I guess that makes sense then. You can always pick your own minifigs and make the Death Star your own.

Hi jdm44,

Oh yes, I forgot about the hoses....

I replaced both 14L and 10L with 6 of 20L (part no. 75c20) and I'm just going to trim them to the right size (cut four of them in half to make 8x 10L, and trim two down to 11.2cm). I did the same on my 10179 UCS MF on some of the hoses and they looked fine.

In regard to 6.6L umbrella stands, yes I did replace them with 63965. Again, did the same on UCS Falcon and they look fine.

When looking for those hoses, I'd get any length you can find in the right colour, at a decent price that you can trim down to correct length. In my case those were 75c20, though they weren't that easy to get in right amount either, so I had to order from two separate sellers, paying about £1.30 for each. I wouldn't be too picky about the price, as there's only so many pieces that will cost you £1 each or more.

Did you manage to get the stern plates, 47405?

That's good news about the hoses. There's multiple sellers in the US with >6 @ $1. I just ordered the stern plates in black from two different sellers. They were the last two available in the US on Bricklink. I'm not sure if I want to get the rear canopy in light grey or black. I'm leaning towards light grey. I placed a $55 order from B&P and added the Droid Escape Pod to get free shipping. That saved a lot of money compared to the prices on Bricklink, mostly from the 8x 4x9 wedge plates and the 16x 8x8 grille plates.

If you can, I'd get both black and light grey canopies. I'm not sure which one will look better myself. Light grey will look aged, which may fit the age of the set better, though black will match the "wings" nicely....

I don't think there's much choice in terms of stern plates, the ones I got were 2 out of 3 in the UK. I did the same with B&P order, about £55 total, and went with 8x8 grille plates from there, rather than the version with a hole suggested on BL.

Let us know about the progress. I'll be posting some pictures once I have all the parts.

I actually just completed UCS Darth Vader's TIE using the mods in this thread. Looks sooo much better with the modern windshield and canopy. Here are the substitutions I made based off my notes:

Front Canopy

- 10x10 canopy replaced with 8x8 Dish Inverted (Radar) and LBG 6063 (Modified, 10x10 Octagonal Open Center)

- Add 4 x LBG Wedge 2x2 Slope 45 Corner (13548)

- Add 4 x LBG Slope 45 2x4 (3037)

- Add 4 x LBG Tile 1x4 (2431)

Entry Hatch

- Dish 6x6 Inverted replaced with 18675pb01 Dish 6x6 Inverted

Wedge, Plate 8x12 Boat Bow LBG replaced with Black. The black really shows through on the final model so I added some LBG tiles to cover the black.

Bar, 6.6L w/ stop ring replaced with Bar, 6L w/ stop ring. Moved the holder pieces a littler closer together to make up for the smaller distance ;)

For the hoses, I did the same thing and bought 6 x of the 20L LBG hoses and cut them down to size as needed. Much easier to find and cheaper alternative

The back piece of the cockpit is REALLY hard to find, so I found one in Light Gray. Its not really exposed much so you generally don't notice the difference in color.

I placed 7 orders on BL and it came out to $220 shipped, which is alot cheaper than the going prices for it used. Oh I also ordered a replacement sticker off eBay for $8 (waiting for it to arrive).

Some pics of the finished product ;)

http://imgur.com/a/1XOt8

Edited March 28, 20168 yr by analogkid81

Your set looks really cool.

I'm going for exactly the same front canopy mod. Though, I can't see where you used 1x4 tiles?

Great idea with covering the black stern plates with LBG tiles. I may have to order some of those :)

Looking back I don't think I used the tile. The windscreen is secured by the interior targeting computer similar to the other mods. I'll see if I can take a pic of that when I get home.

That'd be appreciated. Thanks analogkid81. Can't wait for the parts to arrive now.

Btw, there's some fella in Australia selling reproduced 10175 stickers on eBay, if anyone else is looking. Quite cheap too. I paid about £5-6 including delivery.

