[MOC] Star Wars: The X-Wing Story

[Exile Phoenix]

Are all of the laser shaft options partially flex tubing, or does one of the variants use a solid bar for the length of it? 

Looking at the reference shot you used, I think that it is more the end of the body, not the engines that feels off to me.  In the reference image it look like you could roughly split the engine tube at the back (I think they are actually the engines with the large cylinders being power generators but I don't actually remember) in half that would be where the end of the body is, and if you cut the upper portion in half again you would get where the wings end.  All of this could be based on the perspective in the photos though, since all of them are slightly different perspectives.

[Jerac]

1 hour ago, cehnot said:

I have to admit this one makes mine look a bit dated. I see a lot of great solutions and I think I may fuse the two designs together for my next ship. Great job. I may need to build tour ship just to figure out how you solved that fuselage. The next thing I love is your solution to the bottom. I love the fact that you don't have to add or subtract parts to make the landing gear work. I simply gave up on my design. 

Thanks! But don't worry, I am jealous of your engine detail on the inward-facing part of the wing, your nose cone seem to fit better and while your landing gear design is not retractable, it does look better. You have nothing to be ashamed for and it is your design which I drawn most inspiration from, even if in the end I went for something different. 

39 minutes ago, Exile Phoenix said:

Are all of the laser shaft options partially flex tubing, or does one of the variants use a solid bar for the length of it? 

Looking at the reference shot you used, I think that it is more the end of the body, not the engines that feels off to me.  In the reference image it look like you could roughly split the engine tube at the back (I think they are actually the engines with the large cylinders being power generators but I don't actually remember) in half that would be where the end of the body is, and if you cut the upper portion in half again you would get where the wings end.  All of this could be based on the perspective in the photos though, since all of them are slightly different perspectives.

I did I all could.

Yes, it is not perfect at some places (notably cockpit is too short but in this scale I couldn't do better, and overall the engine diameter is a big too big. It is a tradeoff; if I did the ship any bigger to match engine diameter, the cockpit would be too small, and making it scaled to the cockpit would push me closer to 3-wide engines which I wanted to avoid too.

But you are right: rear fuselage could be one stud longer. Dang I got this one wrong. And it would be so much easier for me if I had that one more stud length. Sorry! Must have lost this somewhere during "translation"!

[TemjinStrife]

Looks great!

Can't wait to build Red 5. The X-wing was the first SW ship I built in Lego back in the '90s using mostly Blacktron parts; I'm loving what Jerac's obsessiveness and attention to detail (and our modern parts library) bring to this version.

Edited September 10, 2018 by TemjinStrife

[Exile Phoenix]

It is still a really nice and good looking model (and with Lego restrictions on the parts you have make for some impressive building techniques).  Apart from having a little more room (which is always a nice option) was there something specific that was made more difficult with the space in the rear?  I know the mechanism for the wing you called out as troublesome.

Structurally how difficult would it be to extend it by a stud, alternatively could the wings move forward a stud (not sure if that would mess too much with the front dimensions though)?

 

[Jerac]

Extending the back is very simple. Trivial I'd say. Just pick longer pieces instead of current ones, it is things like 1x3 instead of 1x2 and so on. Making it as current dimension was difficult because in little space I had to match gearbox/wings rear mounting point and four bracing points for the hull sections. 
Moving the wings forward, on the other hand, is absolutely impossible in this design.

It was not any detail or single piece causing trouble, it was joining them all together so they don't block the wings, are durable, have joints for all the parts coming from the front and leave enough space for rear greebling.

I forgot about this:
"Are all of the laser shaft options partially flex tubing, or does one of the variants use a solid bar for the length of it? "

All variants in instructions use flex tubing. The one variant I had with solid bars was too thick in the middle section, and there is no rigid bar long enough by itself.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Jerac

[Han Solo MD]

Jerac this is incredible, thanks for your hard work! Proud to say I purchased these instructions. Question for you, what length of flex tube did you use for the cannons? I see that you cut a 16L tube for a variety of others parts, but wasn't sure what to use for the cannons. Much thanks.

[Dukeside]

Possibly the best X-Wing I've seen, didn't even realize Jerac created it. Already has the best Tie Fighter MOC's ever created.

