Pt. 26 Mounting, Cockpit door, Hold Floor Pit

This is just a little update.  Things are still in progress, but slowly.  For starters, the last pack of parts has been on back order for almost 3 months now, so I'm still waiting to get the rest to finish off the kit.  But on the plus side, there is still more modifications I am doing, so this give me more time.


So one thing I've been thinking about the last year, was how I was going to mount the Falcon to my table for display.  I've always known I want it in a slight cocked flying position.  Question was, how was I going to get it mounted.  So I finally devised a way to securely mount it without doing any cutting of the exterior model itself.

As you know if you've followed my blogs, the skeleton of the model is an aluminum metal frame.  So the most secure and strongest way to support the model would be with the interior framework.  So I got some aluminum and cut it to length of the diameter of the circular center frame.

 Filing down the sharp edges...

 then marking where I will drill holes for securing to the frame and for the mount itself.

So with the holes drilled in the plate I position the plate over the frame and drill holes into the frame for screw attachment.

Then tap the holes for 4/40 screws

And it secures quite strongly to the frame.

Next was getting a piece of 1" diameter ABS plastic.  Then cutting a chunk off to place between my plate and the window frame of the gunner port.

 Then drilling a hole in the center of my disc...

and tapping for a standard 1/4" 20  camera mounting screw.

 Here you can see the disc is the same diameter as the center of the window frame

 And it sandwiches perfectly between my custom plate and the window frame.

 

So I then drill a couple of holes through the plate and into the disc to secure them together...

Tapping the holes for 4/40 screws

And the disc is now tightly screwed to my plate...

And reattached to the frame of the Falcon.

So time to screw in my camera mount through the bottom of the Falcon and into the 1/4" 20 hole I created in the center of the disc.  It nicely screws in and securely pinches the window frame between the mount and disc.  So there's support from the gunner port window part itself, as well as the frame of the Falcon.

This is a very non-intrusive and clean way to display the Falcon with also the most absolute amount of the model showing.  Nothing is being covered in any way except the center of the window.  The only other thing not being able to be added is the lower gun, but that can be seen on the top hull. 




Next up I wanted to fix the door of the cockpit.  Originally, from the beginning of my blog, the kit came with a sticker to put on the inside of the door.  This was also buried a bit further back than the door really should be, as seen in this photo below.

So I purchased a second hand 3D printed door online.

 Primed it...

 Painted it...

 Then added some red fiber, as the door has red numbers in the window...

And installed back into the cockpit in the appropriate position, with the illuminated window red lights.

And last up was a little bit more modification of the under flooring of the hold.  In Pt. 20, I made a little area to be seen under the hold floor hatch.  Not knowing how much clearance I would have under the floor, I made it with some styrene, tubing and striped parts from an old Falcon model (seen below).

Now that I've received the parts to install the hold to the model, there is quite a bit more room under the floor than I had expected.  About 3/4", as you can see in this photo below.

 So to make it more accurate and realistic, I took the old one apart....

Added some styrene side walls to extend the depth...

Added another horizontal pipe along the length (screen accurate), stuck some wires through the sides and bent downward to make some pipes coming into the area (lower right and upper left), and cut out more greeblies from an old kit and glued to the side walls...

Painted and detailed...

And because of it being a deeper recess area, I cut out a little hole in the forefront side wall to add an LED for add'l lighting.

You can see in this first photo that much more depth is added and the light helps illuminate the bottom and sides of the area.

So that's it for now. Still working on the red caution lights around various areas of the bottom of the Falcon doing little minor details here and there.




So stay tuned.  MUCH MORE TO COME....

Pt. 25 Display Table

Things are still just a bit slow going at the moment, due to waiting for the final parts to finish my model.


So, with a model such as this, it needs to be properly displayed.  In my very first post, I showed a concept design I did of a table I'd like to make to display the Falcon.



Remember this?

So, I found a tall kitchen table at Ikea that is the perfect width and length to display the Falcon.  This is the table I purchased.   A Lerhamn kitchen table.

Now, while the width and length are perfect for what I want, it's a tad too tall.   So after assembling the top of the table.....

 I then chopped about 2 inches off of each of the legs to shorten the table just a tad.

 Then attached the legs...

I also purchased an additional table top only to use as a lower shelf for my display.  This will hold the instruction magazines used to build the Falcon, as well as a build photo album I'll be putting together, and whatever else I may want to place on there that is related.

 So I notched the 4 corners of the table so it will fit inside the legs.

 Placed metal brackets on the legs to support the table top...

 And there we have it.  the display table.

So I've modified my original concept just a bit.  Because I've been doing a video build diary as well on YouTube, I thought it would be cool if the build videos could be displayed with the Falcon, kind of like a museum piece. So I acquired an in-dash car LCD screen, got a media player and speaker.

In my concept, you'll also notice a gap in the top of the table where it is glowing red.  This will be done with 15' of LED lighting I also purchased.

So to start with, I centered the LCD screen in the table side and outlined where I need to cut into the table so that it can be mounted.  I also decided to mount everything on the long side of the table as opposed to the short side as in my concept.

I then secured the LCD housing to mount the display.

Next was mounting the media player.  I did this with just a large patch of velcro.  The media player is extremely light and held in place by this.

You'll also notice in my concept some buttons.  I purchased a bundle of LED lit buttons on Ebay.  These will turn on the LED table lighting, LCD screen, media player and the model itself once in place.

 So I drilled out evenly spaced holes for the buttons to mount in.

And there we have a working LED button.  I'm doing 3 buttons on each side of the LCD screen.  1- Red, 1- Blue and 1- Green.

So I acquired a piece of gloss black plexiglass for the top of the table.  I want gloss black so that the bottom of the Falcon will have a bit of a reflection in the table so that it can be seen a little easier. The plexi I cut down to size,  about 1/2" shorter on each side than the table top itself.  This is so that when I get a glass case cover, it can slip over the plexi and rest on the table itself.

 I then cut a piece of wood about 4 inches shorter on each side than the plexi....

painted the edges of the wood black....

 marked center of the table....

 drilled mounting holes....

 then glued the wood to the plexi perfectly centered.

And final step is the table LED lighting. I used a 15 ft stip of RGB LED tape and secured it to the bottom side of the plexi right along the edge of the wood that was glued to the plexi.

 PERFECT!

 Then attached the plexi/wood top to the table, attached the power and....


 VOILA.

The finished display table with the partially built Falcon sitting on it for size reference.

It has actually turned out better than I had even planned.  Once the Falcon is completed, I'll then get a custom plexi case cover to go over the model to keep it clean from the elements.  And while the photo shows the table red, which is my intended color, I can pick any color I want, as the LED is RGB and can do any shade.  Blue, green, orange, purple, yellow, red, etc.  There is some extra space around the Falcon, which I intend to use to display some other Star Wars models I'll be working on as well.

So stay tuned.  MUCH MORE TO COME....