TemjinStrife

Built all three of these. Great models, particularly the ISD and Finalizer (I especially appreciate how rigid the top panels on the Finalizer are!) Is there any rhyme or reason to the use of boat studs vs. the top half of turntables as a low profile method of holding the plates together? Some of the boat studs don't seem to grip as well as the turntable halves.

To be fair, the "single bare layer of plates" is probably more accurate to the ILM model, as one of the reasons it wasn't featured more heavily was that the S-foils were too thin and tended to disappear against the greenscreen background.

Looks great! Sort of like a "set plus" model.

This is 100% my experience. Figuring out where and how you can apply pressure, and how much to use (enough to engage clips/connect studs, but not too much to cause something else to fail) is the biggest challenge with the build.

Well that is gorgeous.

It's fragile and complicated until it all goes together, then it's a bit less fragile. Definitely the most challenging build I've done, though, as it's very easy to apply too much pressure to one spot and have the delicately-balanced incomplete nose break apart!

That was definitely one of the more challenging parts of a challenging build!

It's basically Brickwright's Y-wing body with his own mods, and he's posted instructions for the "head" so you can reverse engineer from that.

Good to know, thanks!

Wow. A spectacular rendition.

Wow.

Wow the engines mod makes it look so much better!

I've always loved the look of this set and your mods are a big improvement. To the extent you have instructions or a file down the line, I'd be interested to see them!

Yeah, after you do a few of these MOCs, you get an idea for where you can search and replace with cheaper/easier to find parts (jumper (15573) and clip variations (Thick O and 15712) are key).

I did this on my (lightly modified) IcarusBuilds Delta-7B and it worked great. No pictures of my model, but similar construction of the nose: https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/158763-moc-minifig-scale-delta-7b-aethersprite-class-light-interceptor/&tab=comments#comment-2919482

This is great! Excellent scale and detailing, and the interior in both is the icing on the cake!

This looks great!

Instructions are $40, IIRC.

Note that if you push down too hard, you'll explode the nose into a bunch of pieces. Getting the new helmets into most MOCs seems to be a bit of a challenge.

Nice! Could use a little more detailing on the front "face" of the body compartment to break up the flat expanse, but otherwise looks great (and I do like the subtle variations in proportions, which still "work" and leave it quite recognizable.

Looks great!

The Bomber is solid, with the exception of some of the 2x2 curved slopes in the front and the bomb dropper bit; the most challenging part of the build is the 1x2 curved slopes + clips that go onto the pneumatic T shapes that taper the cones. Once everything is together, they're less of a problem, but getting there takes some work. I don't think there's any real stress in the model (if there is, I think the only place would be the parts holding the bent portions of the wings in place; there is some stress on the Interceptor and Vader's Advanced on those parts, but nothing crazy). The X-wing is definitely less durable than the Bomber and the TIEs generally. I'm definitely more careful with it than the Jerac TIEs or Inthert's N1 and B-wing, although part of that is because if you do break something in the front fuselage of the X-wing, it can be a lot of work to fix it (while the others are much easier fixes).

Not great lighting, but you get the idea. And yes, I did decide to only go with one dark tan tile on the nose.

1. I have no problem with challenging builds; this was on the right side of challenging, as it wasn't actively frustrating, just took a lot of finagling and learning where to hold things when adding other things! 2. The little joystick-y, lightsaber-y thing that holds the gray DBG tile was what I was referring to. It looked like some random greebling or control stick, but instead was used to hold the DBG tile in a way that covered a gap. Similarly, it wasn't clear what the studs with bars and bars with clips on the lower sides of the fuselage did, until later when it becomes evident that they hold the wedge plate/turntable assemblies next to what would be the cargo hold (and at that point it was kind of a pain to adjust them to the right angles). 3. Yeah, I overbent the flex hoses; of course, they don't bend evenly and flatten out in the middle, so the clips (both above the nose, and the landing gear below) don't hold them super well. Wasn't sure if there was some other trick like, say, heating them (my experience with flex tubes is very limited, as I only recently rediscovered Lego after a ~20-year hiatus). 4. I can imagine with the parts list! I've had mixed results with Brickvault MOCs, so I'm glad that this one also didn't require any supplemental orders. 5. Note that the "stand" file was listed as "xw stand x3.xml" so that might be the reason there were three stands' worth of parts . . . 6. Re: R2: The issue is less the tiles and more the DBG upside-down 1x1 with vertical clips. I'll have to play with it; but it would definitely be easier to insert R2 prior to having the two halves together! 7. I wasn't expecting compatibility with 75218, but I was hoping that a few more parts might have crossed over. Ahh well. Thanks again for designing this and making the instructions available! I'll see if I can snap some shots tonight.

Built Red 5 over the weekend (except for three of the cannon, due to one last BL order with the tubing that arrived today). Build/partslist Impressions: This is probably the most challenging MOC I've ever built; even more so than Inthert's N1 or B-Wing. The fuselage is extremely complex and quite fragile/touchy until you finally put it together (fortunately, it is generally quite solid once together). The wing gearbox is ingenious, although the interlocking wing frames require some intense attention to detail to make sure you have them together and oriented correctly. There were a bunch of really cool/unexpected areas where a small detail in one step became a significant detail in another (particularly the DBG road sign). For future reference, is there a trick when dealing with super short bent pieces of flex tubing? Those were the most challenging; both to keep in place, to keep bent, and also when attaching the nose landing gear (which doesn't quite fold flat in mine by ~1mm). The parts list actually worked first try, which was nice; however, somehow I ended up with enough parts to build 3 stands. Only thing I'm not looking forward to is trying to get R2 in there; it would have been easier to assemble and put him in before attaching the front and back fuselages together (particularly since there's a nice way of locking him in with a bar through the hole in the bottom of his body that is a pain to line up after it's built)! If you bought 75218 as a parts pack for an X-wing MOC, there's not a lot of crossover (at least if you're building Red 5, I imagine there are some more useful tiles if building the "new" version); basically just the engine intakes, the DBG barrels, and the windscreen, plus a few miscellaneous tiles and axles. There are a fair few LBG 12 tooth bevel gears in the list (which can be rare/expensive); three of them are internal and can be the more modern light tan color. That said, the end result is fantastic. Really gorgeous piece, and once you finally get it together it's sturdier than the build experience might indicate. Very happy with this one, and my hat is off to Jerac as I can't imagine how challenging this must have been to design.