Well, to be honest Sir, I actually thought about acrylic today, and last night while I was working on the superstructure of the top half of the fuselage. The only thing that kept me form using it was the fact that it would be even more expensive in smaller sheets, and though tougher it wouldn't necessarily be easy to bend around the sides where I needed it to. Any cutting, and mismatched pieces would only make it harder to cut, and size the pieces correctly should it be necessary to glue them back together. I use the red label Weld-On acrylic cement, but it takes an eternity to dry thoroughly since it melts the plastic material itself. It's just like Oatey cement for PVC as it melts the two surfaces together - strong, but hard to fix once affixed.
It's a huge compliment coming from you after seeing your Millenium Falcon build! I'm not showing anything since I've had to do so much resizing, and refitting of my original plans - most of which are scaled to model kits, and not to any known fuselage form available to the general public. The original one that Ira Keeler, and Mike Fulmer made is in the archives at Lucas's Skywalker Ranch so there's no way of getting hold of it. I have to trust my eye, and the reference pictures along with the kit parts I have to make this come out the way that I want it to which will have to be within + or - 1/32nd of an inch of the actual measurements. Theirs was scratch made, and this one is no exception! Although the finished product was cast in polyurethane for the fuselage, and everything else was styrene prototypes. This is why you see some places worn through the paint in white, and the fuselage is orange in colour where there are paint chips, and whatnot. I hope to have the final touches tomorrow night, or Friday morning. I only need to get the rest of the sides, back flaps (on the sides at the end), the cockpit area, and forward deck area in front of the canopy. I made a canopy, but it's too big and will need to be redone to correct scale, and shape. That will be next as I'll need that to scale the rest of the area between the upper deck where R2-D2 sits, and the front canopy edge. Once this is done I'll add the inner forms, and reinforcements and nosecone. After all that I'll start skinning the entire thing inside, and out with 0.20" thick polystyrene sheet. This will eliminate the need for shooting primer, and filler all over when it's not necessary!
This is the only reason for not posting pictures - I need insight from others, and I don't want a bunch of junk that I'll end up deleting later. I've done it on other forums I just don't want to do it here! Being a professional modeler doesn't guarantee you professional ideas. Inspiration, and understanding where others come from doesn't always come along when you need it - like when I'm in the process of building. I ask myself "How would the gang on the forum do this?" I know how Ira, and Mike thought along the lines of "We can do this!" but that doesn't mean that I knew how they did it exactly although I can somewhat understand their inspiration, and know that they did it like I did, but I don't know what materials they made their master from. I'm only thinking the way that we did it back in the day at the shop. However their time was long before I got to where I am now. I can't just ask them, and facing problems that arise along with supplies, and tooling available makes it ever more challenging. We always used balsa for big projects, and acrylic for just about anything structural that was mostly flat, or square. Everything else was whatever we could find to get the job done. Consider this the wooden buck of todays' X-wing - only hollow unlike the original one was.
I'll use a basic form with a polystyrene skin that will allow me to make a silicone rubber mould over, and pour polyurethane resin into, and make this a resin "garage kit" even though it won't be done in a garage. I don't smoke, so I don't have to worry about blowing myself up with toxic fumes! The only thing that will set me back is the money needed to buy the casting supplies to make this a reality for all who want one of these. Even though what I plan to offer initially is modeled after the Jedi version I'll offer a New Hope version of the hyperdrive, and vault for those who are willing to pony up the cash for it - which won't cost much more, as most of the detail is just about the same. More than anything - time, and money are against me. For the time being I'll do what I can with what I know, and what I have to work with. Thank for your patience. Stay tuned - pictures will be forthcoming this week!
~ Cobra Chris