NorvernRob

Having built a 15,000 part Executor and spent a LOT of time looking at the ILM studio model, I can say with certainty that you've also done the same! You’ve got the details pretty much perfect. Great work.

I’ve seen the actual build several times now, the last time being yesterday and it’s massive, as well as being fantastically detailed and accurate. If anyone is wondering just how big a 12,000 part Sandcrawler is, it’s this big (and even this doesn’t really do it justice!) I did an exhibition with Cavegod recently and managed to capture a rare photo of the man himself in the wild...

Big MOCs take an incredible amount of work and time. My SSD took me 200+ hours, and it isn’t even in digital form so I couldn’t get instructions done. If I did, it would be another 200 hours on top. Then there’s the cost of building it, well over £1,000 in my case. You need to sell a lot of instructions just to make your money back, and if you do make a profit then great - why shouldn’t someone make money from their hard work to produce something people want?

This is some intense planning and attention to detail, I’ll look forward to seeing the finished article! I built an Echo Base/battle scene last year, it’s not to the accuracy of yours but I did make sure the doors were big enough to accommodate the Falcon - just! It doesn’t look like it fits in one of the photos below but that’s just perspective. My snowspeeders were built using Larry Lars’ canopy and the rest my own design. I built a full squadron of 8.

Hi! Unfortunately there are no LDD files at all, it’s just a free build. I am considering learning to use LDD properly, then reverse engineering the whole thing in sections in order to eventually release some instructions - but I’ll be honest that’s probably a long way away.

Must have been a decent photographer Pete

I had the pleasure of meeting Morten yesterday, we were both invited to display at an exhibition in London. He actually transported his Nebulon in a shipping crate It was mainly intact, but lots of small parts had broken off and he spent all day rebuilding it! It’s an awesome model and well worth building for anyone thinking about it.

Haha, the bike isn’t going anywhere! Thanks! Shame it’s never really going to be seen! It’s at an exhibition in London for the next 6 weeks, shame I’ve seen a photo today and the mini ISD has already been knocked over!

The ship is so thin there's no room for an interior, it's basically all framework! I could probably squeeze in a tiny room or two, maybe I'll have a look at some point. Thanks! I knew I'd end up buying specific parts from Bricklink even though I had a good stock of grey, but I didn't expect to buy over 5,000 still

Thanks for the comments! I ordered quite a few different types of wheels and cylinders to try out on the engines, and there aren't anywhere near as many available in dbg as lbg. They do look very obvious when the ship is upside down, but once it's right side up and the engines are underneath I quite like how the contrasting shades make them stand out a little.

Actually it didn't, the key is buying bulk lots of grey (I ask on Facebook pages etc), along with general bulk lots for technic bricks etc, building up a stock of parts that really cut the cost of a build. I've spent around £500 on Bricklink, the rest of the parts I already had. It has decimated my stock though, particularly dark bluish grey - I literally have around 20 plates left! Thank you Pierre - I owe you a huge thank you, as without seeing yours built in actual bricks, I doubt I would even have started mine yet! I certainly wouldn't have gotten it done so quickly, yours helped solve several problems before I even ran into them. Mine too is a free build with no software and no planning, I like to solve problems practically rather than fighting with a program that may or may not let me do what I want. I get what you are saying about the angle of the tail. The tail angle on mine is too steep and yours is certainly the more accurate, but I've kept with the clean, tidy look as Skayen did by using the 12x3 wedge plates. I like your very clever solution of the 12x7 wedges underneath, then stepping in the 12x3 wedges to straight up that tail angle, but I didn't really like to use it for two reasons - 1) It takes away from the clean look a little when up close, and 2) It's your design, very unique and I didn't want to use it really. the side trenches on mine are maybe a little thick too, but I like greebling so I was happy to go with it. The top hulls fit very simply, it's just two technic axles each side that slot into holders connected to the outer frame. They are the only connections holding the top hulls. What I do find is that because there is no gap between the upper hulls, and the very tip of the hulls have to be two plates thick to hold the end wedge plates, that the extra plate thickness obviously tries to push the hulls apart slightly. I have to slot the hulls in just at the right angle to allow the friction between those hull tips to actually hold them together nicely, rather than one trying to push up over the other a little - there is very little margin for error! It's actually going to London this weekend for a 6 week display at the Saatchi Gallery, which I'm really looking forward to. I've kept an eye on your build progress via your Flickr, and it's coming along beautifully - it certainly a slightly more faithful rendition than mine, and I'll be very interested to see it completed and compare them both. I love your mini-Imperial fleet too, and I think il have to build my own to accompany the SSD to next year's exhibitions! Regards . Rob

