Building Mortesv's Nebulon-B Thread

[base_1]

Hey @Azrielsc,

That's exactly what I mean!

Thanks for the tips; I have also put extra bricks in several places now to support the weight.

It seems to be exactly 3 bricks high.

Thanks!

Greetings!

Edited December 24, 2018 by base_1

[szimson]

This model is so damn huge. No room to display :(

[Brickandkall]

[m4st3rt3ch]

42 minutes ago, Brickandkall said:

What a beautiful set-up. You sir, deserve a giant dark side cookie.

[Midlife-crisis]

12 hours ago, Brickandkall said:

 

Beautiful scene!

[Brickandkall]

Thanks @m4st3rt3ch & @Midlife-crisis. There’s actually quite a back story to my journey, if you’re interested in knowing, here it is.

 

My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in late June 2018, though I’m happy to say the prognosis was good. She’s through the treatment now, but as you can imagine, it was a rough road, lots of chemo and radiotherapy. All she could do was focus on herself and the treatment, so it fell to me to look after our three young boys and keep things going while tending to my usual load.

 

It was during this time that I first heard of Lepin. Curious, I checked out their website and dove straight in to their Star Wars catalogue. Most of the sets they sell are straight rip-offs of Lego ones, so when I saw the Neb B it stood out. Curiously, there was a video attached, but the Neb B in the video wasn’t the same as the one they were selling, in fact, it was much better.

 

Turns out the video Lepin were using was the one @Cjd223 had posted on YouTube. I wanted to know more about the design so I started searching the web and eventually found @mortesv  pictures posting the whole fleet. That really got the juices going. With all that was going on at the home front I decided I really needed a distraction for myself.

 

I’ve collected a lot of the UCS models myself and decorated my older boys bedrooms and play areas with them, but my younger son hadn’t been as well attended to, and he loves Star Wars and Lego more than his brothers. So it was the rebel fleet for him. I tracked down the instructions through Rebrickable, and then here at Eurobricks (NEWB me hadn’t heard of either at this stage), I had about 60%+ of the parts already, so I hit Bricklink hard and away we went.

 

I decided I wanted to replicate the Empire scene as close as possible, so I studied the closing scene repetitively. I’ve even tried to position the ships as close as possible to where they are in the scene, which wasn’t easy given the minimal depth of field in my display. And before anyone says it, yes, the galaxy is technically on the wrong side of the fleet, some artistic licensing was needed .

 

There have been some great additional ship designs put out there, but I’ve opted to stick with the Neb-B, Falcon, Transports, Heavy Tanker, X-Wings and Y-Wings from that scene. The only ambiguous addition is the Corvette. Personally, I don’t think that is the Corellian Corvette in that scene, but I’m happy to pretend it is. It’s an iconic ship design and a great scale offering from @mortesv.

 

The backdrop is a shot of M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) from the Hubble site, I got this printed on self-adhesive wallpaper. I built five timber panels, cut out slots for shelves for the ships to sit on, applied the print, fitted the shelves, and bolted the thing to the wall. It's 3m long by 1.2m high.

 

I made one small modification to the Neb-B to eliminate the need for a stand under the spine and to brace the ship. On the backside of the spine I attached 4 black right angle technic arms. Between the arms are 4 black technic bricks (1x10's, sitting perpendicular to the spine) with 4 more black right angle technic arms at the opposite end, which are screwed to the background panel. This effectively supports the weight of the ship and gives it lateral support so there’s minimal risk of it falling forward.

 

I would have loved to add lights, especially for the engines of the larger ships, but I've run out of steam for now. I even spoke to Rob at Brickstuff about this, he’s keen if anyone wants to pursue this with him.

 

Acknowledgements

 

Firstly, a big thanks to @mortesv for sharing this amazing and inspiring design. You put a lot of time and effort into this and I know I speak for everyone when I say, we’re grateful you chose to share the design so we could be part of it too. One of these days I’m going to cease to be amazed and accept that just about anything can be designed and built from Lego, but not today.

