I bought myself a 3D scanner which should greatly enhance my creation of digital donor kit parts. My digital library has grown to several hundred parts, and this should help with some of the more complicated, or hard to measure bits. Tank hulls are notoriously tricky to get right.

Here is my first scan of a Nitto King Tiger (1/48… or is it 1/50?). A bit soft in the smaller details, but perfect for wayfinding.

This was done without any scanning spray, so I hope to refine my workflow and get slightly better results. The circular scars on some of the flat surfaces are from where I had placed tracking markers.

I moved the whole site away from Apple’s defunct iWeb and is now a WordPress site. Just FYI…

J.

I went to the Seattle Comicon today. I was hoping someone there might have a Master Replica Falcon on display. No such luck – but there were a bunch of Stormtroopers surrounded by latex-clad bunnies. Um, ok…

Today my wife an I took a trip out to one of Seattle’s surrounding islands to visit Keith – the guy with the mill. We enjoyed the sun and ferry ride, and Jenn even put-up with my ‘pew-pew’ noises as we passed buy the container cranes…

I liked these scribbles in my Moleskine. I’ve kept it on my desk in front of my keyboard as I’ve transcribed dimensions from photos to CAD. Solving the geometric equation that results in the right shape an proportion has been a lot of fun – for me at least.

Studio Scale is the homepage for the Millennium Falcon Builder’s Club. The Club is a Yahoo Groups group and there is a pile of great information there. Everything from lists of kits for kit bashing to actual part maps that previous Falconers have put together and documented.

Without this resource, I’m not sure I would have taken-on the project.

I started my Falcon project in early January, 2009. It took me about a month to start unearthing all the resources available online.

It seems typical of a falcon build that the falconer spends hours scaling dimensions off of grainy little photos or scans from old books (most of which are out of print).

I’m not sure it it was coincidence or fate, but about the time I decided to start my own build, Helder Santiago posted hundreds of high-resolution photos of his Master Replicas model. Most of Helder’s photos include ruler’s and calipers for good measure – quite literally.

Here are the links to his photos:

Top Set 1

Top Set 2

Bottom Set

I called this little internet cul-de-sac “The Falconer” not because I’m the only falconer – I’m actually just an aspiring falconer. It’s more of an homage to some of the guys who have come before me and inspired me to pursue my own build.

The two stand-out builds for me are Tim Ketzer and Morten Moeslund. When I saw what these guys had done, I knew that I had to join in on the fun, but I also realized also what an insane amount of work it would be. These two are have set the standard – I hope to live up to it.

Thanks guys!

I have a crazy ambition to build a full-sized studio scale Millennium Falcon. I’ll document my journey from time-to-time here.

This is a subset of my usual blog that can be found here – because one blog isn’t enough. Occasionally I’ll cross post, but for the most part – all my Falcon related stuff will be chronicled here and most likely end when the project’s over.

Enjoy!

J.