Gray_Mouser

I've just built this tie fighter. I'm impressed with... pretty much everything. The amount of details inside the cockpit, the roundness of the "eyeball" considering the scale and the fact that it has an interior, the building techniques used in the wings, the sturdiness... Really, very nice job! Just one remark: I think you forgot 4 2x1 gray plates in your LDD file (in order to close the hexagons on the insides of the wings).

Thank you! Actually, I have just finished to build it. The good news is that it can be done, with some slight modifications and omissions (some elements that can attach to each other in LDD cannot in real life). The targetting computer is gone (although it could be included in a display model), as are the transparent dishes at the rear of the thrusters (not a big loss). The bad news is that: it is a terminal pain in the neck to build. The sides of the cockpit and the nose are attached to the body with ball joints, and they are so stiff that the angles have to be right before assembly. It wouldn't be so bad if the joints could be easily reachable but they're not. the nose is too flimsy. It is tilted upward, and in theory it shouldn't be able to tilt back downward. In reality it can, because the bricks are not perfectly in place to begin with, and they can move a little. The engines are not attached as solidly as I would like (but I think I could live with it) The wings are too flimsy as well. The gray areas and the red stripes prevented the use of sturdier solutions. Maybe they can be moved, or removed altogether (I guess the red stripes wouldn't be missed, although I like them) I don't think the wings would stand a lot a closings / openings before something detach inside the body. I doubled the number of hinges though, so the wings would stay in place for some time even with a loose hinge. The front landing gear is faulty, because it is attached to the top of the nose, which is allowed to tilt upward... Not good at all. The rear landing gears work fine though (I was afraid the cylinders would slip on them) So sadly, it is still a work in progress. It could be considered as a display model, I guess, but it would be a very sloppy one. I'm not giving up though. The main problem is the nose (especially the top), it's flimsy as hell. But it is mostly empty, so there must be some kind of way to link the top of the nose to the sides (and ideally the sides to the tip too). It probably means that the front landing gear won't be retractable anymore, but compromises will have to be made. I already took the model apart, and I really shouldn't work on it in the near future. But maybe I will all the same :-) I did take a picture though:

I'd say check what is available on Pick a Brick and B&P first. Then try to get the rest from Bricklink with the minimum number of shops (the shipping costs add up fast). Then, check if the items in your Pick a Brick and B&P baskets are available in the bricklink shop you've selected, and swap them if they are (if they are cheaper obviously). If you have a lego shop nearby, checking their wall could be a good idea too.

I'm almost done with the instructions. I've shortened the rear body length by one stud, it feels more accurate that way. My orders start to pile up, I will soon be able to test it for real. In the meantime I've played a little with povray. Next stop, pictures of the real thing. I can't wait!

Indeed, it looks much better than in LDD.

Because I've never heard of it? I'm really quite new at this. I didn't intend to make new visuals before the pictures of the physical build because although I made a lot of changes, it doesn't show all that much. But now maybe I will. Thanks for pointing this out, I'll look into it.

It can never be easy huh? It's not a big deal, I'll find a way. Thanks for the information.

Ldd files seem to be back. Anyway, I'm pretty much done and I've begun buying bricks. I try to make adjustements to decrease the overall price. My main problem is the 2780 connector peg, it's pretty rare. Do you think it can be replaced by the more common 3673 peg? Ldd won't let me slide it all the way along a bar, and I need to do that... From the 3d model, I can't see why it couldn't be done. Does it work with the real peg?

Thanks ScottishDave. You're right the smaller wedges are better. I'm aware the lengths of the guns are a little off. I fixed it already, but I made the visuals before. Someone also commented on Flickr he didn't like the underside of the fuselage around the canopy. He felt it was too tall, and I kinda agree. I removed the structurally important plate at the bottom but it probably doesn't help much. I also changed the slopes at the bottom so that the angle is steeper... It's more accurate but it screwed a lot of things inside the cockpit. Does it look better or worse? Can you even see the difference? Before: After: I aslo fixed some other little things, but you couldn't have known about them. Anyway, my time playing with virtual legos is unfortunately almost up, so it's time to work on the final version. Please let me know what options you like best, and I'll hopefully be able to upload the ldd file soon.

