better with an extra bit of detail :)

Thank you mortesv, You're absolutely right about the engine area lacking detail... when I ordered all the greebling bits, invariably there were holes in the supply line. In all the pedantic detail I went through it my initial post, I didn't talk much about the actual Bricklinking of things: It was all in, 5 orders total (to cut down on shipping costs). Some of the little pieces I needed were in the 100's so I didn't get quite enough 1x1 dark grey clips or even enough light grey 1x2 grills. As such, the underside needs a fresh coat of greeble to allow it to match the original design.

That 10221 box doesn't look easy to carry home!

That is huge - fab job taking this on via BL....only 16 years before I can move the kids out and turn one of their rooms into my BL'cave...

Thanks, Hold0511. This hulk certainly does require a lot of space - planning ahead for a whole room is a good idea!

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I managed to cram mine on the very top of a board between shelves... until I can think of a better way to display the entire Star Wars collection in once place. There used to be a large fleet of TIEs here.

Edited by darththeling

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Thank you mortesv, You're absolutely right about the engine area lacking detail... when I ordered all the greebling bits, invariably there were holes in the supply line. In all the pedantic detail I went through it my initial post, I didn't talk much about the actual Bricklinking of things: It was all in, 5 orders total (to cut down on shipping costs). Some of the little pieces I needed were in the 100's so I didn't get quite enough 1x1 dark grey clips or even enough light grey 1x2 grills. As such, the underside needs a fresh coat of greeble to allow it to match the original design.

That 10221 box doesn't look easy to carry home!

Thanks, Hold0511. This hulk certainly does require a lot of space - planning ahead for a whole room is a good idea!

20160715_134527_zpskmbedssu.jpg

I managed to cram mine on the very top of a board between shelves... until I can think of a better way to display the entire Star Wars collection in once place. There used to be a large fleet of TIEs here.

Very nice build... this is a very under-moc'd ship in my opinion, perhaps due to the awesomeness of the original set <3. However I couldn't help but notice Zam's starfighter (from the 2002 set) towards the bottom, which led to what looks like Padmé's apartment and more coruscant stuff on the left... do you have any pictures of those?

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That reminds me how bad TLG version of the SSD is... :sceptic:

And that also makes me want to rebuild the one I designed :look:

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