Somehow, we had already come to the end of our latest delivery. While other deliveries seemed to have taken ages to work through, this one felt like it was over in the blink of an eye. Yet as I looked at what we had accomplished, namely expanding the upper hull, I knew we had done a fair bit! With this final installment – for now – I didn’t need to concern myself with whether my eight-year-old daughter, Ember, and I would be doing more than a single issue, this was it!
As I always do, I looked through the magazine to check what we would be doing, to ensure there wouldn’t be any snags. This first, most obvious thing, is that Ember and I wouldn’t be completing anything on the upper hull this time around. I was a little sad at this, as I really wanted to get moving with that side of the project. With this part coming with more metal frames, I had assumed we’d be expanding it even more. Alas, this was not the case. Instead, we would be adding more details to the lower hull, using a wide range of parts from across multiple issues. That sounded like it was going to be fun just locating them! While the final details would involve clipping, filing and gluing (something me and Ember have got down to a fine art between us), the first part of the build had me in a bit of a dilemma.
The thrust vector plates. These needed to be added to the build and there’s reference to issue thirty-four, where they came up before. Back in that installment, it said not to glue them on until after painting. My plan was to paint everything at the end to make my life a little easier and give me some time to practice using the airbrush I had brought. When speaking to Josh Wraith (who has created a painting guide with Archive X paints), he had said he had just completely done the assembly and worried about everything else after. It hadn’t impeded him too much… until he then said that actually leaving the actuators off is how ILM would have done it for the red plates. I was in a bit of a predicament. Did I just glue everything on to make my life easy? I mean let’s be honest, would anyone really notice a bit of red paint that hadn’t gone completely under the actuator? The answer is probably a no; it is a very minute piece of detail. However, there is one person who would definitely know that it wasn’t quite perfect… me!
Long ago, my father had always told me in projects pertaining to DIY, to aim for perfection and when you don’t quite reach it, it’ll probably look great. But if you start not aiming for that to begin with, cut corners, that’s when things can start to not work and look poor. With this in my mind, I needed a middle ground. I knew I wanted as much glued down as possible. I didn’t want anything to stop Ember and me progressing with the build, nor did I want to compromise on having a painted Millennium Falcon as close to the one that ILM created. So that middle road? We would glue the actuators on, except for the ones that had to have a red coat of paint underneath. That would be three. Not too many but enough that I could paint the markings correctly once the rest of the model was complete and not too many pieces that I might accidentally misplace them.
With a compromise reached with my internal components of my brain, there wasn’t a lot left to do but begin the build. Sitting down with Ember, she quickly got into the issue, knowing that the different parts needed sorting. She loves figuring out which part is which. I also love this as it saves me a job. We did realise we had to go back to issue thirty-four to glue the pressure stabilisers together before we could proceed. As soon as that was complete, Ember carefully measured up the actuators to ensure we had the right one and then I explained about leaving three off. Having the image in the magazine was a godsend and once she understood about how we would be painting it, she immediately got why we were leaving three off. Teaching her how to airbrush while we are constructing the Falcon is really helping with her comprehension of why things need to be the way they are. Ember was very good and glued two of the pieces in place. She still worries about using super glue, so I only encourage her to do bits and pieces here and there. I’m hoping by the time we get to the end of this entire process, she’ll be able to handle it a lot better.
Once the thrust vector plates had been completed, it was time to add the final details. This was a bit trickier, a couple of times I had to do the clipping and filing because some of these pieces are very delicate. I didn’t need to tell Ember this; she knew which ones she’d struggle with. She watched me carefully, but she hasn’t quite got the experience to be able to do this without breaking certain structures. She did however like playing what felt like Where’s Wally with where the pieces went; they are not all around the vector plates. I could appreciate why she needed me to glue these pieces on; they are fiddly. I didn’t need tweezers but the toothpicks I use for adding glue came in very helpful for pushing the pieces into place. And go into place they did. There is a lot of reliance that everything fits together perfectly and I’m a little shocked that they actually do.
And that was it! Although not a large issue, the lots of little pieces meant it took longer than I would have thought. I was a bit concerned that the Falcon wouldn’t be able to sit on the jig again, but the details aren’t damaged by the jig (thankfully). It was an enjoyable build, and I won’t lie, I actually quite liked coming back to the half of the Falcon that we had been working on for so long. It was a pleasant way to end this delivery, and I imagine the last we will be working on the lower hull from now on. This was a very satisfying delivery, particularly seeing the lower hull complete. The next delivery I’m sure will be more frames and plates, ready to get this top hull complete!
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