I finished ordering parts for the 10175: Vader's TIE Advanced and now I'm just waiting for the bricks to arrive. I also Bricklinked the 9500: Sith Fury-class Interceptor since I already had a lot of the parts in my spare parts collection. My orders totaled to $240 (which included $28 for S&H) for 1 B&P order and 10 Bricklink orders. I had about $50 worth of parts to start out with so my grand total for the 2 sets is $290. I'm happy with that result. I'll post pictures once they're built (which won't be soon).

How much did it cost you to BL parts for 9500? I'm wondering whether to BL it or get one from eBay... I have two of 75025 (Jedi Defender-class Cruiser) still in box, and I'm thinking of getting rid of one and getting 9500 instead.

Going back to the topic of TIE Advanced, it looks like you did well on BL orders. I'm still waiting for my B&P order to arrive. It only showed complete yesterday. PAB arrived ages ago, but B&P are taking forever to get all the parts together.

It's tough to say how much I paid for the 9500 because I already had some of the pieces and I ordered parts for both sets together. My guess would be that it's not worth Bricklinking from scratch. I think you can find the set w/o minifigures for around $90. If you want Darth Malgus then you should definitely buy the whole set used or new. If you already have some of the parts then it might be worth it.

Here's my method for predicting if a set is worth Bricklinking. I part out the set to my inventory (which must be empty) and set the prices to the current average for new bricks. Then I export my inventory to CSV which gives me an Excel spreadsheet with all of the parts for the set and their current average prices on Bricklink. Then I sort by cost per piece and cost per lot to determine how much can be saved through substitutions, exclusions and B&P (which is a lot). After that I have a rough idea of how much the set will cost. The shipping costs can be neglected from this total by finding sellers that price their pieces below the average. I have no idea if this method is optimal.

I got my last BL order yesterday and the B&P order today. I guess I got lucky with B&P . Construction will begin tonight as soon as I decide which set to build first.

Thanks for the advice. I might look for a BNiB "bargain" on eBay. Still waiting for B&P order to arrive.... Though, they charged my card last Tuesday, so hopefully it'll arrive tomorrow.

How did you guys attach the octagonal plate to the main cockpit? The black 2x4 bricks w/ studs on the side don't line up to attach it. Also, how did you attach the windscreen?

Got bitten by the UCS bug after TFA (like many others I guess) and always keen to save some $$. The posts above re cockpit mods are great, could also be applied to the squint too I imagine. I've seen a couple of cheap 7181 recently but always seem to just miss out, just ordered a 6206 today to keep me happy :p

Regarding bricklinking a set in general, I've done any number of larger sets now, it really only makes sense if a) you have a significant portion of it already in your inventory or b) you can make sensible subs to bring the cost down.

If you're just buying loose parts, unless you stumble on some random super cheap seller, a used/complete set is often slightly cheaper (and much much easier) than bricklinking all the individual parts.

Many guides on 10179 with sensible subs, note a few others in here too (funny I did a colour swapped 10187 had to swap the same yellow technic corner as in the SSD, to black). Have a play with Brickstock as it makes it easy to import inventory from BL, set to average price and see where all the $$ are going. sort by price per part/lot, see what can be changed out. If there's not much to change then just grab a used set somewhere..

M.

Hey Barahir1401, it would be really appreciated if you shared some more pictures that show how you made the cockpit work. I'm really struggling to figure it out.

UPDATE:

I managed to work it out. I had to BL more parts for it, so I'll post detailed pictures when they arrive. I used a bunch of random parts to make the cockpit work, so it has a rough look it, but once correct pieces arrive, I'll post the pics of the final look.

Funny thing, I ordered original 4x9 LBG wedges, 2413 from B&P, but they instead sent me they newer 14181 ones with stud notches (!). I'm not complaining, because version with stud notches fits quite fine into the rugged look of 10175.