[Jerac]

7 hours ago, Han Solo MD said:

Jerac this is incredible, thanks for your hard work! Proud to say I purchased these instructions. Question for you, what length of flex tube did you use for the cannons? I see that you cut a 16L tube for a variety of others parts, but wasn't sure what to use for the cannons. Much thanks.

Uh.... you get 5 16L tubes from XML file. You cut one of them into pieces (which is why is it labelled "X1"). You end up with:

4x 16L pieces (these will be gun shafts)
4x 3L pieces (these will be barrel tips)
2x 2L pieces (these go in the nose)

Should I update the instructions to make this more clear? 

[Han Solo MD]

13 hours ago, Jerac said:

Uh.... you get 5 16L tubes from XML file. You cut one of them into pieces (which is why is it labelled "X1"). You end up with:

4x 16L pieces (these will be gun shafts)
4x 3L pieces (these will be barrel tips)
2x 2L pieces (these go in the nose)

Should I update the instructions to make this more clear? 

That makes sense. May fault as I did not use the XML file, only the instructions. Thanks for the clarification. 

[Jerac]

14 minutes ago, Han Solo MD said:

That makes sense. May fault as I did not use the XML file, only the instructions. Thanks for the clarification. 

Well my fault for this being not clear enough. I have updated instructions, will be rolled to all buyers shortly. Should be less confusing.

[Schneeds]

Impressive.  Looks a lot like Inthert's, which is a good thing, since that's one of my favorite mocs :) 

[dvogon]

Great design! Proportions are quite good for Lego pieces. Much much better than the official X-Wing set. I can learn a lot from this build. 

Edited September 11, 2018 by dvogon

[Cylo]

Would you give us a few shots on how the landing gear works?

[Jerac]

10 hours ago, JarJarBonks said:

Would you give us a few shots on how the landing gear works?

Perhaps it would be better to just watch the video :)

About 5:00 minute mark (the link should already work like this).

[cehnot]

Thanks for this video link. That sure is a nice model.

Edited September 17, 2018 by cehnot

[TemjinStrife]

Built Red 5 over the weekend (except for three of the cannon, due to one last BL order with the tubing that arrived today).

Build/partslist Impressions:

• This is probably the most challenging MOC I've ever built; even more so than Inthert's N1 or B-Wing. The fuselage is extremely complex and quite fragile/touchy until you finally put it together (fortunately, it is generally quite solid once together).
• The wing gearbox is ingenious, although the interlocking wing frames require some intense attention to detail to make sure you have them together and oriented correctly.
• There were a bunch of really cool/unexpected areas where a small detail in one step became a significant detail in another (particularly the DBG road sign).
• For future reference, is there a trick when dealing with super short bent pieces of flex tubing? Those were the most challenging; both to keep in place, to keep bent, and also when attaching the nose landing gear (which doesn't quite fold flat in mine by ~1mm).
• The parts list actually worked first try, which was nice; however, somehow I ended up with enough parts to build 3 stands.
• Only thing I'm not looking forward to is trying to get R2 in there; it would have been easier to assemble and put him in before attaching the front and back fuselages together (particularly since there's a nice way of locking him in with a bar through the hole in the bottom of his body that is a pain to line up after it's built)!
• If you bought 75218 as a parts pack for an X-wing MOC, there's not a lot of crossover (at least if you're building Red 5, I imagine there are some more useful tiles if building the "new" version); basically just the engine intakes, the DBG barrels, and the windscreen, plus a few miscellaneous tiles and axles.
• There are a fair few LBG 12 tooth bevel gears in the list (which can be rare/expensive); three of them are internal and can be the more modern light tan color.

That said, the end result is fantastic. Really gorgeous piece, and once you finally get it together it's sturdier than the build experience might indicate. Very happy with this one, and my hat is off to Jerac as I can't imagine how challenging this must have been to design.

[Jerac]

2 hours ago, TemjinStrife said:

Built Red 5 over the weekend (except for three of the cannon, due to one last BL order with the tubing that arrived today).

