ScottishDave

Just as an experiment, I coupled my one and only motor, which happens to be an "M", to one of the crank handle axles. I made no changes at all to the original gearbox: It works very nicely. It's a bit jerky, but that might be the nature of the mechanism. Video is here The motor sticks out the back of the ship by a stud's length. I am not too bothered by that: as lowlead pointed out, the shuttle needs to be built up in that area anyway. Added bonus: since, with this system I don't need to fill the body of the shuttle with batteries, motors and gears to power the wings, I was able to build the "play" interior that my son has been wanting: The floor of the troop compartment is sitting right on top of the gearbox - I removed everything down to and including the the yellow technic bricks and blue beams which support the top fin. I also moved the bricks underneath the side walls out a stud to make room for the seating. The compartment at the rear is for a AAA battery box. I still have to work out how to make the landing gear fold up, but that is a problem for another time! More pictures are in the flickr set. I shall resume building on this in a month or two, when finances allow.

Thank you! I do appreciate your kind permission. Thank you for the pictures and the information :-). two "M" motors work fine.

Many thanks for taking the time to look out a picture. Your explanation is nice and clear, and I can replicate your work from that photo. Your mechanism looks robust, and I do like the approach of making as few changes as possible to the original model. I also like the idea of using a single motor. A few questions, if I may...? I was thinking of using two smaller motors directly coupled at the back. Did you ever explore that method? When you say, "Compact reduction gearbox", do you mean one of these, or some other mechanism? Can you recall which gears you used, or even roughly what the ratio was? Where did you put the battery? Was it at the front, with the motor? Many thanks!

Ah well, it was worth a shot. Thanks for the tip about the linear actuators - I've never seen them before. They do look ideal. I'm always happy to spread the affliction . By the way, I can't completely recommend bricklinking this one in parts. There are some expensive and hard-to-find pieces in this set. The most problematic for me (in the UK), were: 2x2x3 75 degree white double slopes (3685) (need 6 for just the shuttle) 1x9 white liftarms (40490). (need 30) Not as individually expensive as bley boat rigging or printed Falcon dishes , but unless you have a few crates of white parts lying around, including at least some of the ones mentioned, you might be better off buying one of the many fine mint boxed examples still available on Bricklink or eBay. Of course, I would not dream of suggesting that you spray any parts white. That would be wrong.

Glad to hear it . I wouldn't mind some feedback if you do use the 1.2 file! Your build looks great. Black and dark grey work well together! I see that the 4x4 wedge slope is causing you problems. Have you considered using black? I think it would go well with your colour scheme.

Now there is an idea... The biggest problem for me was the 4x4 wedge slopes which only come in four colours: brown, black, light blueish grey (2 in the UK at time of writing, 12 total anywhere, no seller has more than 2) and dark red (7 lots in UK with four or more: one seller has 28.) Plus, your dark red version looked soooo good . I'd be very interested to see what you do. If it helps, I left a (roughly) 2x6 stud gap in my LXF, down by the gun pod.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I've tried both methods. LDD rejects the stud method (and IRL it is slightly less sturdy) so I've gone with TheBear's suggestion. LXF is in the usual place. Trans-orange is a good choice for B-Wings. LDD only lets me position the half-pin at the end of the the hard plastic wheel, which doesn't allow for the trans-orange dish. I see from Krispy's post and my own messing about with real bricks that LDD is wrong: IRL the half-pin is positioned further in. This helps explain why, when I look at 1.1 and 1.0, the engines dissappear in a cloud of "incorrectly positioned bricks": I'm guessing that at some point in the last 14 months an LDD update broke the geometry of the wheel. However, if Lego ever correct the geometry for that part, there might be more problems with 1.2.

... so they are . Personally I quite like them that way... However, in order to do the job properly: RenegadeClone, could you possibly post an image of how you attached your engines originally? I can't see a clear shot in your "instructions" folder. Fixed. New file is in the same location. There was a parts collision with one corner of one of the plates on the wing. Annoyingly, this only appears to be the case in LDD's fevered little mind, and only on that side. The other side is FINE, and should be taken as the template for building the wing surface. Needless to say, I have no such issue on the actual model, I've shortened the plate on the wing, removing a stud's worth of material. Don't worry, nothing important will drop off if you do build it that way .

