[MOC] Star Wars: The X-Wing Story

[TemjinStrife]

5 hours ago, cookiemonster said:

Just a tip for the rims "30155" in light bluish grey. I ordered the parts over the last week to build Red 5 and there were two dilemmas: Either the price was ok but the quantity available was 1-2 or the quantity available was 3+ and the price was around 5-8€.

Then I tried to order the complete assembly rim + tire and I was able to find some more sellers with good prices. I ordered 6 for 0,11 cents per piece and 6 for 0,13 per piece.

This is the complete assembly in bricklink:

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=30155c02#T=C

Good to know, thanks!

[jeffreywilfong]

another great one!

[Wonderpants]

Just got the last order for this off BrickLink. Time to set to!

So many small pieces!

 

Edited February 25, 2019 by Wonderpants

[Wonderpants]

Actually, should the wing mechanism be quite hard to move early on? I’m up to page 25 and finding it tough to open and close the wings using a technic bar and gear (it’s fairly easy to open them manually though), and am wondering if it’ll get easier further into the build.

[Jerac]

10 hours ago, Wonderpants said:

Actually, should the wing mechanism be quite hard to move early on? I’m up to page 25 and finding it tough to open and close the wings using a technic bar and gear (it’s fairly easy to open them manually though), and am wondering if it’ll get easier further into the build.

It is good. When the ship is complete the wings are quite heavy, and due to leverage you will find the friction to be not enough to keep up with the forces applied to the core. It should be even tighter but then pieces would be put into way too much stress; even now I have two reports of older gear pieces shattering into pieces due to the loads. With newer, softer gears this is not an issue, thankfully.

[cookiemonster]

I finished building mine totday morning and I must say it was one of the most challagening builds I've done this far. At some points I was switching between genius and madness ;-)

The point where I lost hope was step 46 on page 111 (red 5). It was not possible to mount the two sub assemblys without them constantly breaking apart. My only solution was to glue the sub assembly together so they cannot break apart any more #lordbusiness ;-)

Edited February 26, 2019 by cookiemonster

[Jerac]

Wow, really? Sorry for that.

Damn, maybe I should have put an instruction on how to do that. It is simple once you know... first you slide the aft-facing end into the clip, then you just apply little pressure on first stud of the front-facing 2x3 wing to connect the subassembly to the 1x1 round plate with bar.

[TemjinStrife]

9 minutes ago, Jerac said:

Wow, really? Sorry for that.

Damn, maybe I should have put an instruction on how to do that. It is simple once you know... first you slide the aft-facing end into the clip, then you just apply little pressure on first stud of the front-facing 2x3 wing to connect the subassembly to the 1x1 round plate with bar.

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

[Space_jaco]

Just now, TemjinStrife said:

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

Same for me. Haventg glued it though. But it did take me a while 

[cookiemonster]

20 minutes ago, Jerac said:

Wow, really? Sorry for that.

Damn, maybe I should have put an instruction on how to do that. It is simple once you know... first you slide the aft-facing end into the clip, then you just apply little pressure on first stud of the front-facing 2x3 wing to connect the subassembly to the 1x1 round plate with bar.

It's not that I tried it this way ;-) But after 30 mintues I lost faith to succesfully mount it ;-) My problem was that the black piece and the modified 1x1x1 brick where this piece stucks into get pushed out by pressing down on the wing. Or the angle was changed a little bit by the last attemp and everything collapsed :-(

I managed to assemble one side correctly but there was still some tension in the connection because the assembly buckled a little to the outside. Before you ask the clamp was pushed as far to the back as possible so there was no error. One minior downside from the glueing was that a have some "glue" fingerprints on some of the tiles I know have to polish but otherwiese I won't disassemble the model so I don't care if the fews parts are glued or not. The final product is what counts and this X-Wing is purely amazing.

I used the new canopy piece from 75218 and I think this looks even better than the print from the Resistance X-Wings.

Edited February 26, 2019 by cookiemonster

[Wonderpants]

12 hours ago, Jerac said:

It is good. When the ship is complete the wings are quite heavy, and due to leverage you will find the friction to be not enough to keep up with the forces applied to the core. It should be even tighter but then pieces would be put into way too much stress; even now I have two reports of older gear pieces shattering into pieces due to the loads. With newer, softer gears this is not an issue, thankfully.