Build/partslist Impressions:

• This is probably the most challenging MOC I've ever built; even more so than Inthert's N1 or B-Wing. The fuselage is extremely complex and quite fragile/touchy until you finally put it together (fortunately, it is generally quite solid once together).
• The wing gearbox is ingenious, although the interlocking wing frames require some intense attention to detail to make sure you have them together and oriented correctly.
• There were a bunch of really cool/unexpected areas where a small detail in one step became a significant detail in another (particularly the DBG road sign).
• For future reference, is there a trick when dealing with super short bent pieces of flex tubing? Those were the most challenging; both to keep in place, to keep bent, and also when attaching the nose landing gear (which doesn't quite fold flat in mine by ~1mm).
• The parts list actually worked first try, which was nice; however, somehow I ended up with enough parts to build 3 stands.
• Only thing I'm not looking forward to is trying to get R2 in there; it would have been easier to assemble and put him in before attaching the front and back fuselages together (particularly since there's a nice way of locking him in with a bar through the hole in the bottom of his body that is a pain to line up after it's built)!
• If you bought 75218 as a parts pack for an X-wing MOC, there's not a lot of crossover (at least if you're building Red 5, I imagine there are some more useful tiles if building the "new" version); basically just the engine intakes, the DBG barrels, and the windscreen, plus a few miscellaneous tiles and axles.
• There are a fair few LBG 12 tooth bevel gears in the list (which can be rare/expensive); three of them are internal and can be the more modern light tan color.

That said, the end result is fantastic. Really gorgeous piece, and once you finally get it together it's sturdier than the build experience might indicate. Very happy with this one, and my hat is off to Jerac as I can't imagine how challenging this must have been to design.

Thanks!


Yes, this is a challenging build. I tried to smooth it as much as possible (which is why each wing core section is different and you can't really assemble them right any other way, for example), but... still, this is a challenging build. Was for me to design, has to be to build, there is no other way. 

"There were a bunch of really cool/unexpected areas where a small detail in one step became a significant detail in another (particularly the DBG road sign)" - this is particularly interesting! Do you refer to the sign in the cockpit, on top of computers? Like... it just sits there... not interfering with anything... :D

There is a trick for short flex hoses. Basically for any flex hoses which need bending, which is: bend them way more than you should. They will quickly return to straighter form and hopefully keep the intended angle. You can also use 1x1 bricks inserted at the ends to have more grip area. 

We'll check what's up with the triple stand parts list. You can't imagine how relieved I am knowing that the parts list for the ship itself is flawless. This thing has more than double the amount of lots of any other model I have ever made, and three separate variants. Potential for mistakes was *humungous* here. Thankfully investing in the automated process and writing auto-fixing scripts seem to be worth it!

You can put the R2 there quite easily:

Put him down in an angle, one leg first, then another, then it will slide on the claw hand piece. If the tiles sliightly widen don't worry, you can easily push them back together.

There is absolutely no compatibility with 75218, sorry. Build philosophies are far too different. The same story happened before with the TIEs. It would be too much of a compromise to complicate the thing even more just to reuse some pieces from the set.

You are right about bevels. I actually have them tan in my ship I have on my desk, and it looks good. You can replace all of them for tan and it's good. 

Can you take a shot or two of your finished model? I wonder if you got all the angles right. Just curious!
Thanks for the feedback, it is SUPER helpful!

[TemjinStrife]

29 minutes ago, Jerac said:

Thanks!

Yes, this is a challenging build. I tried to smooth it as much as possible (which is why each wing core section is different and you can't really assemble them right any other way, for example), but... still, this is a challenging build. Was for me to design, has to be to build, there is no other way. 

"There were a bunch of really cool/unexpected areas where a small detail in one step became a significant detail in another (particularly the DBG road sign)" - this is particularly interesting! Do you refer to the sign in the cockpit, on top of computers? Like... it just sits there... not interfering with anything... :D

There is a trick for short flex hoses. Basically for any flex hoses which need bending, which is: bend them way more than you should. They will quickly return to straighter form and hopefully keep the intended angle. You can also use 1x1 bricks inserted at the ends to have more grip area. 

We'll check what's up with the triple stand parts list. You can't imagine how relieved I am knowing that the parts list for the ship itself is flawless. This thing has more than double the amount of lots of any other model I have ever made, and three separate variants. Potential for mistakes was *humungous* here. Thankfully investing in the automated process and writing auto-fixing scripts seem to be worth it!