 

Secondly, @Cjd223, thanks for all the work you did converting the designs into a workable PDF instruction pack. Some projects can be worked well enough from LDD files, this wasn’t one of them.

 

I’d also like to acknowledge @ecmo47, my redesign of the Falcon and X-Wings were based on his mods, as was the mod to the Neb-B thermal pod. Thanks to @churcholo for the front pedestal design. Thanks to @bricksmarlin for the pictures of the Heavy Tanker which I used to reverse engineer its design on LDD, as well as his redesign  of the  Y-Wings, which I largely adopted. And finally, thanks to @Lobot for providing the directions to the Hubble shots where I sourced the M31 Andromeda picture. I appreciate some of these designs might have been sourced by the above from elsewhere, if that is the case, my hat is off to you unknown legends, the above is just acknowledging where I sourced my inspiration from.

[Lobot]

@Brickandkall - you're welcome, that's absolutely stunning!

 

[jeffreywilfong]

wish i had the room for this beauty!

[GAC]

I received instructions on how to build a better front support, but I am not sure what this part is from or where I can get it, any help would be appreciated.

[Brickandkall]

12 minutes ago, GAC said:

I received instructions on how to build a better front support, but I am not sure what this part is from or where I can get it, any help would be appreciated.

@GAC, looks like the 2 x 2 x 10 Girder. This is available in four different variants, Bricklink parts 30517, 57893, 58827 and 95347. The overall specs of each seems to be the same, the variation appears to be largely to the decorative girt, for example, some have two sections while others have three. Some have the three virtical posts while some have one. The one you have pictured is 30517, but I would suggest looking at which is available in numbers and at the best price. Given you want it for the stand I'm assuming you want it in black, that being the case, I think 95347 is the most accessible option, but there isn't much between them.

[GAC]

Thanks for the help!

 

[AfolFree]

Can someone confirm the exact length of the MOC ? I got a 130cm shelf and I wonder if it would be enough to hold it ?

[Brickandkall]

10 hours ago, AfolFree said:

Can someone confirm the exact length of the MOC ? I got a 130cm shelf and I wonder if it would be enough to hold it ?

It’s 1230mm long so you should be right on the length.

Edited April 19, 2019 by Brickandkall

[AfolFree]

5 hours ago, Brickandkall said:

It’s 1230mm long so you should be right on the length.

Thank you !

[rockpig]

Hi Everyone,

I am about to begin the build process of this MOC using churcholo’s stand. Can anyone who has built it with this stand provide me with any tips for the stand installation? Mainly, how does the stand attach to the build? Could someone please provide me with the page numbers where the stands should be attached, and the part to attach it to? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

rockpig

[Brickandkall]

2 hours ago, rockpig said:

Hi Everyone,

I am about to begin the build process of this MOC using churcholo’s stand. Can anyone who has built it with this stand provide me with any tips for the stand installation? Mainly, how does the stand attach to the build? Could someone please provide me with the page numbers where the stands should be attached, and the part to attach it to? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

rockpig

Hi @rockpig, I would suggest that you build churcolo's stand first. Once you've done that, get stuck into the build of the ship. Once you've gotten to the point where you've completed the frame for the fin where the stand is attached, add it at that point. I added the stand later on after I had finished the build, replacing the original stand. All very doable the way I approached it, but, it was fidly, I had to remove the paneling in part along the fin (and of cause replace it all later) and there were many tense moment worrying that the model would fall over as I did it.

If you follow my advice above, I'm confident you'll have no problems at all identifying where the liftarms from the stand sit inside the frame of the ship. The four liftsarms can only be placed in one location so that they are evenly spaced. Furthermore, from memory, you cannot set them any deeper into the frame of the model because the descending lift arms from this part of the ships design prevents that. Consequently, getting the virticle level of the pedestal (stand) right is pretty straight forward also.

