X-Wing Conversion

3-D Printing My buddy handed me this today, the first draft of the X-Wing engines. They looks pretty good except for the bottom part of the engine which should get smaller or bevel in. It looks like he'll try to make the necessary modification to the next try. He made these in Free Cad and doing a mighty good job! In fact he's created all of the 3-D objects in Free Cad. I've tried to make them in software I have, but have had trouble in getting them in a format that he can use. 

Wing and Fuselage Update I've painted the wings and began to weather them I still have to wire them for the landing lights but that shouldn't be a problem.  The early stages of painting I removed the ugly landing gear to the bottom fuselage  and replaced it with sheet styrene.

Progress! Wow it's been a while since I posted anything. I have a friend who just got a 3-D printer and is willing to make the engines and cannons I need for the x-wing. I have been struggling with how to make the copies I need for this model. I tried a couple of different ways  but none of them worked. So when he volunteered to make these I didn't hesitate.. He created these cannon parts in a CAD program.  It takes him about 3 hours to make these parts. I've got three and just need one more. So my task is to glue them together and prep them for painting. It's not as easy as it sounds however. The plastic is hard and very difficult to sand. So far the only thing that I found that works is to rub on some Acetone and then use the Dremel tool to clean the parts up. I need to create the top part of the cannon which i'll get to next week.

Well, I'm back at it after a brief break. We welcomed our first Granddaughter, Gwyneth Jane , into the world a couple of weeks ago. Mom, dad and  baby are all doing well. I'm wrapping up the wing construction by fitting all the components together. I've put wings together  by using an epoxy adhesive to attach the bolts to the wings and then bolting them on to the box. The front and back of each wing are made from styrene strips. Each wing has a about 80 individual pieces of styrene. Then I glued the upper box to the lower box. the "vent" was made by cutting the original up and using that piece to make 4 vacform pieces. All that's left is to add a few bits and bobs, and the wings will be ready for paint and weathering.

I've made steady progress on the wings, scoring panel lines and making the details for the interior sections.  I finally got the vacuform machine working and pulled several copies of the engine interior. I had to use .010 sheet styrene to make these copies. Not perfect but very usable. I tried using the plastic "No Trespassing " signs but their to thick and I couldn't get a good pull. Now I can start to greeble these things up. Onward.

I worked on the wings recently. I decided to rebuild all 4 wings rather than use the kit wings.  So I used .030 sheet styrene to make the sides needed for each wing. So here's the pieces, One upper and one lower wing. I'm putting foamcore in between these pieces for extra strength. I'll post photos of the completed wings shortly.