Please find, for your consideration: B-Wing 1.2 I have included notes with the file, reproduced below. I know, we've covered most of it in topic already, but someone might get the file without the having read the topic and I want give them a fighting chance. Before anyone asks: no landing gear in this version. I'm still footering around with real bricks. Feedback, either on the model or the notes, expressly welcomed. File History: Original design by RenegadeClone. 20130111 v1.0 by Krspy - initial release 20130115 v1.1 by Krispy - Strengthened internal framework 20140310 v1.2 by ScottishDave - Strengthened engines and framework - based on original work by RenegadeClone. - Strengthened wing mount, as suggested by TheBear - Added opening cockpit Notes: Reference This file and its contents are extensively discussed in this topic on Eurobricks.com. Please look there for the latest version of this file and for further building tips and advice. Hidden Bricks Bricks in "bright blue" are hidden by other bricks. You can therefore substitute any colour you like. I seriously doubt that you can get some of these bricks in bright blue, so please don’t even try! Colour This version has Dark Red squadron markings. For the most part you can build the Sand Blue version the same way: however, the wedge bricks and slopes on either side of the engine should be substituted with Light blueish gray bricks - if you can find them. Also, due to part limitations, I used six dark red 1x1 brick with stud on one side to attach certain parts. If building in sand blue, you should use three 1 x 2 brick with Studs on 2 Sides. If building in dark grey, you should use six 1 x 1 brick with Studs on 2 Sides. LDD problems The 7-long technic lift arm will not attach to most studs. Rather than include an extra part, or weaken the framework for the sake of that beam. I've left the beam "floating". I trust that it is obvious where it should go. The outer guns under the cockpit refuse to attach to the nubs on the sides of the thin 2x2 hinge plates. They really do attach, and rather securely, in real life. Once again, they have been left floating. The rear of the main wing looks OK as it is in the LDD. However, in real life I built it half a stud further outwards towards the gun pod (Notice that all the parts I use to hold it on have hollow studs). LDD refuses to allow this, as it causes part collisions inside the gun pod. LDD is being silly again - real plastic flexes! There are two pneumatic hoses missing from the LDD, which make a nice loop with some detail parts between the Proton torpedo launchers ( or to get technical, the big blunt cylindrical thingies). Krispy discusses one of them in this post. Both are visible in this picture from RenegadeClone’s instructions. I used two different lengths: At the rear I used one which was 11 studs long. I had to trim it slightly, so 10 studs long will probably do. This loops through a 1x1 technic brick also left off the model, this time due to part collision with the engine covers. At the front I used a six-stud length Rare Bricks At the time of writing, and especially in Scotland & the UK, it is very difficult to get hold of: Large Hard plastic wheel in LBG - Dark grey looks good. 2x6 curved slope in LBG - use 2x4 curved slope or 1x4 curved slope + plates (thanks to TheBear for the suggestion) 4x4 wedge brick in LBG - this is why I used Dark Red. Your only other choices are black or dark brown, or use another part. 4x6 modified tile with studs around the edge in LBG - Any old plate will do Ribbed hose with ends, complete in light blueish grey - you can purchase the hose and the ends separately. You can get away with only one end per hose, as the hose will push into the “O” clips securely. Anything in sand blue - use Dark Grey, or Dark Red... or get creative! Dark Blue also looks good. I strongly suggest that you check availability of those parts before starting this build.

Thank you very much for the superb model. Thank you especially for the LXF file. I fully appreciate that this is an A-Wing/Eta corssover, but the shape of the cockpit strongly reminds me of the IRD-A fighters from "Han Solo at Stars End". Now, I'm sure I had a bunch of 75-degree slopes somewhere around here...

No problem, TheBear. Nearly there with the 1.2 LXF now... just the lower engines to do. I should have it ready to post in the next few days.

Thanks, Scott-S6. That's a great help. I hadn't thought of a retracting block on the engine. Not entirely sure if that's possible, but we'll see.

Fan-dabby-dozy, that man. All I found was a bunch of film stills It's that rocking forward that I would like to eliminate. The gun on my S-Foil keeps bending and/or dropping off. How about a 1x1 round tile on top of the jumper plate in the mid-top of the engine? In dark red, it would hardly change the look, and it would give the engine one more solid point of contact. I've tried it with a square tile, and it works pretty well. Combined with my opening cockpit and a temporary stand, I have four points of contact, and I have to go some to get it to rock forward. It might well do. Does it have the same gear as the Dagger Squadron model pictured in the page I linked to, or different gear?