Yeah, it’s going better tonight. ?

Seemed like a bit of a fragile mess at first, but it’s getting sturdier now and starting to look the business. Can see why Lego wouldn’t make this as an official set though, it’s very complex!

[TemjinStrife]

16 hours ago, Wonderpants said:

Yeah, it’s going better tonight. ?

Seemed like a bit of a fragile mess at first, but it’s getting sturdier now and starting to look the business. Can see why Lego wouldn’t make this as an official set though, it’s very complex!

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!

[Wonderpants]

Still working on the cockpit segment after tearing it down and starting again, plus having to get some missing pieces sent through. 

One thing I didn’t like is that the sides on the stock model bow inwards due to the ball joint parts being too far apart, so I moved them and the black 1x3 plates forward by one stud, and used a pair of 1x1 tiles to fill the gap, as in the pic below, which now lets them sit straight and relieves the stress on them.

[Jerac]

There is reason for which it is done like that though, and you will see it few steps later.

[Wonderpants]

13 hours ago, Jerac said:

There is reason for which it is done like that though, and you will see it few steps later.

 

Causes gaps in the top of the fuselage in front of the cockpit when you put the top panels on? Managed to fill most of them with a couple of 1x6 plates. :)

[Jerac]

9 hours ago, Wonderpants said:

 

Causes gaps in the top of the fuselage in front of the cockpit when you put the top panels on? Managed to fill most of them with a couple of 1x6 plates. :)

Yup exactly. And makes the nose wider. I opted for this unusual approach because aside from achieving right proportions it also strenghtens the build by adding tension, much like in hardened glass.

[sovietxrobot]

8 hours ago, Jerac said:

Yup exactly. And makes the nose wider. I opted for this unusual approach because aside from achieving right proportions it also strenghtens the build by adding tension, much like in hardened glass.

my favorite part of building this model was seeing all of these unusual techniques. they are really elegant.

[Wonderpants]

Nearly finished, but the bottom of the fuselage right under the cockpit is driving me mad. I’ve spent ages trying to get the cargo bay area to work, but the fragility of the subassemblies, the stress they’re under from other sub assemblies, and the fact that it’s the obvious place to pick it up means that it simply isn’t sturdy enough. 

Anyone else had problems building this area?

 

 

 

[AfolFree]

@Wonderpants

Yes it is the hardest part in my opinion.
I found out that carefully orienting the pieces would help, and more importantly, that the right orientation wasn't the most obvious one.

I'm sorry I can't be more specific, but long story short : try to tinker with the side sub assemblies orientation and be very soft with those areas until completed.
It will never be the right part to pickup the ship, but it is definitely sturdier once everything falls into place.

Oh, and consider switching to newer pieces if the clutch power is an issue, lots of one stud connections there, you need pieces in good shape.

[Wonderpants]

Thanks. Been fiddling with it again tonight but still can’t see how to get it to work. I can eventually get the side panels into place after some persuading and a fair bit of swearing, but as soon as I try to get the middle sections into place, it all comes apart again. ?

[CollinsJordan]

Nice story.

[cookiemonster]

On 3/10/2019 at 1:22 AM, Wonderpants said:

Thanks. Been fiddling with it again tonight but still can’t see how to get it to work. I can eventually get the side panels into place after some persuading and a fair bit of swearing, but as soon as I try to get the middle sections into place, it all comes apart again. ?

That was the point where I gave up and glued the sub assembly together. Now this section is rock soild ;-)

[Jerac]

I am sorry you guys have so much trouble with this little area. And there is not even anything I can think of doing about it without compromising either the looks or whatever is there left of structural integrity.

Maybe this little movie clip will be helpful?

 

[Wonderpants]

Thanks, but I got it sorted a few days back and she’s now sitting proudly in front of the UCS Falcon. ?

[Lamborghini Waffle Sauce]

I've been following this MOC ever since it was released and every time I look at this MOC I am amazed as if I were seeing it for the first time. I have a feeling this will remain timeless and a gold standard for a few years until you overhaul it.