Jerac

[MOC] The Return of The X-Wing

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18 hours ago, LDigital said:

Oh this is exactly how I wanted mine to be. White with weathering. Looks perfect. Are you able to pm me about the parts list you used please?

It is exactly as @carpandean said.

@LDigital I will pm you the list of all the steps number where there is a color change. But it's nothing complicated. Basically I played the game of differences by comparing the instructions of the dirty gray version with the white version.

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I'm working on adapting this to a Red Three (Biggs) scheme, and I had a couple questions about the fuselage.

~~One, is there a reason you went with the plate and tile stack for the 1x1 instead of a corner panel at the rear? Using all panels looks like it will allow me to close the rear most side gap.~~

Edit: I see the problem with doing it that way, the back half can't tilt down far enough. I assume the 1x3 panel wasn't available at the time but that fixes the issue.

Second, most of the screen pictures and supposedly screen accurate models I've seen put the opening to the torpedo tubes roughly in line with the front of the canopy, judging by the panel lines. That's about two studs forwards of where it is now; is there a major problem I'm not seeing that I'm going to run into moving that forwards?

Thanks, and the instructions are great. It's well worth the money to save the hassle of trying to reverse engineer the model.

Edited by The Sarge

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WIP Red Three adaptation:

800x324.jpg

Using the wedge plates helps close the gaps up but it adds studs, so there's a definite trade off. Maybe someday we'll get tiles with the same footprint. Figuring out the color blocking has been interesting as well. For the yellow under the cockpit (and the sand green on the other side) I'm thinking stickers where they partially overlap the red stripe. 

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44 minutes ago, Jerac said:

:O

Now that's very nice!

A great build as always.  Now we just need a re-release of 2x4 tiles in dark green...  and 1x10 dark green plates.  The top of the nose is a bit janky in the current setup.  I'll add the white triangle to the top of the nose when I get some 2x4 tiles.  All of the empty sticker sheets I've been keeping finally coming in handy.

Edited by azanderk

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I just built this, it's easily my favourite model (in Lego form) of the X-Wing I've ever built, the only concern being the stress placed on the handcuff pieces - but as I have so many of those lying around I just sucked it up.

I did make a few tweaks I thought people might be interested in (sorry if they've been mentioned before), which makes the ship feel a lot more stable to play with for me:

A 1x1 tile can be placed on each of the 1x1 bracket pieces on the shoulders of the cockpits. This prevents them from dropping down too far, and keeps them pretty much perfectly aligned with the cockpit canopy. It almost feels intentional, and I wonder if it was just missed out of the instructions.

A flower piece with four petals (33291) can be placed in the top centre anti stud of the top fuselage nose cover thing (...sorry for that awful description), and if aligned correctly, it should lock into place between the plates in there to hold it more securely.

I also used an extra plate and 1x1 brick on the other end of the fuselage nose cover thing, which slides perfectly between the plates near the nose and prevents that area from feeling so squishy and fragile.

cover.jpg

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I finally solved a problem I've been having with the wing mechanism in this model.  I always had one pair of S-foils that were loose in either position.  The issue is with the alignment of the worm gears - if you don't have them exactly in the right position initially, the S-foils will always be slightly out of sync.  Looking back at the instructions, there are tiny red highlights at the bottom of the worm gears on steps 7 and 9.  Maybe these are meant to indicate the correct position of the worm gears?

1469031722_Screenshot2022-11-15at12_09_28PM.thumb.jpg.5fc302a0870ba6551036cc86e2a9ac49.jpg

But these pictures suggest that the worm gears should be in exactly the same position.  In my testing, I think one should be turned 180 degrees from the other.  It's finicky because the 12-tooth bevel gears create 12 different positions for the worm gears to be in relative to each other.  But 180 degrees seems very solid, so I think that's the ideal position.

The way to check is at step 37.  If you turn the big gear as far as possible to the closed position, the front and back plates should be locked equally tightly.  If one is loose, you need to pull off the bottom, turn one of the worm gears, and try again.

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The thing is, all you need to do is *not* turn the gears until the whole assembly of the core is completed. It doesn't matter how you set up the gears initially, because when you slide in the parts with 8-tooth gears from the front&back, they will accept any position on the worm gears. However, if you turn the gears *after* you slide in 8-tooth gears, the wings will become misaligned.

I think the simpliest solution would be a mention in the instructions that the gears should not be turned until whole assembly is complete. 

Edited by Jerac

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8 hours ago, Jerac said:

The thing is, all you need to do is *not* turn the gears until the whole assembly of the core is completed. It doesn't matter how you set up the gears initially, because when you slide in the parts with 8-tooth gears from the front&back, they will accept any position on the worm gears. However, if you turn the gears *after* you slide in 8-tooth gears, the wings will become misaligned.

I think the simpliest solution would be a mention in the instructions that the gears should not be turned until whole assembly is complete. 