Thank you for suggesting this mod in the first place! I hope you and the kid are happy with the result. The key insight for this mod came from - ironically - a Jedi Interceptor which I saw on MOCpages. Check out that rear landing gear. Droid arm + a pair of handles = 2 stud slide-out. I always knew I'd find a way to use that little snippet of info someday (And yeah... the Jedi Interceptor whose purchase I am planning will never, ever be built as Lego intended. But that's another MOC, for another thread.) On to the next B-Wing Mod! One thing that has been bugging me I'd like to change about this model (no offence intended to Renegade Clone or Krispy) is the lack of integrated landing gear. To my surprise, I can't find any refs or pictures for actual landing gear. In ROTJ you see the back or top of the cockpit (as a matte painting), or the craft in flight: never the entire ship landed with the gear visible. The closest I've gotten is from some photos of the Hasbro "Dagger Squadron" toy. Oddly enough, I'm not about to treat that as a primary source. Before I start footering around with my own design (perhaps inspired by the Hasbro lump, perhaps not) can I please ask: - have any of my fellow B-Wing squadron members added landing gear which I could take a peep at? - Or do you all have accounts of failed attempts, from which I can take dire and solemn warnings? - Does anyone have any bright ideas or suggestions? - has anyone turned up a better reference for the actual landing gear than the Hasbro model?

Fair's fair... I'm trying to resist building an Arc-135 just to see if it's possible in real bricks.

Thanks chaps! I was worried that I was restricting people to an unpopular canopy choice. Looks like I'll be buying a Jedi Interceptor this weekend.

Thank you for your help and encouragement. Well, yes, about that.... The good news is: With some droid arms and a few tiles, it slides forward and then opens just fine. It really is quite sturdy: only the front guns are prone to dropping off if you look at them funny. Edit: fixed. I used a bracket instead of the pair of minifig neck brackets pictured in the photos. The bad news (Well, not so much bad as bad-ish, in a "You have to laugh" sort of way) ... In order to slide the canopy forward two bricks, to a position where it can flip open, you need a cockpit piece with a 2-brick-wide cutout at the back to get over the 2x1 axle bricks. The only 6 x 10 x 3 canopy I've ever seen with such a cut-out is... well: ... unless the new Jedi Interceptor has one? Here is an LXF for just the modified cockpit. Comments, suggestions, improvements all very welcome. Edit: I just updated the LXF. The link remains the same. The hinge brick thin top plates make the canopy piece stronger. The side guns DO connect to the nubs on the hinge plates, LDD is just being thick.

I'd better get on with it then.

I just finished this: Many thanks to: - Renegade Clone (and his brother RenegadeClone) for the original design - Krispy for his excellent LXF files - The Bear for egging me on. Built in Dark Red, because life is too short to wait around for overseas bricklink orders. BTW if anyone in Scotland or the UK is thinking of building this, you'll probably find that (besides the Sand Blue parts) you might struggle to locate sufficient numbers of: 44126 6 x 2 curved slope 6180 Tile 4 x 6 modified with studs around the edges (Especially this week, as I've just been through). The slopes can be replaced by 4x1 curved slopes or 4x2 curved slopes plus a couple of plates. This model owes a lot to both Krispy's design and to Renegade Clone's original framework (referenced elsewhere in this thread). I took great pains to make it as stable and solid as possible. I wanted to make sure that a certain six-year-old could swoosh it without worrying too much about breaking it. For example, I used Krispy's nice and sturdy framework to join the cockpit to the ship, the Clones' engine covers (with some mods), and The Bear's wing attachment mod. There are similar blendings of different versions throughout the model. Krispy, rather than give detailed feedback: I'm planning to do an LXF documenting exactly what I built - would it be OK with you if I posted it here? Finally, just for fun, some cockpit comparison photos: Dark Grey Jedi Interceptor: Light Blue-Grey Jedi Interceptor: UCS B-Wing:

Well, I might possibly (cough) have put too many in the corridor. I've seen some better references since then and counted the lights a bit more carefully (There are four! Lights! ... oops, sorry, wrong show). Thank you for your kind words. It will happen. I'm currently being sidetracked by a Krispy/RenegadeClone B-Wing (light relief after the Falcon) but I will get back to it at some point. Not that I've ever seen. If you do find one, please post it here. I'd love to know how to build the interior properly. That could work. I think you'd have to recess the dishes to get the right effect - otherwise the undersides would be visible and distracting. Nice one, Bob. Either works for me (I can create my own vinyl stickers, y'know) or I could use a black/Dark bley 4x4 round plate.

