1/72 TIE Defender buildup

darkwolf29a wrote:

Very nice build, man. :) Being a Star Wars Fan, I can't wait to see htis one finished. :)

 

And it's been a very fun build on a subject that holds alot of possibilities for "making it your own".

Thanks for the kind words.

Very nice build, man. :) Being a Star Wars Fan, I can't wait to see htis one finished. :)

Rounded out the arsenal by adding the chin guns in similar fashion from aluminum and brass.

Getting back to the rebuilt wingtip guns I thought they could stand a lil more 'dressing up'. So first I inserted a smaller barrel tip within the existing ones and also whittled up lil 'muzzle bands' to place upon them. There's the everpresent "Gag Shop Novelty Penny" to mislead you into thinking this stuff might be small.

And Lincoln is wearing a Monacle and preparing to shoot a monkey out of a tree with his 'blowgun' equipped with poison tipped darts??

It was time for a really quick and easy effort at lighting up the three "thruster engines" upon the rear plate.

First drilled out the resin openings and then came in from behind with a larger bit until nearly reaching the opening. This gave enough room for some slightly modified 'micro-surface mount LEDS' which are merely pressed into the new receptacles. A lil bit of tempy wire and power and we have a light test.


And, that's a "regular" LED (the green one) along with a penny to guage the size of these parts.

Using those lil photoetched "razor saws" really didn't do much damage or remove much material when I cut apart the wings. A lil bit of Milliput and some sanding smoothed over the "wounds" pretty well. Then I masked the 'wing panels' to save their fine pattern/details and shot em with some "thick primer". A lil block sanding, detail attention , maybe a repeat, and they'll be back to fine form I hope.

With the gun barrels made went ahead and made the fiber optic pathways for each wing. Some are shown with wire used as 'place holders' till everything is fitted together.

Then went ahead and made more room within the "ball" since I'll be fitting a full cockpit.

Making six new gun barels isn't hard but if you're like me you have your good days and your not so good days for putting things on straight. If you ever struggle to get a band wrapped around a barrel, just cut a sleeve to but your styrene up against as you lay/wrap it into place.

Here's a shot of the new rebuilt wingtip gun with FO run through the pylon and hub to a remote light source just for this test.

To ready it for further goodies I drilled through each engine/wing pylon and then bored out the hub itself-

Started "attacking" the resin with some of my favorite "weapons", a quick bore drill bit and then the ever trusty Dremel!

Hollowed out the ball until it is fairly uniform with less than an 1/8" thickness left to make room for some goodies.

Heres a shot showing that I went in from the backside and kept grinding until the "open" area of the cockpit was wafer thin and eventually popped out.

And so it goes.