All right. This time I think I'm done. Hopefully. Maybe. Since last time, I made the following modifications: a lot of things around the cockpit to make the whole build sturdier (I keep using that word, I hope it's correct) added landing gears (the rear ones are not retractable nor attached, they're a sort of glorified stand). And before you ask, there are no hinges for the front gear hatch. The bricks have to be moved manually when the gear is retracted (but they are still part of the build). made the cannons slightly longer. lowered computer so that the pilot can see through the canopy greebling on top of the craft mechanism locking the two sides of the nose together I also had to change some bricks because some colors are not available. I most notably had to modify the canopy. I lack words to say how unhappy I was about that, but I think I managed to make the new one look roughly the same. The nozzles in the turbines are now gray (again, not happy), as are the slopes on the bulge. It is actually gray on one of the studio model so I may leave it like that. I still like white better, so I may still do something. Anyway, here are some new visuals. From above, I hope you'll agree this is about as good as it gets scale wise, especially since the reference materials are not always consistent: From the side, it's more complicated. I couldn't find a visual I could trust without a perspective problem. So I had to go with my guts. I went out of my way the make the build as solid as I could. But really, I have no way of knowing if the mod will not collapse under its own weight, let alone be swooshable. I'm not sure the rear landing gears will hold the xwing either. Is anyone with a big supply of bricks interested in alpha testing this mod? If not, I'll run a few more test, and order the bricks if I'm confident enough. There are 1223 bricks by the way (including two transparent darts for the lasers, and four transparent dishes for the thrusters, but excluding the figs). As always, comments are welcome.

Neat! Thank you! So now, let's say I want to buy some of my bricks on lego website, I still have to look at all the bricks one by one right? The thing is, sometimes price and availability vary if you want to buy a replacement, or buy a new brick. Is there a way to know which feature to use?

Any idea why I end up at simpsoncity when I click on the link? That's too bad, this tool is just what I need right now.

Thank you all for the kind words. I will eventually build it, but first I hope I will be able to improve it. For example there are no landing gears yet. The front one could be made easily because the nose is pretty much hollow. For the rear ones, I think maybe the cylinders could sit on something (without being attached) when the xwing is not in "flying mode". I don't know yet, but something must be done. I will share the LDD file, but I'm reluctant to do it now. There may still be critical flaws. I fixed a "weak spine" issue after making the pictures by the way. And because of that, I will have to move the bulge back, which I think is a good thing. There is something wrong with the overall shape when seen fro the side, and I think that's the reason. And some parts of the fuselage are not attached as solidly as I'd liked. When I posted the pictures I thought I was pretty much done, but now I'm not so sure. Do you mean the tip of the nose or the whole nose? Either way, I think it shouldn't do that with Inthert's design (because the tip is attached by the white slopes, and the 63868 brick that allows the rest of the nose to tilt should rest on a 4x4 plate below). I used a similar trick, but in my mod there is a risk that the tip will droop a little. I may have to work on that. And thanks for your comments on the roller skate piece. When I saw it in LDD, I had no clue what it was, but I knew exactly what to do with it. Thank you :-) It means much coming from you. You exaggerate though. I think it's obvious what the bloodline of the mod is. By the way, I don't know if you noticed but in one of the picture in the flickr album, the moc and the mod fly side by side. Nice! That's pretty much what happened, yes. The tip of the nose is indeed pretty much in line with the centre of the ship. But I simply used 73983 hinges to tilt the nose upward, so that the top and bottom angles are roughly the same. That's why the red line is not continuous by the way, so that it's not too obvious that it is tilted. Filling the gaps in the fuselage was not easy though, and it's still not perfect. Furthermore I'm not 100% sure that it will stay in place when it is built, even though I've given this some thoughts. The two sides of the nose are tilted inward as well as upward, and it seems to me they should stay up (the two sides are linked together, so they shouldn't tilt back outward, in turn preventing them from tilting back downward). It kinda sounds like circular reasoning though, so I don't know. There are a lot of other things I did, although a lot occurred inside, as you can imagine. Other comments, positive or negative are most welcome. I think I value criticism even more, because it may give me an opportunity to correct mistakes.

