[MOC] The Return of The X-Wing

[Jerac]

Hello there!

Finished model first:

 

...and now some backstory ;)

Back in 2018 I made my first effort to build a classic T-65 X-Wing. The build was pretty good I'd say, but not without its flaws. Because it had instructions, I got more feedback over time than for "usual" MOCs, with people rightfully complaining about both build difficulty and the core. I was thinking about fixing that, but it was attempt on making the t70 what made me actually start working on it.
 

First thing which I wanted to fix was the core. The original one was - I dare to say - clever, but a bit too much so. I don't remember why exactly but I wanted it to be just of 2x2x2 studs in each dimension.

This generally worked, until the mold for 1x2 panel with window has changed. The core was compact and relatively solid, but it had too much friction to control it from an axle going from the stand, and too little to keep wings from flopping around. Plus it was really awkward to build.

So this is the new core:

It is much more solid and provides good attachment points, altough it requires both of its halves to be kept together, ideally with brackets or someother external structure.

The new core uses worm gears and so it can be screwed in more tightly than the previous one, and it being on worm gears also means there is no floppiness in either of the end positions (...altough it all is very loose "in transition"). 

Of course the new one is double the size so entire fuselage had to be rebuilt... so it was.

Another goal was to simplify the internal build, most importantly remove ball joint connections and flex hoses. As for flex hoses I was able to do so, but some ball joints had to be retained. They are just too convenient to use, altough I still don't like how one has to align everything properly if the model depends too much on them.

Yet another goal was fixing some issues regarding the proportions:

The left one is the new one, and right one is the old one (please ignore the weird gun situation :D).

Most notably the wings location and shape is redone, and nose tip has much better shape.

Oh and I got rid of those ultra-expensive wheel pieces for the guns. I liked them but something seems to have drained them from BL, no idea what really. 

So there it is: My second approach to the Incom T-65B X-Wing.

As usual regarding my SW stuff, instructions are available at https://www.brickvault.toys/ 
Everyone who got V1 gets a 50% discount via e-mail. 

Thanks for support!

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by Jerac
I hijacked someone's thread name. Sorry!

[Ephseb]

Great model! how's the stability looking on this one? I am not satisfied with any Lego X-Wing so far, the one with Biggs from 2018 or 2019 was quite good but the compromises with the engines in order to integrate the rubber bands bring it down for me. Wih the newest one, I was happy at first that they made a new mechanism without the rubber bands, but it's not a pretty model, feels very "loose" for lack of a better word, and the worst thing is the unfixable gap between the wings.

I know the hexagonal fuselage shape doesn't gel well with Lego without compromises and gaps, but I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit of screen accuracy if, in turn, the model doesn't fall apart when I pick it up

[Jerac]

2 hours ago, Ephseb said:

Great model! how's the stability looking on this one? I am not satisfied with any Lego X-Wing so far, the one with Biggs from 2018 or 2019 was quite good but the compromises with the engines in order to integrate the rubber bands bring it down for me. Wih the newest one, I was happy at first that they made a new mechanism without the rubber bands, but it's not a pretty model, feels very "loose" for lack of a better word, and the worst thing is the unfixable gap between the wings.

I know the hexagonal fuselage shape doesn't gel well with Lego without compromises and gaps, but I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit of screen accuracy if, in turn, the model doesn't fall apart when I pick it up

My model is far less durable than a lego set. It doesn't fall apart when you pick it up and is somewhat swooshable, but between "playset" and "display model" it is definitely closer to being a display model. It is also more durable than the first iteration, but it is more like "less fragile" than "durable".

[LDigital]

Amazing work and can’t wait to build it.

I have bought the update after building the initial v1 

I was hoping more of the parts would be good for the update but it’s about 45%ish (circa 600 depending on the model you had before)

 

one thing. The red 5 dirty version looks white and dirty in the picture but the parts lists it as mainly lbg with very little white. It must be the lighting. I would prefer mine to be white and dirty as I did a white base last time and want to use as many parts again as possible. But not sure which parts to convert To make a hybrid that looks like your pictures.

would it be possible to do a white body but dirty parts list?

[Jerac]

23 minutes ago, LDigital said:

Amazing work and can’t wait to build it.

I have bought the update after building the initial v1 

I was hoping more of the parts would be good for the update but it’s about 45%ish (circa 600 depending on the model you had before)

 

one thing. The red 5 dirty version looks white and dirty in the picture but the parts lists it as mainly lbg with very little white. It must be the lighting. I would prefer mine to be white and dirty as I did a white base last time and want to use as many parts again as possible. But not sure which parts to convert To make a hybrid that looks like your pictures.

would it be possible to do a white body but dirty parts list?

Yeah it is the photo edit, sorry. There is no parts list really for a white-dirty version and you can't just replace all LBG parts with white ones, because not everything is available in white.
I am sorry but you'd need to do it yourself. That said, it should be relatively easy if you started from clean white one and then replaced some parts with other colours.

The "update" is more like a "remaster" really. Almost everything in the back has changed due to the new core, and nose was not spared either. For the wings I could use new 1x3 inverted tiles, guns are also new... and so on and so on.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Jerac

[Themiddlebrick]

LMAO, I literally just ordered the last parts for the first version last week. Just my luck...now I really want to build this version!!

It looks really good, great job as usual!

[cehnot]

I saw the topic pop up on my notifications and went to reply in my old topic and after posting realized you made a new post with the same title. I saw the Flickr updates on this project and I wanted say that the V2 is a leap over the old one. The proportions and size greatly outshines the V1 model. Co graduations. I will use that 50% discount on the instructions to study your new model. The cockpit is a great improvement and now that I scrolled through this post I see you did a new gearbox. 

