Topic: W.I.P. - YT-1300 Light Freighter

[Splashcoat]

I was looking for a quick-and-dirty build so I took the old Etrl/MPC Millennium Falcon kit out of my stash. I've been avoiding building this one because of the mammoth amount of work involved to make it accurate. So I decided not to make it accurate, and instead take some artistic license and build it as a different, as-yet-unnamed Corellian YT-1300 Light Freighter. I'm also going to take the opportunity to try some weathering techniques (namely the hairspray technique) out on this beast before I tackle my FineMolds Falcon.

My first step is to fill in all the open access panels on the ship's hull. There is no cannonical reference as to what an un-modified YT-1300 looks like so I figured my guess was as good as any.

[Tamer]

Looking great so far SC.

[Mr. Black]

I know that kit, it's huge! I'm interested to see how this will turn out.

[hemble]

Looking good so far mate looking forward to seeing more.

Ron

[Tamer]

I like the look of this too. Back on the front page and our facebook page.

[StenHunter]

Good start! keep the pics coming!

[Splashcoat]

Access panels filled-in and radar dish replaced with a flush mount sensor array:

[Splashcoat]

Canopy glazing. The fit of the clear insert within the canopy framing is remarkably sloppy. There's at least a 1mm gap between most of the framing and the windows. The clear plastic is also fairly distorted. As stated earlier, I didn't want to spend an awfull lot of time correcting the inaccuracies and flaws of this kit; to fix the gap problem, I flowed-in a few layers of Future to fill the space between the framing and the "glass". This also somewhat improved the distortion problem. I want to avoid spending time building the cockpit so I'm just going to go old school and heavily tint the glazing from within so that the cockpit can't be seen.

[hemble]

Coming along great and I really like the flush mount sensor array very creative idea.

Ron

[Splashcoat]

Side walls attached to lower hull. The fit of these parts is extremely poor and just a little bit of light clamping was required.

[Mr. Black]

I love the way you're handling this... thing. I built mine waaaaaay back in the early 90s and if I could go back in time, I'd definitely pay more attention to resolving the issues with this kit.

[Splashcoat]

I love the way you're handling this... thing. I built mine waaaaaay back in the early 90s and if I could go back in time, I'd definitely pay more attention to resolving the issues with this kit.

And there are a lot of issues! Fit problems notwithstanding, the inaccuracy in detail and even proportion is kind of hard to live with. I just couldn't convince myself to invest the time fixing the myriad problems when the Fine Molds Falcon kit is waiting in my stash. Cheers.

[Splashcoat]

Engine Exhaust Detail:

The kit part representing the engine outlet is just a curved piece of smooth, clear plastic designed to be painted from within to mimic a glowing engine exhaust. I went with a different approach and detailed the outside surface of the kit part with lengths of U-channel and half-round styrene.



Primed:



I needed 55 pieces of identical length, so I cobbled together the Superchop MkI to speed things along:

[StenHunter]

Awesome superchop!

[Splashcoat]

Awesome superchop!

I realize it looks pretty shabby - but it got the job done