Done. You will find what I like to call the Inthert T-65 class Mouser x-wing here : http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=140212

UPDATE : Here is a picture and the ldd file of the latest version. Cehnot also uploaded some upgrades, check out the following pages! http://bricksafe.com/files/Gray_Mouser/GM_T65_v1.1.lxf Flickr album: https://flic.kr/s/aHskH13nM3 -------------------- Hi, A few months ago, Inthert set forth a MOC of the T-65 xwing. A fantastic MOC. Not only that, but he also took the time to publish instructions as well. It so happened I was looking for an x-wing MOC at the time, so that I could use it as a gift for my girlfriend. But even though there were instructions, there was no brick list, and some pictures were not quite clear. So I downloaded LDD and built a numerical version of Inthert's MOC. You can find more about Inthert's design here: http://www.eurobrick...howtopic=138324 Upon completion, I realized I was proficient enough with LDD to try to improve some parts of Inthert's design that didn't seem as good as the rest of the MOC. Don't get me wrong, Inthert's MOC looks very, very good and fitted very well with what I remembered from the T-65 x-wing. But when compared to visuals from the movies, there were definitely differences. Subtle ones, to be sure, but differences nonetheless. I started with very minor modifications (the canopy and the slopes on the wings). And things kinda got out of control from here. Since then I've spend a lot of time modding Inthert's MOC with the intent of making it as close to the real thing as possible. So the original MOC underwent very heavy modifications. I feel I modified most of the ship, and if you cannot tell at first glance that's good, it means I didn't screw everything up. So here is the result of my efforts. I don't know if you will notice what I modified, but I'll make a list of what I did if anyone is interested. Please let me know what you like, what you dislike, what looks better and what looks worse. Maybe I'll tweak this mod a bit further. Here is the link to the Flickr album : https://www.flickr.c...157672532315820

Yeah, I gotcha. I'll wait and see if modding your moc raises enough interest. If yes, then I'll open a dedicated topic. It should be easy enough; I'll explain what the starting point is (with a link to this topic), give credit, what changes have been made to your design already, and what remains to be done. I won't post any LDD of your modified MOC in this topic (and I removed the previous ones). I finished to update the LDD of your MOC though, and it is back in one of my previous message. Just a few words about my current efforts before the dedicated topic, if it ever gets created: - The scale as seen from above is pretty much what I want it to be (maybe the slopes, the wingspan and the cannons are not quite right, but adding one stud should do the trick) - The side view is what I struggle with these days. I increased the height of the body (notice how R2 is now at the right height in the picture below). However I feel that the "dent" at the bottom of the canopy is too low. I can elevate the whole cockpit easily enough, but it messes up with the angles of the canopy and / or the nose. Having a way to measure the real angles would help a lot, but I haven't been able to find good references (there are plenty of pictures, but the perspective makes it difficult to evaluate the angles). If you happen to have some good links, it would be appreciated. These are the best I could find: The angle of the nose seems to be smaller. But if I do that in LDD, I'll have to increase the length of the nose significantly, which wouldn't look right from above. Without better measurements, I'm stuck.