You can put the R2 there quite easily:
 

Put him down in an angle, one leg first, then another, then it will slide on the claw hand piece. If the tiles sliightly widen don't worry, you can easily push them back together.

There is absolutely no compatibility with 75218, sorry. Build philosophies are far too different. The same story happened before with the TIEs. It would be too much of a compromise to complicate the thing even more just to reuse some pieces from the set.

You are right about bevels. I actually have them tan in my ship I have on my desk, and it looks good. You can replace all of them for tan and it's good. 

Can you take a shot or two of your finished model? I wonder if you got all the angles right. Just curious!
Thanks for the feedback, it is SUPER helpful!

1. I have no problem with challenging builds; this was on the right side of challenging, as it wasn't actively frustrating, just took a lot of finagling and learning where to hold things when adding other things!

2. The little joystick-y, lightsaber-y thing that holds the gray DBG tile was what I was referring to. It looked like some random greebling or control stick, but instead was used to hold the DBG tile in a way that covered a gap. Similarly, it wasn't clear what the studs with bars and bars with clips on the lower sides of the fuselage did, until later when it becomes evident that they hold the wedge plate/turntable assemblies next to what would be the cargo hold (and at that point it was kind of a pain to adjust them to the right angles).

3. Yeah, I overbent the flex hoses; of course, they don't bend evenly and flatten out in the middle, so the clips (both above the nose, and the landing gear below) don't hold them super well. Wasn't sure if there was some other trick like, say, heating them (my experience with flex tubes is very limited, as I only recently rediscovered Lego after a ~20-year hiatus).

4. I can imagine with the parts list! I've had mixed results with Brickvault MOCs, so I'm glad that this one also didn't require any supplemental orders.

5. Note that the "stand" file was listed as "xw stand x3.xml" so that might be the reason there were three stands' worth of parts . . .

6. Re: R2: The issue is less the tiles and more the DBG upside-down 1x1 with vertical clips. I'll have to play with it; but it would definitely be easier to insert R2 prior to having the two halves together!

7. I wasn't expecting compatibility with 75218, but I was hoping that a few more parts might have crossed over. Ahh well.

Thanks again for designing this and making the instructions available! I'll see if I can snap some shots tonight.

[TemjinStrife]

Not great lighting, but you get the idea. And yes, I did decide to only go with one dark tan tile on the nose.

 

[Jerac]

Thanks!

It looks right; you got all the problematic areas exactly as intended. Again I can't stress how relieving this is!

Cheers!
 

[Forresto]

On 9/8/2018 at 3:39 PM, Jerac said:

Thanks!

Which central fuselage area are you referring to? I might have made something wrong, sources are sometimes pretty inconclusive and they are easy to interpret wrong.

Most of it is legal, but some places are tough to do (you have to attach a tile to four clips at once at one point of time, for example). It shouldn't be too hard though, and it requires no rubber bands to hold itself together ;)

There is one place where geometry doesn't work out, but this is intentional. Sides of the nose are pulled together and joined with a ball joint in a way which normally would require them spaced a bit more narrowly. This way it is done, they are slightly bent inwards - which increases tension a bit (which in turn makes it more rigid), reduces width to desirable level and closes some holes. 

About the same, yes. Only "about" because it is pretty difficult to scale the TIEs themselves... To me, though, it looks just right.

Most of it is legal...hmm  I kid.

While this is brought up, are there any areas where the pieces are under stress to maintain form or shape? The same question goes for your Tie Bomber.

One thing I was extremely impressed by with your Tie Fighter (besides how gorgeous it looks ), is how sturdy it is without any forces holding it together other then standard techniques. 

If I do invest money to build this and your Tie Bomber I want to make sure they'll last longterm. As we all know to ask a piece to sustain pressure/stress permanently, eventually causes pieces to crack and break. 

As for swooshability are both the X-Wing and Bomber durable? I'm not expecting Lego kid proof level of hold, but your Tie Fighter other then a few fiddly places that fall off a lot (guns and cockpit window) is fairly solid. Would you say these are at least as durable as your Tie Fighter?

