So far on this journey to a 1/12th scale X-Wing, we’ve been working on a 1/24th scale version that replicates much of the original studio scale models as possible (or desirable). There were a few more things that we needed to do before we made the “jump” to 2x.
Panel Lines
Jason has used a technique in the past (he’s a Rhino user) where he extrudes tubes along the surface of a model and subtracts them from the main form to create scribe lines. It’s a fairly good digital analog of a largely hand hewn detail.
I leveraged this technique for the 1/24th fuselage (and eventually wings) like so.
Here is the base model as we’ve seen it so far.
I love this image above – just the web of panel lines in space.
And one subtracted from the other. Because of the parametric history in Fusion, these are fairly “quick” to change an update all things being relative. It’s still a lot of lines – over 300individual elements if I remember.
Part Breaks
One of the last things we did before making the jump to 1/12th scale was break everything up for printing. This happened in two steps (three if you include a totally failed first attempt which might be in an ancillary bloopers post at some point).
Above are the “macro splits”. The major chunks that represent the major parts that will get cast and assembled into the final model. Jason wanted the model to be compatible with the v5 armature – but we made some secondary machining operations to accommodate the cockpit – and even then, the pilot is cut-off below the thigh – like a classic Tamiya F1 driver.
However, before we can even get to the macro-break-up version, we had to subdivide the model down into even smaller bits that could be printed. Above is half a fuselage in three segments. This is about 30-40 hours of printing at 50 microns in Grey Pro resin on Jason’s Form 2.
Huzzah! Some hundred hours of printing later, little bits to big bits!
From the assembled SLA masters (above), come the polyurethane castings (below). I’m really looking forward to seeing these finished-out as a full fleet!
Project Management
This was a fairly big project with a lot of things to track. Jason, Andre and I used Slack to keep things on task. Over the two years, we sent 8,000 messages and shared nearly 2,000 files and photos back and forth. As I’ve mentioned, most all the CAD was done in Fusion 360, and we used the collaboration tools there to maintain version control, and have eyes on what was happening during development.
This isn’t unlike what we’ve been doing on the Falcon – although the Falcon Slack workspace is well over 30,000 messages and counting. We’ve done several hundred revisions on the CAD for that model with Sean Sides‘ build validating many of our assumptions, and now Stu Brown’s build vetting the next generation. The scale and complexity of the Falcon is far greater than the X-Wing.
Of course, there are still a few outstanding items on the X-Wing project, but still plenty to talk about too. Next post we’ll make the jump to 1/12th scale!