Thanks for the compliment. I think you're right, this MOC has the potential to be very close to the real (fake) thing scale wise, but we shall see. I had already asked Inthert if he was ok with ideas polluting his thread, and he seemed to be cool with it. As far as I'm concerned, it's still 100% his design because I didn't really created anything new. But Inthert, if you want me to open a separate topic, please do tell. Well, the greebling behind R2 is straight from the vanilla T-65. But there is extra space and though I did what I could to fill the void, I really need help on this one. I think so too. I think its height is also more accurate (I didn't check but I will), but it looks a bit chubby. As I said, as long as it stays in the x-wing, all is well. I'll definitely do that, just not today. I'm a bit reluctant to play the the bulge underneath though. If you wish to have a go at it, please do so. You know what? I hadn't even realized. :-p Do you think we could bring it back somehow? If we can't, I guess the front one is useless. I aim at a display model yes, but I'd like it to be fully functionnal. But the landing gears would be an acceptable sacrifice for 4x4 engines I guess. Duly noted. Do you mind if I keep on trying to make it look better? I tried a red and yellow pattern in the new LDD file below. I'm confident you won't like that one either though. It was just a quick way to attach the engines, I wouldn't dream of building it that way. :-) I'm sure something nice can be done. In the meantime I have removed the thrusters. Let's put it another way. What do you want to do? I think it would be really cool if a joint effort could make this outstanding MOC even better. To be honest, my time playing may come to an end during the next couple of months (there will be a contest in my trade and I intend to do my best to win... I could use the advertisement if I ever decide to look for a new position). So help is definitely most welcome. As long as there are only the two of us, we don't really need any kind of organisation I think. Maybe you could use your own color to make modifications? We need someone to keep an "official" latest version though, so we can keep track of the changes. I can do that for now. Here is my latest file. Is there a way to share something bigger than 100 ko? It's close to the limit as it is... - I changed the dimensions of the wings (1 extra stud in the direction along the body) - the size of the engines is now what I had in mind, but I'll check the scale - I modified the rear hinges of the wings (I ran into problems due to the engines size). I'm not 100% ok with this (you can take the wings apart easily because I grouped them separately). The parts I'm not happy with are the only blue bricks in the wings - I also worked on the slopes. The roof like aspect at the rear of the wings is intentional. The one near the turbine is not. I could stack the wedges instead but I don't like how it looks. But I have an idea involving hinges. We shall see. I'm relatively happy with the global aspect of the wings though, but again I'll have to check the scale. EDIT: file deleted. A new topic will be dedicated to a modified Inthert T-65 if there is enough interest. Still to be done: - improve wings (better hinges, better slopes, better color pattern) --> GRAY_MOUSER - tweak cannons (since I modified the sizes of the wings, they don't quite fit anymore) - check how the moc look from the side --> GRAY_MOUSER - modify underbelly - improve canopy - improve cockpit (pipes?) - bring back landing gears at the rear OR get rid of the front one to improve the nose - design proper greebling on top of the body - design greebling from the engines (it will be seen from below when the wings are opened). This should probably not be done before the wings are closer to their final form. Right now the slopes take too much room in the cylinders - find a proper way to attach the thrusters to the engines - others..? I tagged two items with my name in the list above so that we don't do the same thing (it would be a waste of time, but feel free to do what you want). If you're ok working that way, maybe you could tag items with your name too? And of course you can add tasks. I don't have time to read over my message, so I apologize in advance for my sloppy English. Again Inthert, please let us know if you resent us doing this.

Thanks for the suggestion. It will be quite easy to implement it in my LDD, because I already use this hinge. :-) When I tried to mimic Inthert's wings, I really had a hard time and using this hinge was the only way I could do it. Glad to hear it's also sturdier. Anyway, here is a LDD file of the tweaks I work on. It's still a work in progress though. A few bricks disappeared because they were "not placed correctly", but that's not the point. The bricks in blue are the ones I modified (generally speaking, it's not always the case). Here is a list of what I tried to do: - nose lengthened by 3 studs. I worry that the black hinges won't work anymore though. I would have liked to use 43179 instead of 48183 (near the canopy), but I didn't find a way. I would have to increase the nove by 1/2 stud, but I don't know how to deal with the slopes (85984) at the bottom. - customized canopy (even though I don't really like it anymore) - mini R2-D2 - 4x4 engines + slopes: obviously there are still a lot of work to be done, but it gives you an idea. The engines should be closer to the rear. - double hinged wings, and increased span (2 studs, so 1 stud by wing) - body lengthened by 4 studs, but I think that's too much. 3 (2?) should be better. - Alternative lower parts (the original ones don't work anymore because of the lengthened body) - Extra greebling on top of the body (I did what I could, but suggestions are most welcome) And obviously I had to modify the inside to attach the new wings. For the most part, I duplicated Inthert's "modules" though. Let me know what you think (what looks good, what looks bad, suggestions, criticisms...). I would have liked to leave Inthert's vanilla T-65 in the file for comparison, but the file would be too big. EDIT: LDD removed, updated version in my latter post

Good to know, thanks. FYI, here is what I'm going for (the pictures were scaled so that the widths of the bodies are more or less the same): scale by Gary Mozer, sur Flickr So it seems the wings are not misplaced after all. And for what I try to do, the nose is definitely too short (3 studs should do the trick).