One more thing, if you haven't already picked it up on this thread (as I didn't before carrying out the build), there is an error in the build of this part of the ship where the fin's frame is attached to the rest of the ship. From memory, the instructions suggest that 2 dark grey 15 technic liftarms are meant to be used, but they're actually meant to be 13's. You'll know it when you see it because the ones depicted in the instructions sit too high on the model, getting in the way of the top panelling from being installed. You don't want to miss this because it is extremely painful removing them later on, as I learnt, you'll do a lot of damage to the build to correct it.

Hope that helps

[rockpig]

Hi,

Thanks for your quick response. Many thanks for your heads-up on the liftarm 15 issue.  I'm glad you were able to display your MOC on churcholo's stand. He designed a great looking and extremely sturdy stand.

I would appreciate advice on installing the stand during the build processs. Any page or step number would be most helpful.

Thanks,

rockpig

[Midlife-crisis]

Hi,

the build starts with the engine section - just replace the lowest (thin) vertical liftarms of the engine section with the biggest stand.

For the Front section i just used a few liftarms to get that thing "in level" as early as possible to build the midsection on both stands which is easier for the lazy ones.

The page to finally integrate the Stand is 528 the DBG Liftarm, but nothing wrong if you do it at around page 800.

regards

MC

 

BTW: i need a bigger buerau

Edited May 9, 2019 by Midlife-crisis
Pictures added

[rockpig]

Great! Thanks.

[Brickandkall]

11 hours ago, rockpig said:

Hi,

Thanks for your quick response. Many thanks for your heads-up on the liftarm 15 issue.  I'm glad you were able to display your MOC on churcholo's stand. He designed a great looking and extremely sturdy stand.

I would appreciate advice on installing the stand during the build processs. Any page or step number would be most helpful.

Thanks,

rockpig

@rockpig I agree, great design. If you haven't seen my setup there's a picture of it above on this page of the thread. @churcholo stand blends the model in really well to the background I chose, I wish I'd used in on the rear as well.

RE the heads-up on the lift arm problem, I might have got the specific's of this wrong. I said the instructions mentioned using two 15 liftarms in lieu of 13 liftarms, I think it might actually be that the instructions list use of two 13 dark grey liftarms when they're meant to be 11's. I think it is step 335 listed on page 522 of the instructions. Having said that, the very next step (336) shows the placement of two 15's, so it could have been that, the memory is too foggy at this point. Either way, I'd just say, be wary of the problem. Aim to line these liftarms up at the bottom then check the placement at the top. The one that's wrong won't quite look right, it'll look like it extends slightly past where the top panelling will sit. If you're like me you'll probably think "I'm just reading this wrong", trust your judgement, it'll save you a lot of pain later on.

As to installation of the pedestool stand, as mentioned above, I didn't use the rear one, I kept @mortesv original transclear one which can be popped on and off relatively easy, whereas churcholo's has to tie into the structure. With that in mind, I'd still say get them in as early as possible, once all the framing is finished, but you need to be mindful about what that could impede. I originally suggested putting the front one in once the framing for the fin is largely completed, which could be as early as step 358 on page 545. But having flicked through the plans to refresh my memory, I'm reminded that's likely to create a problem with installing the pods on the fin. The pods sit between the technic frame elements, and from memory, some of the pods need to be slipped up from the bottom. Consequently, the bottom of the frame needs to remain open until these elements are installed, meaning, the stand can't be put on until its done. With this in mind, you might be best to do some of the steps out of order.

Here's what I'd suggest. I would work in order up to step 126 on page 603, at that point, I would skip ahead to the construction and installation of the pods. Disregard the steps outlined on pages 604 to 630, as these relate to the construction and installation of the original stands. There is a small detail to be done, recorded on pages 631 to 635. At this point, turn the ship upside down and start the construction and installation of the pods, which is outlined in pages 636 to 917, along with steps related to completing the framing for the fin. You can obviously ignore the steps related to the construction of the transclear stand here, which are recorded on pages 908 to 914.

