GrandEmperorBinks

[MOC] "Gold 5" BTL-A4 Y-Wing

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Gold 5 was a BTL-A4 Y-Wing Heavy Starfighter, built by Koensayr Manufacturing, and serving as part of the Rebel Alliance. As was common with the rebellion's aging fleet of Y-Wing's, Gold 5 was stripped of it's armour plating by rebel technicians to allow for easier maintenance, and was heavily modified in order to improve performance and to keep it operational.

Part of the venerable Gold Squadron, Gold 5 was piloted by Davish "Pops" Krail (according to Legends), an experienced veteran pilot. Gold 5 was destroyed during the assault on the first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin.

My aim when I set out to make this MOC was to make a minifigure-scale rebel Y-Wing that was highly detailed, but more importantly, the details matched to the original studio filming model.

What a high target to aim at...

My decision on which member of Gold Squadron to make was largely influenced by what reference pictures I could find. In the end, I found the most pictures for the Gold 5/Gold 3 model (they were the same physical model used to film both), and so my decision was made for me. The reference pictures I used can be found here, if anyone would like to play a game of spot-the difference. In terms of details, I've done my best. Any suggestions would be appreciated though. A fair few sections in the pictures were pretty hard to make out, and so I had to go with my best guess as to what I thought I was seeing and what I should be trying to replicate.

Admittedly, the engines were built by (somehow) managing to reverse engineer the engines used on Jerac's Y-Wing model. I couldn't help it, he absolutely nailed the design, and I couldn't think of any better engines to use. The Ion cannon on the top of the cockpit is in the same situation. Thankyou Jerac for the great designs, and sorry for pinching them! The rest however is all original.

As of this post, the entire model is buildable irl as far as colour's go, except 4 pieces. I have used 2x 65426 in yellow (one on top, one on bottom) and 2x 65429 in yellow (again one on top, one on bottom). These are used to create the yellow detailing on the cockpit/head. I hope to come back to this model in the future and, among other things, rectify this by finding a solution that will work irl. If building irl, I would also use 30327pb05 as the windscreen, but unfortunately stud.io does not have this piece yet, so the pictures show a different print pattern instead.

I mentioned earlier I plan to come back to this model. Hopefully soon, I will do this. My aims will be to rectify the unavailable pieces, and add (functional) landing gear that can fold up and away. I don't know whether I will be able to or not, but I am going to give it a go. After that, I plan to build it irl and test whether it's actually stable enough, or whether it will fall apart... 🤞

But now, the renders...

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Please feel free to share your criticisms, suggestions, or ideas! I also made a "generic" rebel Y-Wing which has more generic greebling and a few features that the Gold 5 model never had, but was essentially the same as this model with a few surface details changed. A BTL-B Y-Wing (the type flown by the republic during the Clone Wars, which has full armour plating) is also in the works, but has sort of been left and not touched for a while, but I will come back to it eventually.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy, this  is certainly my favourite MOC that I've built. I hope someone else can enjoy it too!

-Binks

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nice piece of work - well done greeblings and very good overall design!

I simply would try either https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=48183#T=C or https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=43719#T=C to replace the yellow wedge plates. On such bigger models built in real life such small deviations are neglectable and will by anyway only noticed by some true nerds if at all.

The connection from body to the engines look also a little thicker on the pictures. For stability reasons it would be good to incorporate maybe two liftarms in each connecting part?

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Thanks mate! 43719 looks like it could work, I'll give that a try. Unfortunately I am one of those nerds you speak of... :sadnew:

Also, apologies, but could you explain a little more your idea for the liftarms in the engine pylons?

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From what I could tell, the pylons are attached by 2 plates of structure surrounded by greebling, which isn't going to be enough. its a little bit of a myth that something needs technic in order to be strong, it just makes things easier in many cases. I would have the top plate and bottom plate separated by at least 2 plates and the exposed edges filled in with more greebles so that it forms a square tubing sort of shape, which should be enough to handle the weight

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When you compare your MOC with the offical set 75181 you can see that their connection without greebling is 5 plates high with technic bricks in the middle and additional support below by plates with pin hole 2444. As your engine would have a similar weight two plates for the connection will not be enough. Maybe 4 plates can make it but I would say if you use liftarms or better technic bricks you can attach the greebling directly to the technic bricks.