Thanks for the references blbills. I'll check and see if they are very different from the ones I used. It's likely I'll reach another conclusion regarding the length though. It's just a matter of choosing a reference... Inthert's design is not minifig scale, that much is obvious. I don't say it cannot be done, but it would require huge modifications. I, on the other hand, try to tweak the scale so that it looks like the real thing, even though the pilot will look too big. I'm not saying it's better to do it that way either, it's just what I do. The reference I chose is the width of the body, because I think that would be the hardest to modify. About R2, an easy fix would be to replace its body by 17485 and its legs by 17486. Not very satisfactory, unless you don't take him out of the xwing. I have questions about the design (to both Inthert and blbills): - how difficult is it to attach the 4 gray slopes at the rear of the body? I managed to attach all the hinges in the body and to get the angles right (I'm proud about that actually), but these slopes still won't fit... I think it's a close thing though. - Same question with the black hinges in the nose (6134). For these, there is no way I can make it work in LDD. Far from it. Did I make another mistake, or is it just a shortcoming of LDD? About the things I want to do: - lengthen nose: done - push wings back: done (2 studs, but 1 might be better). So I have an empty column of 2x2 studs behind R2 (or possibly 1x2). Any idea for greebling? - canopy tweak: I've taken another look at my canopies, and I don't like them after all. They look off from the sides. I think Inthert captured the right angle, so maybe it will look better with the new nose. - lengthen rear part of the body: still to be done - 4x4 engines: work in progress - lower R2: mini R2 is acceptable enough for me. The little bugger sits on a critical part of the design. I will not mess with it. - wings: I'll have to wait until the modifications above are done. Inthert, if they are too flimsy right now, how about bringing back the double hinges just like in Psiaki's design? Would it help? With the lengthened body, I think I will have plenty of room for that. - inverted slope under the body: I noticed this is too close to the pilot. I will push that back as well. I don't expect it to be difficult. I have to say I'm not concerned with swooshability though, I'm far too old for that. :-) So if I have to choose between sturdiness and good looks, I'll go with the later (to an extent... I still want to be able to touch it without the whole thing crumbling down). I'll upload a LDD for my tweaks later today or tomorrow.

Stating the scale was off was not meant as a criticism, I'm sure you realize that. And the changes I work on are really not critical. It's just a lengthening of some parts, that's all. For the nose, it pretty straightforward, I've just stacked the slopes. I'll share a LDD with you if you're interested (temporarily because of the 100 ko limit). Ultimately I intend to share a LDD of my customized Inthert's T-65 xwing though... providing I'm satisfied with it, which is not a given.

I’m still playing with this design, but lately I’ve had trouble deciding between 3x3 or 4x4 engines… Depending from what direction you look at the xwing, either 3x3 or 4x4 can look better. I think the reason is because the body is too large compared to its length. So right now I’m trying to tweak the scale of the design (tweak mind you, nothing critical). I intend to: - lengthen the part in front of the canopy by 4 studs. Incidentally, this will decrease the slope in front of the canopy so that the angles won’t be the same anymore, even with Inthert’s. I was afraid this was going to be difficult because the slope is given by 47397. However I think I've found a solution (+2 to +5 studs). - push the wings back by one or two studs - lengthen the rear part (behind the wings) as well. It seems to me that the rear of the body should protrude from the wings (when the craft is seen from above) If and when I manage to do all that in a satisfactory way, I’ll probably have to increase the sizes of the wings as well, but this should be relatively straightforward. It will also give more surface to play with the color pattern. And finally I’ll have to finish what I started with the 4x4 engines (hopefully they will look just right when the scale is changed). Right now I have a solution that looks ok (even if it is not finished), but the inner half cylinders are too crowded so that they won't accomodate internal greebling. Which would be a pity (especially since the ½ cylinders can easily rotate to reveal what’s inside). Hopefully I’ll find a better way. And I’d like to tweak the canopy some more. And bring back the gray hinges on the sides of the cockpit. I also think that R2D2 sits too high, but I don't think it can be lowered easily. So many little things I’d like to do :-/ In the meantime, I’ve found other mistakes in my LDD file: - 4x 87087 must be replaced by 4x 4070 (below R2D2). This is a fairly important mistake because it prevents the inside of the body to fit properly (by a fraction of a stud, but still) - 2x 3023 + 2x 3024 must be replaced by 2x 2420 (in front of R2D2) - 2x 3023 must be removed (same place) I'm currently correcting the file, but until I'm done I have removed it from my previous message. Again, sorry for the mistakes.

Have you tried to generate the brick list with rebrickable?

Thanks a lot for the complete lxf file, really. I'm not sure we could possibly ask for more. I'll try to make instructions (because I basically have to), but I promise nothing and I don't give deadlines. I'll let you know in this topic if and when I start.

G*dd*mm*t! Thanks for pointing it out. Back to square one then: how do I attach 6259? Well, it wouldn't be much fun if it was easy, huh? I'm not big on compromises, unless it can't be avoided. But we shall see. EDIT: 20430 + turbine seems to work quite well, providing you don't mind the front of the engine to reach Artoo. It might even be more accurate. Good eye!