Stud.io Millennium falcon WIP

[Winmor29]

I decided that I would completely rebuild the frame of my Millennium Falcon in Stud.io over winter break. I have no experience with building big Lego technic structures so I would like to know your guys' thoughts. None of it has been built in person so I have no idea how strong it will be. I'm planning on building it over the summer and will probably not work on the project until then but thought I'd post the starting point. all of the outside work is inspired by many different mocs so not my design at all really. It's also based on the 5ft model of the Millennium Falcon.

I have posted the design here, no idea if downloading will work, I don't know how to post stud.io files.

https://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=510377

Mandible and cockpit frame:

Better view of the entire frame as well as with one of the mandible covers off:

Some fun shots of the outside:

 

[ForgedInLego]

That looks awesome! A couple of recommendations I have though are to try to connect the lower mandible panel with a technic pin as close as you can to the tip. This will turn the mandibles into a sort of I beam with no top, much stronger than just those technic parts (don't bother with the upper mandible panel it has no tensile strength). I'd also put some structure in the walls between the docking bays and the mandibles to prevent sag, I'm not 100% with your current setup. Cockpit attachment could use some work too, looks like its gonna want to sag forward, but that might be counteracted by the weight of the tunnel. Keep in mind, a plate above and below a technic frame to lock it in place goes a long way, and technic is not the only way to make things strong.

Good luck and happy building!

[Winmor29]

On 1/20/2024 at 8:01 PM, ForgedInLego said:

That looks awesome! A couple of recommendations I have though are to try to connect the lower mandible panel with a technic pin as close as you can to the tip. This will turn the mandibles into a sort of I beam with no top, much stronger than just those technic parts (don't bother with the upper mandible panel it has no tensile strength). I'd also put some structure in the walls between the docking bays and the mandibles to prevent sag, I'm not 100% with your current setup. Cockpit attachment could use some work too, looks like its gonna want to sag forward, but that might be counteracted by the weight of the tunnel. Keep in mind, a plate above and below a technic frame to lock it in place goes a long way, and technic is not the only way to make things strong.

Good luck and happy building!

Thanks for the tips I'll try them out!

[Chrome Vader]

Your landing gear boxes have a great aesthetic! I like that a lot. As for the technic supporting structure, it looks like most of the technic bricks run front-to-back, which means there's the potential for separation and sag from side to side. Also, the mandibles look like they will need more support to not sag, especially at the outer edges. I found with my Falcon that the inner straight beams of the mandibles were not sufficient to support the mandibles' weight--I needed an outer edge support as well as technic supports along the back edge tied into the main frame around the landing gear boxes. Depending on how much of the interior you plan to build, you'll need to of course be mindful of that technic structure interfering with your forward cargo bays (my model was imperfect in that regard). If it helps any, when I built my main frame, I had intersecting, pinned technic beams running throughout the entire lower saucer with two layers of plates on the bottom to solidify it, and then toward the center of the saucer where it was deeper I added a second layer of pinned, intersecting technic bricks and then another bottom layer of plates. So the main frame ranged from one technic brick thick at the outer edges to two bricks and four plates thick at the center. This resulted in significant rigidity that was able to support the immense weight of all of the outermost structures of the hull, etc--I was not able to flex the main frame with my hands, so I knew it could hold the weight. It's possible I over-engineered it and you could do it with fewer parts and less thickness in the center. But when working with technic the main things to keep in mind are that the more pins and the more criss-crossing of bricks that you have, the stronger it will be, and layers of plates above or below layers of pinned technic bricks are essential to create sufficient rigidity to prevent flex. Also, as Forged noted, the cockpit on Falcons of this scale does like to tip forward, so you'll need back end support of some kind to anchor it.

Looking forward to seeing your further progress! :) 

[Winmor29]

On 1/22/2024 at 11:36 PM, Chrome Vader said:

Your landing gear boxes have a great aesthetic! I like that a lot. As for the technic supporting structure, it looks like most of the technic bricks run front-to-back, which means there's the potential for separation and sag from side to side. Also, the mandibles look like they will need more support to not sag, especially at the outer edges. I found with my Falcon that the inner straight beams of the mandibles were not sufficient to support the mandibles' weight--I needed an outer edge support as well as technic supports along the back edge tied into the main frame around the landing gear boxes. Depending on how much of the interior you plan to build, you'll need to of course be mindful of that technic structure interfering with your forward cargo bays (my model was imperfect in that regard). If it helps any, when I built my main frame, I had intersecting, pinned technic beams running throughout the entire lower saucer with two layers of plates on the bottom to solidify it, and then toward the center of the saucer where it was deeper I added a second layer of pinned, intersecting technic bricks and then another bottom layer of plates. So the main frame ranged from one technic brick thick at the outer edges to two bricks and four plates thick at the center. This resulted in significant rigidity that was able to support the immense weight of all of the outermost structures of the hull, etc--I was not able to flex the main frame with my hands, so I knew it could hold the weight. It's possible I over-engineered it and you could do it with fewer parts and less thickness in the center. But when working with technic the main things to keep in mind are that the more pins and the more criss-crossing of bricks that you have, the stronger it will be, and layers of plates above or below layers of pinned technic bricks are essential to create sufficient rigidity to prevent flex. Also, as Forged noted, the cockpit on Falcons of this scale does like to tip forward, so you'll need back end support of some kind to anchor it.

