Back with an update to the construction of the 32 inch Millennium Falcon model.
Many parts have been made since the first posting. Lots of flat surfaces and some detail chunks have been constructed.
Here is the Rear Landing Gear Housings. This is a huge surface area on the underside of The Falcon. Some kit substitutions have been made, and I will probably replace the very center piece with a corresponding kit part from an M-60A3 Tank. But for right now I am thrilled to have such a large piece of the ship constructed. All landing gear doors are simply taped in place in order to facilitate their removal later on. Once the ships build is complete I will likely construct landing gear that can be slipped into the housings.
Seen here are the forward tips of the mandibles. These were created totally from scratch to get the louvred openings on the front. I am leaving open the possibility of putting headlights within them, that will be tackled once construction is complete and I am looking at a more fleshed out scheme for lighting the ship.
The large dish antenna stumped me at first but a quick visit to pearl art supply revealed Plastruct acrylic caps in the perfect 3 inch diameter for the build. N scale handrails and a cone from a 1/200th Saturn V provided the bulk of the detailing for the front of the dish. The rear was further detailed using PVC tubing, styrene strip and Kits parts from Tamiya's 1/35th Matilda tank. The front and back still have a good bit of detailing before they are called finished.
The bits seen above fit within two of the hull cutout openings on either side of the engine deck. These were two of the more fun pieces to scratch since they also used plenty of kit parts. However the rightmost one will actually wind up being used within the mandibles and a more accurate piece will take its place after discovering the bulk of the parts that make up its detailing were actually available in a correctly scaled kit.
Many More bits have been constructed and shot, and even more have been built including one of the quad laser cannons, the ingress/egress ramp, the mandible upper and lower surfaces and more. Updates to come very soon!