I also like your new nose solution. I will enjoy comparing your old model to the new one from the instructions. That profile photo showing off the new 45 degree triangle tile solves my largest issue with the nose. Greatly improves the shape. 

I appreciate the hard work on this new model. 

 

[Jerac]

Oooooooooops I am sorry for hijacking the thread name :D
Fixing it now!

The tile on the side of the nose is a sticker, sorry. A true tile would be far too thick; x-wing's nose is really slim there... I figured out a tiny cheat would be better than that. After all real things get painted, lego uses stickers so why couldn't I use one too? 
Thanks for appreciation! 

[cehnot]

1 hour ago, Jerac said:

Oooooooooops I am sorry for hijacking the thread name :D
Fixing it now!

The tile on the side of the nose is a sticker, sorry. A true tile would be far too thick; x-wing's nose is really slim there... I figured out a tiny cheat would be better than that. After all real things get painted, lego uses stickers so why couldn't I use one too? 
Thanks for appreciation! 

The Return of the X-wing is more fitting for this project. The nose is still great looking. After receiving my custom Barracuda nameplate 2x4 tiles I think I may consider replacing my stickers with custom printed parts. The area I am wanting to look into is printing ot painting the different red 1-5 numbers on wedge plates. I wish LEGO made tiles of the various wedge plates for more variety. Aside from that I would live to see Red 1 or Red 5 striping on the wedge plates. I used the extra white sections of my sticker sheets to cut out notches to fit between the studs and I would rather see this air brushed or printed somehow. I keep seeing custom printed baseplate portraits on etsy and I believe we could do the same thing to the wedge plates. A few custom printed companies sell different printed plates online. I found this on a site that prints tiles and plates. So much potential

Edited February 22, 2022 by cehnot

[ScottishDave]

@JeracThe "Save 50% Now" link in the email doesn't seem to be working, as in, it was going to charge me full price when I clicked the link. Is it meant to apply a discount coupon at the end after you've clicked "buy" or something?

 

 

[cehnot]

4 minutes ago, ScottishDave said:

@JeracThe "Save 50% Now" link in the email doesn't seem to be working, as in, it was going to charge me full price when I clicked the link. Is it meant to apply a discount coupon at the end after you've clicked "buy" or something?

 

 

Go to your account, log into it, then go to checkout. The discount is listed at the top of the checkout and you just copy and paste it into the box and it will apply. I just tried it. Works. 

Edited February 22, 2022 by cehnot

[ScottishDave]

I'm glad it's working for you cehnot, and I'm a bit stumped, as i's not happening for me at all. No discount visible, it took me all the way through to payment without a single sign of a discount.

EDIT: It doesn't work in some browsers. It won't work at all in Firefox and took several goes in Chrome. In the latter, I had to have the X-Wing in my basket and then open the link from the email in the browser.

Edited February 22, 2022 by ScottishDave

[Jerac]

Yeah their selling platform has some issues which the BV team tries to fix, but there is only so much they can do. If it refuses to work just ask them for help.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Jerac

[deanorth]

It's nearly perfect, bravo Jerac:) 

[Jollygrnreefer]

Never received the email with the 50% coupon, reached out to Brickvault for resolution. Excited to update an already perfect x-wing, awesome job once again Jerac!

[Moppo]

Really nice build!
I'm trying to build it in Studio before I do with real bricks, because I want to replace my black and white Partisan with it, but I can't seem to get the angles right on the nose to connect the ball joint and align the two bars with the 1x2 plate without causing the two ball sockets for the nose to overlap. I've always found it a bit awkward doing angled connections in any digital model, though.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Moppo

[icm]

@Jerac You changed the wedge slope of the wings from 4 to 3, can you explain your thought process in deciding on a 4x wing slope in v1 and a 3x wing slope in v2?

[Jerac]

7 hours ago, icm said:

@Jerac You changed the wedge slope of the wings from 4 to 3, can you explain your thought process in deciding on a 4x wing slope in v1 and a 3x wing slope in v2?

I don't remember to be honest, but most likely this is a situation where based on the measurements it should be something like 3.5, and in previous iteration I thought 4 was better, while in this I preffered 3. I am 99% certain it was because of the new guns which are a tad shorter than previous ones and it was them which made shorter wing edges a requirement. 

Edited February 23, 2022 by Jerac

[Lego Carl]

Perfection

[danielwerner]

Awesome as usual! I missed the detail about 50% for previous model owners, so I paid full price. However, I'm not gonna argue about 9 bucks so consider it a bonus. :D

Now to the big question: The clean or dirty look for the Red 5? And I assume most would prefer gray before white, right?

[Wonderpants]

My V1 probably needs stripping down and redoing. ;)

Anyone know if a lot of extra parts are needed to make V2 if you have the V1?

[l0renZo]

1 hour ago, danielwerner said:

Awesome as usual! I missed the detail about 50% for previous model owners, so I paid full price. However, I'm not gonna argue about 9 bucks so consider it a bonus. :D

 Now to the big question: The clean or dirty look for the Red 5? And I assume most would prefer gray before white, right?

I'm on the same side as @LDigital on this one and will go with a white and dirty look. I have already converted the partlist.

[LDigital]

8 minutes ago, l0renZo said:

I'm on the same side as @LDigital on this one and will go with a white and dirty look. I have already converted the partlist.

Good work. DM sent!

[Jerac]

Please share it once you have it done, I am quite curious how will it look!

[Tom_Brick]

The best X-Wing MOC just got better. I love it.