Edited September 18, 2018 by Forresto

[TemjinStrife]

21 minutes ago, Forresto said:

Most of it is legal...hmm  I kid.

While this is brought up, are there any areas where the pieces are under stress to maintain form or shape? The same question goes for your Tie Bomber.

One thing I was extremely impressed by with your Tie Fighter (besides how gorgeous it looks ), is how sturdy it is without any forces holding it together other then standard techniques. 

If I do invest money to build this and your Tie Bomber I want to make sure they'll last longterm. As we all know to ask a piece to sustain pressure/stress permanently, eventually causes pieces to crack and break. 

As for swooshability are both the X-Wing and Bomber durable? I'm not expecting Lego kid proof level of hold, but your Tie Fighter other then a few fiddly places that fall off a lot (guns and cockpit window) is fairly solid. Would you say these are at least as durable as your Tie Fighter?

The Bomber is solid, with the exception of some of the 2x2 curved slopes in the front and the bomb dropper bit; the most challenging part of the build is the 1x2 curved slopes + clips that go onto the pneumatic T shapes that taper the cones. Once everything is together, they're less of a problem, but getting there takes some work. I don't think there's any real stress in the model (if there is, I think the only place would be the parts holding the bent portions of the wings in place; there is some stress on the Interceptor and Vader's Advanced on those parts, but nothing crazy).

The X-wing is definitely less durable than the Bomber and the TIEs generally. I'm definitely more careful with it than the Jerac TIEs or Inthert's N1 and B-wing, although part of that is because if you do break something in the front fuselage of the X-wing, it can be a lot of work to fix it (while the others are much easier fixes).

[danielwerner]

15 hours ago, TemjinStrife said:

Not great lighting, but you get the idea. And yes, I did decide to only go with one dark tan tile on the nose.

Oooh, that color scheme looks great! The perfect mix between the white and grey one IMHO. Mind sharing the parts list (if you have it) and some more pictures? Would really like to use the same or a similar one.

(Or is it an official color scheme and I'm just blind? :P)

[Jerac]

3 hours ago, Forresto said:

Most of it is legal...hmm  I kid.

While this is brought up, are there any areas where the pieces are under stress to maintain form or shape? The same question goes for your Tie Bomber.

One thing I was extremely impressed by with your Tie Fighter (besides how gorgeous it looks ), is how sturdy it is without any forces holding it together other then standard techniques. 

If I do invest money to build this and your Tie Bomber I want to make sure they'll last longterm. As we all know to ask a piece to sustain pressure/stress permanently, eventually causes pieces to crack and break. 

As for swooshability are both the X-Wing and Bomber durable? I'm not expecting Lego kid proof level of hold, but your Tie Fighter other then a few fiddly places that fall off a lot (guns and cockpit window) is fairly solid. Would you say these are at least as durable as your Tie Fighter?

T/B is entirely legal. Aside from parts noted already by TemjinStrife, it is solid like a brick. Its panels are of most solid construction in any TIE and bodies are built with plenty of SNOT interlocking. 
X-Wing is a different story, because there is less space inside and there are more angles. Compared to my usual MOCs this is a bit stronger, TIEs are much stronger, but at best this is MOC-level. 
Stressing is more interesting though. I THINK there is no stress here, because while the nose sides are pulled forcibly together a bit, it is not by much and should only close natural gaps between pieces. The sections being pulled together are over 20-stud long and it is by a half of plate height at best? 

 

 

5 minutes ago, danielwerner said:

Oooh, that color scheme looks great! The perfect mix between the white and grey one IMHO. Mind sharing the parts list (if you have it) and some more pictures? Would really like to use the same or a similar one.

(Or is it an official color scheme and I'm just blind? :P)

This is official colour scheme ("Red 5" in instructions), just with one 2x4 dark tan tile replaced by LBG one. Should be pretty easy mod!

[danielwerner]

1 minute ago, Jerac said:

This is official colour scheme ("Red 5" in instructions), just with one 2x4 dark tan tile replaced by LBG one. Should be pretty easy mod!

Haha, thanks! I thought everything looked white and got confused; I guess it's just bright lights. I should be able to mod that one brick, but you never know. ;)