 

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18 minutes ago, Mr Ogel said:

When you compare your MOC with the offical set 75181 you can see that their connection without greebling is 5 plates high with technic bricks in the middle and additional support below by plates with pin hole 2444. As your engine would have a similar weight two plates for the connection will not be enough. Maybe 4 plates can make it but I would say if you use liftarms or better technic bricks you can attach the greebling directly to the technic bricks.

 

Yeah I wasn't quite awake to realize this isn't built "IRL"

 

But as someone who has had to deal with such things (See my TIE/d thread below) - yeah - that won't hold - better to be safe than sorry.

It looks good - but the weight/strength is in question - unless your going to cradle those engines.

I would give it 1 in 4 odds of holding - but I'm paranoid.

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Thanks all for the kind words and ideas!

In terms of making the wings thicker, I'm hesitant as it would throw out the proportions, but if it comes down to it, I will look into all of your ideas. I could look into at least partial use of technic, but as ForgedInLego said technic isn't always needed to make things stronger - though it's certainly helpful. Hopefully this afternoon (so in a few hours) I'll be able to give this a go in stud.io and see if it will still keep the look I need/want while making it stronger. I'll let you guys know how it goes!

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2 hours ago, GrandEmperorBinks said:

... but as ForgedInLego said technic isn't always needed to make things stronger ...

sure, look at Jerac's Razor Crest - swooshable without almost any technic bricks. When you build it in real life and it is sturdy enough you can check what you can take away again without risking stability

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I think I just improved the wing pylon's stability by about 5000%...

Thankyou everyone for pointing out the wing's most likely stay up irl. I went back and I think I have found a solution.

Before, this section was simply a bunch of 1x1 round slopes on brackets. Now, it is some technic pipes that are connected at both the engine and the main body. This should hopefully stregnthen it enough. It also looks better, at least to me, and doesn't sacrifice the width of the pylons or have any other aesthetic issues.

Umab8K3.png

Time to replicate it on the other side... :facepalm:

 

 

Sidenote: Looking at the brickvault model, it's wings are also only a few plates thick, but it also has this tubing technique at the back... Surely this means it'll hold? Fingers crossed...

Edit: Picture didn't load, now fixed

Edited by GrandEmperorBinks

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16 minutes ago, GrandEmperorBinks said:

I think I just improved the wing pylon's stability by about 5000%...

Thankyou everyone for pointing out the wing's most likely stay up irl. I went back and I think I have found a solution.

Before, this section was simply a bunch of 1x1 round slopes on brackets. Now, it is some technic pipes that are connected at both the engine and the main body. This should hopefully stregnthen it enough. It also looks better, at least to me, and doesn't sacrifice the width of the pylons or have any other aesthetic issues.

Umab8K3.png

Time to replicate it on the other side... :facepalm:

 

 

Sidenote: Looking at the brickvault model, it's wings are also only a few plates thick, but it also has this tubing technique at the back... Surely this means it'll hold? Fingers crossed...

Edit: Picture didn't load, now fixed

If you want I could take a look at the design and give an honest opinion about structure - thanks to my recent hell I've suffered - should be easy to sus out stability/weight.

 

I also agree that techinic isn't always necessarily the best solution - but it looks like you have some good stuff going on thus far.

Feel free to PM me if you want me to take a gander. Or just provide cross-sections here.

Also avail on Discord if you want to chat.

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2 hours ago, Kage Goomba said:

If you want I could take a look at the design and give an honest opinion about structure - thanks to my recent hell I've suffered - should be easy to sus out stability/weight.

Feel free to PM me if you want me to take a gander. Or just provide cross-sections here.

Also avail on Discord if you want to chat.

Yeah! I might hit you up on that offer, I'll DM you my discord, that might be easiest if you were ok with that. It should be good, but never hurts to get a second opinion.

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4 hours ago, GrandEmperorBinks said:

Yeah! I might hit you up on that offer, I'll DM you my discord, that might be easiest if you were ok with that. It should be good, but never hurts to get a second opinion.

If there's one thing I've learned - is eurobricks is full of bloody genius's.

 

@ForgedInLego over there is a life saver for one - he bailed me out of trouble on my TIE/d MOC.

The folks here across the different segmented areas are just full of brilliant ideas.

