Hi from the small country of Luxembourg, and another Falcon being built. I receive my magazines from Germany, so I'm at #10 right now, not much has happened yet, I'm checking the net for pics videos for all kinds of ideas, but here the first pics from what I did so far.



Three kinds of quad-cannons, from left to right, an old Revell model I had lying around for at least 20 years, the middle one is the Fine Molds 1:72 and the right one is ofc the DeAgo.



I did drill muzzle holes into the barrels, primes the cannons with Citadel Black Primer (yes, I have tons of GW miniatures), then sprayed the cannons with Tamiya AS-20 Insignia White (the color Steve Dymszo recommends for the hull), washed the recesses with Citadel Badab Black wash. No other effects like oil or rust yet, as I'm not sure to be happy with the result so far. On one side I like the wash, on the other side it seems to give me a much darker result than on the pics from the original model's quad-cannons. Gonna think about it in the next days, comments welcome.

At the same time I did prepare the hold floor, cut two holes into it and test-fitted the Paragrafix set. Ready to be primed and painted in the next days.

Yes, I plan to put LEDs and SMD-LEDs everywhere, just won´t built anything for the hold holes yet. I´ve seen many pics, Colson here in this forum is a genius, but as long as I don´t have more parts from the lower hull, thus not knowing how much place I have under the hold floor, I´ll wait.

Looking good

Thanks for your comments and messages.

I just have some small updates this week, as I'm waiting for more pieces, notably some Evergreen 274 strips, which you need to complete the Paragrafix set (if you want show the open holes in the hold floor.



I'm just now applying the decals to the Paragrafix cockpit. I must say that these decals are much better than those from the PE set for the Fine Molds kit. Still managed to rip the upper decal for the back wall in two (just noticed that you can see the crack on the photo, it's barely visible in real, and I can add some small dip of black to hide it completely).



Also working on the cockpit seats. I think the front seat is all right (Tamiya XF-49 Khaki over a black undercoat, then a Citadel Seraphim Sepia wash followed by some more XF-49 and then a light Tamiya XF-57 Buff drybrush). The back seats are too metalic, I tried the Hairspray method on those to do the chipping, but it failed, and instead I used Carson Paint Killer to rework the final black coat. Well, it worked too good. Think I will try to apply some black wash and see how it works out.



I did prepare some LED's, from a small SMD-LED to a 5mm one (600mcd up to 25000mcd). Once I have the cockpit door ready I will try the LED set delivered by De Agostini and see if it's good enough, but I will also need LEDs for the rest of the cockpit, the hold and the corridors. Having prepare those LEDs I can connect them to my 9V battery and check out which one best to use and where to fix them ....



And last a pic from the current hold. The floor has been sprayed black and then a first layer of Tamiya XF-63 German Gray. The wall had just been sticked in place (I needed to file off a piece of the PE floor to make it fit). The bunk/bench piece has been prepared for its PE piece ... and yes, I need to get a better camera then my smartphone one ...

Very nice looking! I think I like the way the Paragrafix hold floor looks even better than the Shapeways floor. That being said, since my build is going to be displayed "in flight", I'll rarely ever open her up to see the hold, so I can't justify the cost to put a lot of expensive add-ins. But seeing how good these look does make me a bit jealous.

Looking sweet my friend!

Thanks again for all you nice words of encouragement. I did some more work the past days:



The round transparent panel you need for the Paragrafix Fine Molds model. Took me days to find a sheet (and it's 2mm, not 1mm like Paragrafix proposes, so I hope I won't have problems with it later, probably will have). Took me a long time to get it to the correct form and size. Again, if I buy a 50$ kit, I would gladly add some more dollars, but then have at least a "complete" set, instead of having to waste time to find the necessary materiel to even built my kit. Would it really be so hard for Paragrafix to add these small bits to their kits? And then the decals from the Fine Molds 1/72 kit. A catastrophe. Won't even add a picture of that cockpit, as I feel ashamed by the thought that somebody could believe that's the best I can make it look. I will spent a lot of time to repaint the decals to make them look decent, and to repair the places where the color simply went off the decals. Luckily they seem to have learned a bit about decals and those for the new kits (as those for the DeAgostini Falcon) are a lot better.