That's not my experience.  When I start with the worm gears in different positions I get one wing looser than the other, even if I don't turn the gears after.  Also, when you add the central bevel gear it locks the worm gears to each other, so it shouldn't be possible to change their alignment later after adding the 8 tooth gears, right?

The worm gear has no symmetry, so if you give it a quarter or half turn it then the 8 tooth gear will mesh with it at a slightly different angle.  But it's possible that I did something else wrong.  I'd be curious if others have the same issue and which solution works for them.

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3 hours ago, 20feet said:

That's not my experience.  When I start with the worm gears in different positions I get one wing looser than the other, even if I don't turn the gears after.  Also, when you add the central bevel gear it locks the worm gears to each other, so it shouldn't be possible to change their alignment later after adding the 8 tooth gears, right?

The worm gear has no symmetry, so if you give it a quarter or half turn it then the 8 tooth gear will mesh with it at a slightly different angle.  But it's possible that I did something else wrong.  I'd be curious if others have the same issue and which solution works for them.

I did the same as you. Thankfully it's easy enough to pull off a few parts and realign things, but I built and realigned that section perfectly according to the instructions multiple times and it never worked for me. The only time the wings worked was when I offset the gears, unfortunately I can't remember by how much, but your 180 degrees sounds about right.

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13 hours ago, 20feet said:

That's not my experience.  When I start with the worm gears in different positions I get one wing looser than the other, even if I don't turn the gears after.  Also, when you add the central bevel gear it locks the worm gears to each other, so it shouldn't be possible to change their alignment later after adding the 8 tooth gears, right?

The worm gear has no symmetry, so if you give it a quarter or half turn it then the 8 tooth gear will mesh with it at a slightly different angle.  But it's possible that I did something else wrong.  I'd be curious if others have the same issue and which solution works for them.

 

10 hours ago, Thwomp said:

I did the same as you. Thankfully it's easy enough to pull off a few parts and realign things, but I built and realigned that section perfectly according to the instructions multiple times and it never worked for me. The only time the wings worked was when I offset the gears, unfortunately I can't remember by how much, but your 180 degrees sounds about right.

One thing though: Do you mean the time during opening/closing, or final positions? Because I intended it to work at final positions, but did not worry much if during opening the process was not entirely symmetrical - precisely because worm gears are not. 
I wonder if I instinctively put worm gears the same way and this is because it worked for me maybe? Hm. 

Anyway thanks for looking deeper into that. I might have been wrong about this whole issue having just one reason and you guys clearly are onto something.

Edited by Jerac

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57 minutes ago, Jerac said:

One thing though: Do you mean the time during opening/closing, or final positions? Because I intended it to work at final positions, but did not worry much if during opening the process was not entirely symmetrical - precisely because worm gears are not. 
I wonder if I instinctively put worm gears the same way and this is because it worked for me maybe? Hm. 

The final position only "locks in" one set of wings, the others need to be helped in position but remain looser. With the correction I (and I assume @20feet too) made the wings are perfectly aligned throughout the opening and closing process, and lock in together.

Speculation time: I believe there is some slight wiggle room for the worm gears in the assembly, this is what allowed me to pry open the second set of wings the rest of the way. Turning the worm gear 180 degrees (assuming that is correct - it has been too long since I adjusted mine) aligns everything so that the wiggle room is the equal on both sides, and therefore eliminated when the wings are fully opened or closed, as they've been pushed up or down in sync. Between those two points the wings feel a lot looser as the worm gears are free to slide up and down on the technic bar again.

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9 hours ago, Jerac said:

One thing though: Do you mean the time during opening/closing, or final positions? Because I intended it to work at final positions, but did not worry much if during opening the process was not entirely symmetrical - precisely because worm gears are not. 

Ya, both pairs of wings are loose when in a middle position because of the play in the gears.  They're only tight at the end positions.  But if the worm gears are misaligned, one pair of wings will hit their end position first and the other will still be loose.  @Thwomp and I are on the same page.

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I have no idea how to align the gears - first only one of the wing pairs were moving, the other was lose. I realigned one worm gear so it was roughly 180 degrees from the other (facing each other, basically) and after that both wing pairs were moving but one moved a lot more than the other. I thought I just needed to turn the big gear a bit more, but it fell apart instead. Isn't it supposed to have a natural stop when the wings are apart? Don't know what I'm missing.

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I love how the fuselage works with the panels hiding the angled parts. And proof positive that if lego should have canted the canopy on the new official one.

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my v1 and v2. still love the v1 and prefer some of the design elements on it like the nose and storage compartment underneath, but wow I love the new s-foil mechanism and other incredible improvements that add sturdiness on the v2. also, no more cutting flex tubes to length!!

9WT76Mc.jpg

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Very good work and proportional accuracy! Amazing detail considering the scale.
Loving the underside of the wing near engines. That "engine reveal" detail is very hard to do without causing the wings to sag.

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