At this point, I would be installing both of churcholo's stands and then turning the ship over to support it on them. As for the rest of the build, follow the instructions from there out. Hope that helps.

[rockpig]

Helps a lot. Thanks.

BTW - Nice setup

[scheyjosh]

Hey everyone ~

So I decided this will be my first ever attempted Moc because I love it so much. I have already started to collect parts and everything, but obviously many parts are hard to find and expensive...even more so now than 3 years ago. 

I was wondering if the parts file in the $50 package is different than the one on rebrickable? I've read through a good amount of this forum and I was trying to figure out replacement parts, but as I went along it just got super confusing. Does anyone have a list of good possible substitutes? Like 4095 in LBG. That's gonna be a pain and I doubt there's a substitute haha

Thanks guys! I really hope someone has a solution haha

[Midlife-crisis]

1 hour ago, scheyjosh said:

 Like 4095 in LBG.

63965 very common.

Or for the Sandgreen wedges:

In the end i substituted those with 4x 24593 mounting is possible, just another 1 Stud mounting.

[Brickandkall]

3 hours ago, scheyjosh said:

Hey everyone ~

So I decided this will be my first ever attempted Moc because I love it so much. I have already started to collect parts and everything, but obviously many parts are hard to find and expensive...even more so now than 3 years ago. 

I was wondering if the parts file in the $50 package is different than the one on rebrickable? I've read through a good amount of this forum and I was trying to figure out replacement parts, but as I went along it just got super confusing. Does anyone have a list of good possible substitutes? Like 4095 in LBG. That's gonna be a pain and I doubt there's a substitute haha

Thanks guys! I really hope someone has a solution haha

Hi @scheyjosh, from memory the two lists are different. I believe the list provided with the pack is more accurate then the one on rebrickable. I originally created a wanted list on Bricklink using the list from Rebrickable as I wanted to identify what I had first and what I needed to buy before committing to the pack. However, when I got into the build I found I was missing a few parts that were on the pack list but not the rebrickable one. I'd recommend using the list with the pack if you have it, though I can guarentee this is not 100% correct either.

As for part costs, I did the build about 6 months ago. Firstly, you might decide if you definitley want to use the transclear stands or if you want to use the alternative provided by @churcholo. Some of the Transclear parts are costly and in limited supply in the quantities needed, so worth avoiding if possible. Secondly, I would vet your wanted list, look at parts with high costs/limited suppliers and then look for alternatives. Some can be easily subbed out, LG for LBG. Others might have alternatives that serve the same purpose with little effect, like your 4095. I think this is the umbrella stand? If so, plenty of antenas, bars, hoses that could be subbed in with little effect on finish.

[scheyjosh]

19 hours ago, Brickandkall said:

Hi @scheyjosh, from memory the two lists are different. I believe the list provided with the pack is more accurate then the one on rebrickable. I originally created a wanted list on Bricklink using the list from Rebrickable as I wanted to identify what I had first and what I needed to buy before committing to the pack. However, when I got into the build I found I was missing a few parts that were on the pack list but not the rebrickable one. I'd recommend using the list with the pack if you have it, though I can guarentee this is not 100% correct either.

As for part costs, I did the build about 6 months ago. Firstly, you might decide if you definitley want to use the transclear stands or if you want to use the alternative provided by @churcholo. Some of the Transclear parts are costly and in limited supply in the quantities needed, so worth avoiding if possible. Secondly, I would vet your wanted list, look at parts with high costs/limited suppliers and then look for alternatives. Some can be easily subbed out, LG for LBG. Others might have alternatives that serve the same purpose with little effect, like your 4095. I think this is the umbrella stand? If so, plenty of antenas, bars, hoses that could be subbed in with little effect on finish.

Hey! Thank you for responding. 

My main fear is that using LG instead of LBG will heavily stand out, which I wouldn't want. I want it to look as nice as possible of course! Did you switch out a lot of parts for LG?