Looking forward to seeing your further progress! :) 

True I didn't even think about the technic only running front to back. As for the mandibles, right now the cockpit support is connected to the right mandible as well as the frame, do you think something similar can be built on the other side, or should both sides be beefed up a little? I plan to build a fullish interior, I might have to find a way to build the mandible support into the wall of one of the rooms I doubt the front cargo bays will be included in my model either though. Thanks for the insight into your Falcon! Yours is one of the reasons I picked up this project again!

[Chrome Vader]

9 hours ago, Winmor29 said:

True I didn't even think about the technic only running front to back. As for the mandibles, right now the cockpit support is connected to the right mandible as well as the frame, do you think something similar can be built on the other side, or should both sides be beefed up a little? I plan to build a fullish interior, I might have to find a way to build the mandible support into the wall of one of the rooms I doubt the front cargo bays will be included in my model either though. Thanks for the insight into your Falcon! Yours is one of the reasons I picked up this project again!

The cockpit support that you have rising above the framework in the landing gear box looks like it will be effective in helping strengthen the mandibles if you want to mirror it for the left side, but the mandibles' outer diagonal will likely also need to be tied into the frame back by the docking rings. As for beefiness...sometimes you can get the stability you need just by using a few technic lift arms or bricks pinned at opposing angles, and big technic structures are not always necessary. Unfortunately, it's hard to know how sturdy something is from a digital render--I was scratch-building so I had the luxury of being able to twist and wiggle stuff to expose weak points and then experiment with different anchor points to alleviate the sag or wiggle. What I do remember was that the mandibles wanted to sag forward but also sag sideways, so I had to anchor them against both twist axis.

[magureanpaul]

This looks very good at this point. I see that you mainly use the snot technique for the hull. At some point it will look too smooth for the "fastest hunk of junk". So it will need to change some of the bricks to side stud bricks or other special bricks that have different forms.

Anyway good job and happy building.

[zsoltom]

this looks awesome, but i always wonder how can people design this big sets in .io? :D I can only build irl with bricks, and after everything checks out, i make the io model, and still .io finds collision all the time when i exactly know it"s ok since i built it first :D 

[Sucram]

following this on Flickr and its looking pretty great! Big fan of the SNOT techniques for the mandibles and whatnot but I agree with magureanpaul that my personal taste prefers more "messy" Falcons like the UCS. Still looks really good though.

[zsoltom]

we all tend to forget, that the falcon once was brand new and might have looked this clean :D

 

[Winmor29]

Tried to implement the suggestions for the mandibles, pretty happy with this new structure. I've also built the mandibles lighter and a bit smaller, each one only around 400 pieces, which should help the structure: 

The top and bottom plates aren't finished yet so they still have holes. As for the SNOT and the lack of detail, I agree, it does need more texture. Right now I'm focusing on how to connect the different plates and the big tiles are kind of just a placeholder. Once the structure is done I'll be adding as much detail as I can lol. Here is a pic of the side mandible detailing mostly done:

I think the fact that it's digital also makes it look a little cleaner than it would look in real life. My goal for the detailing is for it to be similar to Marshall Bananas Millennium Falcon hopefully lmao. Zsoltom it was a little daunting to build in stud.io, but I think overall it's becoming my preferred method, no waiting for bricks, can easily redesign huge sections of the model, a huge palate, and one benefit I didn't think about but doing the math to find the angles seems a lot easier, when building in person I get too tempted just to guess and check lol.

Editing this because I have a small update, decided to do a little test run of what sort of detail I would add to the quarter dome I showed above:

Pretty happy with the texture and level of detail let me know what you guys think

Edited March 17 by Winmor29

[MBricks]

I really really like the shaping of the hull plating. Such a nice looking technique. Can’t wait to see more

[Chrome Vader]

Looking fantastic! Excited to see your continued progress. 

[Sucram]

This is looking really really good, now wondering if I should hold off on building the Brick Vault falcon and wait to see how this turns out!

I assume interior is a no-go on this one?

Edited March 20 by Sucram
added

[MWERA24]

Wow this looks great! 

[Winmor29]

Thanks for all the nice words! Sucram the plan is to build an interior, I’m modifying the frame now that I have the bottom plates mostly complete and can show what type of space is on the inside in like a week maybe. Big compliment comparing it to the brickvault one tho!