Back to the DeAgostini cockpit. I did solder some SMD-LEDs to their cables, then put a small dip of Microscale Krystal Klear around them. Just did try it, and seems like my idea proved to be a good one, now the smoldering is stronger (sorry but they are so small that moving the cables tends to make them break off the LED often, didn't smolder a lot in the last 20 years ....). I did connect it 3 hours to a battery, just to make sure nothing bad happens to the LEDs and/or Krystal Klear once you lighten them up, and all was good. So I glued them inside the flight console.



Then I glued that part to the center console (which contains an additional 3mm 2200mcd LED)



Lightened up. P.S. On the pics they seem to shine brighter then they do in reality. I'm an IT guy and modeller, not photographer.



As there are a lot pf small gaps where the flight console is glued to the central console, I needed to fill the holes with some Citadel Liquid Green Stuff. In the previous image you can still see light under the console. That not just from the hole in the floor, so more Green Stuff needed to fill them.

Now on to work on the cockpit door to try out the DeAgostini lightning and wher I need glue more SMD-LEDs to lighten the side walls.

I took a look at the Shapeways parts, and honestly, I think most people are out of their mind when it comes to how much they ask for their parts. I saw a bunk (alone) for more then 50$. Sorry, but that's clearly too much for me. Some parts that I would like to have are even more than 200$. Not with me. I will scratch-build some pieces and that's it. Some people have more money, some less, some accept to spent it, some not. In the end, we have to be satisfied with our models. Yes, it may be true that we'll always see some bits and say:" I could have done that better." But even with a 200$ piece, I would still find other pieces that could look better.

Holes cut out and the door rings prepared. Took me 1 hour for this ring alone ... . Did cut a bit too much in that upper left corner, so filled it up again with Tamiya putty.



Then I cut a frame out of a 0.4mm styrene sheet. For those who think this comes easily ... I have redone this frame 5 times. Either I did cut too far and destroyed it, or the parts weren't aligned correctly (like in this picture). It's just a matter of how much time and effort you want to invest until you're satisfied (and of course money for those who buy third-party pieces). So, I'm also still learning with this model, I may built and paint for more then 30 years, but imho I'm still learning new things from every new model.



As the frame wasn't aligned in the last picture, I did start a new one, this time drawing both together instead of two single frames ....



As a result it now looks better. Started to paint the whole wall (wall is Tamiya German Grey and the frames Tamiya Ocean Grey, dunno yet what to do with the white part) and did some scratch building. I'm still looking for some 1 or 1.5mm round disks for the upper piece. Don't want to take the isolation from a 1mm wire, these thing tend to embrittle (is that the correct word) and then break apart. And a home I just have 0.5 and 2mm platic rods .... sigh.

It's hard to figure out what's exactly in those places, I just have 2 or 3 pics that show them fairly well, and the things look different when you compare the New Hope Falcon to the Empire Falcon. Guess if the guys from LucasArt didn't know exactly how these things look then what I built is all fine for me.



Preparing the navigation computer for the paragrafix pieces.



All the cables from the bunk assemble up to now. Guess there'll be some more from the bench... and need take a look at the Dejarik table. Do you need to buy the Shapeway one if you want to add fibres? Hmmmm



Did also some scratch building for the bunk interior. The light in front of it is just sticked in place for this pic, it's not yet glued in place :-) And again, I think I repainted this thing 4 times. Didn't like Tamiya Deck Tan or Buff, then tried Citadel Ulthuan Grey, until I saw pics from a guy named Necronaut, so I went back to Deck Tan .... it really looks better once you apply that black wash (Citadel Nuln Oil applied with a cotton bud), which I hadn't when I painted it the first time.