Thanks Anio! I used this combination of parts to secure the bottom hull to the central spine:

It’s my first big MOC, so I’m happy with it - I’ll never reach your levels of Star Destroyer awesomeness though! Thank you, I’m pleased with how it’s turned out - and pleasantly surprised Thank you

Inspired firstly by the old threads of Bob De Quatre and Skayen, then by the fantastic in-progress build by Pierre Augustin, a couple of months ago I decided to start my own SSD. The build actually went fairly smoothly, the biggest issue by far is that the SSD is such a thin ship profile-wise it's tricky to get the stiffness required to stop it sagging anywhere as you can't build a tall, strong frame. As the frame approaches the rear it's basically 3 frames stacked and pinned together, each reaching further out and supporting the one above. For the engine sections I just hung technic bricks upside down from the main frame, then built downwards. I completed this section first some weeks ago. As for accuracy - well I've read all the debates about tail length, and engine distances, and this and that, and I settled for a mix of accuracy, what actually looks better rather than is most accurate, and what is practical and possible given the constraints of the medium, the framework etc etc. I'd say it's a fairly stylised version rather than being anally accurate. The engines for instance should be smooth cylindrical shapes, but I tried numerous combinations of cylinders and wheels and settled on what I have now. The rear engines could maybe do with being a few studs further back, as at the moment the distance between the front and middle engines is the same as the distance between middle and rear. However, I was reluctant to move them any further back as there is already a huge amount of weight over the rear end, when I first picked up the ship I thought it was stuck on something! It must weigh close to 20kg and the vast majority of that is in the back half. There was never a doubt as to what I was doing with the top city, I just threw everything at it! The top city is built on removable plates, so can be completely removed to access the frame and lower hull panels if needed. The top hulls simply have two technics axles that slot into technics elements attached to the outer frame edges. The lower hulls are attached by technics parts, balljoints and turntables. I estimate the total parts to be around 15,000. I already had a large stock of grey, broke down my 6,000 part Falcon, got a large number of parts from my LUG, and bought 5,500 parts from Bricklink.

Hi Pierre! Your Executor was the catalyst for starting my own, I'd read all the threads on here including Skayen's and Bob De Quatre's, but seeing one actually semi-complete made me take the leap! Mine is slightly shorter than yours at 1.8m exactly. Your pictures were a huge help in building the hulls and initial frame, after that I moved on at pace and I should be completely finished within a week. I completed the underside a few weeks ago, when the whole ship is finished I'll start my own thread. One thing I quickly realised was that whilst liftarms would add rigidity, they would also impede building anything else onto the framework, so my frame is more straightforward brute force than yours! Good luck with the rest of you build, I'm looking forward to see how you approach it compared to my take on it. Regards, Rob

The white jumper plates were on the PAB wall too, as well as 4x4 DBG plates and the others I mentioned earlier. I've still got 500+ of the jumper plates sat in a PAB cup! I had a lot of different sized white plates already as I'd amassed a lot of white when building my 40k part Hoth moc. Nearly all of it was used, but my days of wanting perfect parts are over. As long as it's not badly discoloured, I'll use it.

You can substitute out a lot of the internal parts and plates to save money. I've built two now, the second one I built largely from spares and PAB wall parts (4x6 white plates, 1x2 DBG plates and 2x3 orange plates were very handy) and it only cost me £60 in total. Sub out the 50 4x4 orange plates for 100 2x4 instead, as the 4x4 are stupidly expensive now.

No way a 7,500 part set weighs 15kg, even with the box. My modded 6,000+ part Falcon weighed 6-7kg max.

That looks really good, I've started a big project but I will be getting the instructions for this from you. Looking at it I'd say I have almost all the grey parts, if not all. I've got around 20kg of grey parts sorted up and am currently stripping my modded UCS Falcon for parts too, so I should be able to build both with minimal extra outlay.

10179 cockpit only needs to be extended by two studs to be able to fit 4 seats in. It shouldn't be any kind of an issue for LEGO to do it with a new assembly.

3,000 parts is more than reasonable for a model this size. If I were you I'd stick with just the one version, the best one. It's not going to be an expensive model to build, relatively speaking.

Ebay surely.

That is awesome.

I've built quite a few MOCs, and every one has cost somewhere between 10p and 20p per part - the 20p was an anomaly though as it was Anio's SSD and the magnet system alone was over 30% of the total cost. I have quite a lot of parts in stock and a massive amount of white leftover from bulk buys from my big Hoth build, so I'm expecting to be able to build this for ~£200.

Got my email and replied to Mirko! Does anyone know if the .LDR parts lists can be downloaded on an iPad and uploaded to Bricklink from there, or will I need to do it on a PC?