In the first post: I got bored and started reworking the engines on my UCS Millennium Falcon clone. In this update: I got a bit carried away. I've now made changes to almost every part of the upper hull. I'm not finished yet: I still want to resize the turrets, and then I need to tackle the underside, the engine room and especially the framework (to fix a nasty case of mandible sag which the old girl has picked up) but I'm taking a breather for a few weeks. I spent a lot of time examining detailed photos of the 32-inch Falcon studio model. I won't claim that my interpretation is is perfect, but it is a whole lot closer to the actual studio model than the original UCS was. I've managed to squeeze in most of the pipes and a lot of the greeblies. I’m quite pleased with the way the hull plates worked out. For the rear engine deck I took a lot of inspiration from Mike Psiaki's incomplete Falcon. All the parts on the engine deck are just about where they ought to be. The 8x8 circular "vents" are too large, but I’ve yet to see an alternative that I like. Does anyone have any bright ideas? It needs to be 6 studs wide. The circular access ports on the mandibles are in the correct position, and nearly the correct size. (They should be 5 studs wide. Again: can anyone suggest a better part?) Here is another WIP picture for comparison. The 6-stud-wide access ports that Lego used (on the right) are far too big. Because they are so large, the edge of the main hull is pushed further back until it is oval, nor circular: The greeblies on the sides of the mandibles are now accurately positioned and the wedge plates on the mandibles are the correct angle. I used the older 4x8 with notch wedge plates, which are perfect for the job. There is now also a lip over the greeblies running two thirds of the way along the mandibles. I tried a few times to buy a UCS Falcon radar dish on ebay, but got frustrated with the silly prices. In the end I spent a few hours with a vector drawing package and came up with this. Click on the thumbnail to open full size on Brickshelf. Alternate URL in case Brickshelf goes down again. I suggest that you print it out onto clear sticky-backed vinyl, spray it with varnish or inkjet fixative, cut as close to the edge of the actual design as you dare and apply carefully. Cut out thin triangles between the individual radial elements for a better fit on the curved dish. The inner square and outer circle are guidelines. If you cut them off as closely as possible, the sticker should fit perfectly over the central four studs and go almost to the outer notches on the 10x10 dish. If you've sealed it with varnish, you can use the soapy water trick to get it into position. More pictures are available in my flickr set. As usual, all comments and suggestions are welcome.

Yes, it is done simply by stressing the bracket against the slope brick. You don't get much movement out of it, but it is enough to move the tip of the barrel a few mm inwards.

Thank you! In that case, you will be pleased to know that my snowspeeder can indeed be built in light grey with almost no part changes (the 18 degree 1x2 slope with slots needs to be in dark grey, but I think that's all). I have no strong opinion on this topic - I did have one in light grey for ages until I gave it to a young friend who needed one more than I needed two. I just wish Lego had (a lot) more parts in very light blueish-grey, so that we could all be happy. Thank you! I'd love to see an updated version of your Snowspeeder, if you do rebuild it.

Apologies, also. Rather than veer this topic further off course, I've started a new topic over here

I'm sorry if my remark came over as sarcastic - not what I intended at all! I honestly do appreciate the efforts which people on this board put in to make their models accurate. On my shelf I have a Pellaeon SSD, a Psiaki X-Wing, a Petersen Y-Wing, the under-discussion Krispy A-Wing and a Larry Lars Snowspeeder. I'm also midway through building a Krispy/RenegadeClone B-Wing. Whilst I have modded all of them somewhat, that is just my borderline OCD at work. I'm happy with the overall accuracy of the original models, and grateful for the work of all the people involved. Thank you for the heads-up on the Toro pictures. I had no idea they had a flickr stream, but I've found it now. I think I found the A-Wing pictures via the Studio Scale section on the RPF forum, which turns out to be a great place to find detailed close-ups of obsessively accurate reproductions of the original studio models. I did! I have enjoyed the discussion of different fin designs, and the alternatives which people have found. I'm glad we have so many options to try. As you can see from my pictures, I favour the studs-traditionally-facing-up solution. Generally I prefer it when a "smooth" model is smooth as possible (as opposed to, say, the Millennium Falcon, which looks better in studs). Mixing studs and smooth doesn't look nearly as nice, IMHO.