Way I see it - might as well pay that forward. :D

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On 7/10/2022 at 10:48 AM, GrandEmperorBinks said:

I think I just improved the wing pylon's stability by about 5000%...

Thankyou everyone for pointing out the wing's most likely stay up irl. I went back and I think I have found a solution.

Before, this section was simply a bunch of 1x1 round slopes on brackets. Now, it is some technic pipes that are connected at both the engine and the main body. This should hopefully stregnthen it enough. It also looks better, at least to me, and doesn't sacrifice the width of the pylons or have any other aesthetic issues.

Umab8K3.png

Time to replicate it on the other side... :facepalm:

 

 

Sidenote: Looking at the brickvault model, it's wings are also only a few plates thick, but it also has this tubing technique at the back... Surely this means it'll hold? Fingers crossed...

Edit: Picture didn't load, now fixed

That's how you make super strong structures without technic pieces. Maybe my Y-Wing doesn't look like that too much, but if you take away the greebling you'll see the same idea used over and over again, most notably in the wings/engine area.

Kbxvlz1.png

This deceptively thin wing can easily support any amount of weight, as long as physical piece integrity holds. Since you don't have to use 1x12 bricks, you can go with pair of 1x12 plates, you can make the wing a plate thicker for even more rigidity.

Want even more strength and also to ensure the brackets won't pop? Just add more layers!

eRFfUqp.png

You can go on and go on adding layers of strength, eventually making loops out of them so there is no legal way of detaching the pieces. Brackets are magic.

They allow for much more compact bracing and rigidity than technic pieces. 

Edited by Jerac

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On 7/18/2022 at 4:58 AM, Jerac said:

That's how you make super strong structures without technic pieces. Maybe my Y-Wing doesn't look like that too much, but if you take away the greebling you'll see the same idea used over and over again, most notably in the wings/engine area.

Kbxvlz1.png

This deceptively thin wing can easily support any amount of weight, as long as physical piece integrity holds. Since you don't have to use 1x12 bricks, you can go with pair of 1x12 plates, you can make the wing a plate thicker for even more rigidity.

Want even more strength and also to ensure the brackets won't pop? Just add more layers!

eRFfUqp.png

You can go on and go on adding layers of strength, eventually making loops out of them so there is no legal way of detaching the pieces. Brackets are magic.

They allow for much more compact bracing and rigidity than technic pieces. 

Yeah right. Interesting. Never even thought of that. Thankyou for the help jerac! And the tolerance for me taking inspiration (and a little more) from your model 😳

Hopefully I'll have another update on how it's going soon, if anyone is still interested in this.

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5 hours ago, GrandEmperorBinks said:

Yeah right. Interesting. Never even thought of that. Thankyou for the help jerac! And the tolerance for me taking inspiration (and a little more) from your model 😳

Hopefully I'll have another update on how it's going soon, if anyone is still interested in this.

Cant wait to see your updates - feel free to hit me up on discord for spot checking if you want.

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19 hours ago, Kage Goomba said:

Cant wait to see your updates - feel free to hit me up on discord for spot checking if you want.

Will do! Hopefully I'll get some time to work on it in a day or two.

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On 7/31/2022 at 3:07 PM, LEGO Train 12 Volts said:

This scale allows to highlight the details ... great job! :thumbup:
I like the use of the tracks for the tail thrusters :wub:

Thanks! I do have to admit that technique was not originally mine... i nicked it from Jerac :blush: 

 

Also, expect to have an update in a few hours everyone!

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So

I've recently made a few changes, beginning with cleaning up the engine greebling (it was previously too dense/much)

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I've also added landing gear, though at this point they are there more for accuracy rather than actual functionality, I don't believe they'd hold the weight of the starfighter very well. Nontheles, here they are:

(1 on each engine)

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(front)

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Although it isn't shown, I have also strengthened the wing pylons internally as previous posts in this thread have suggested. Thanks all for the support and kind words so far!

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It's been a while... I've recently finished a large redesign, which incorporated @Jerac's technique to help the build be more stable - thanks mate! Unfortunately I had to sacrifice the landing gear. But oh well. I also cleaned up the greebling to make it neater and more accurate.

The first lot of pieces from bricklink also arrived the other day - it's time to build it irl! I'll keep ya posted

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