Super Star Destroyer Killer: Star Wars A-Wing

[Revell-Fan]

Howdee fans,

my friend is celerating his birthday (again, time is flying ) and it's time for a new Star Wars model!

After a series of Empire-based models I found that the Rebels were highly outnumbered in my friend's display which had to be changed. I chose the revamped A-Wing by Shunichi Makino which is currently the best A-Wing papercraft available. The parts were re-scaled to 1/32 to go with the TIE fighter and Snowspeeder I built. Shunichi states his kit is 1/48. I found out that this is not true. It is much bigger than that, about 1/35 or so. So the rescaling factor was less than 10% which allowed me to keep most of the parts intact and on the same sheet. Unfortunately I found this out after I had already re-scaled the template by 150% which made everything REALLY huge. Fortunately I was able to use the back side of the misprinted pages to print the correctly sized pattern.

I started with the cockpit tub.



Assembly is very straight-forward and the fit is great!





The tub is glued to a box which acts as former of the fuselage:





Bottom view:



The parts for the main hull:



The small strip between the right and left half of the upper sking is folded up and attached to the box:









The sides were carefully rounded using felt-tips of various thicknesses:



Unfortunately I scored the lines of the flaps on the sides which resulted in a sharp edge which should not be there. Ah well. It does not show too prominently on the finished model.







Everything fits like a glove. The edges were painted with a red marker.



Now I made a bad mistake which had severe effects on the assembly. Parts 10are supposed to be attached behind parts 2. That way a recess is created. However I accidentally installed them FLUSH with the fuselage:

 

[Chuffy70]

Looking forward to more!

 

[Revell-Fan]

The engine section went together smoothly:







Thrusters:











Additional parts for the cockpit and the top:





Bottom view at the thrusters: The markings show the placement of the fins.



Console, seat and top piece ready:





Everything in place:

 

[Revell-Fan]

Now it was time to make the stand. It onsist of a simple box and a mounting piece. The box was reinforced with corrugated card.





I added a few vertical formers:





The assembled box is very sturdy.





The mounting piece is glued into place. Time for the wings.



Because the back side was printed with the parts which came out too big I marked the correct parts with an "X" in order not to mix them.





According to the instructions the guns are supposed to be printed on regular 80gsm paper. Since I used 160gsm paper which is twice as thick I had to cut the parts smaller to make them fit. As you can see everything worked like a charm:











Since I do not have the ability to vacuform a canopy I attached the frame piece provided with the kit. The original studio models did not have a canopy glass, so it would not be too bad to follow their example here.





Now the engine rings had to be attached.





Not too bad but here the mistake I made by attaching parts 10 flush with the fuselage showed:



Both wings were severely misaligned!

 

[Revell-Fan]

The wrong installation of 10 led to a misalignment of the wings. The upper wings sat too far inside, the lower wings too far outside.



To save the build I prolongued all wings by the length of parts 2. That brought everything back to alignment.



So the old wings were removed, the rings salvaged and equipped with reprinted pieces to cover up the damaged texture caused by taking off the wings.



New wings were printed, assembled and attached:





As it should be!



I decided to assemble the textured canopy from the previous A-Wing version as a stand-in for a possible replacement with a vacuformed plastic one. To make it sit flush with the fuselage I added a few millimetres of paper around the perimeter and painted it dark grey. That way it slides easily over the installed frame.



Some views of the finished model:















And with the textured canopy cover in place:



It can be taken off and on.







DONE!

The kit went together like a charm. There were no areas which had to be enhanced in some ways, so it is basically perfect. I used a few parts from another misprint to add some greeblies and plates to the upper half.

The plane went off to its new owner and was a huge success. Thank you for watching - more pictures in the gallery!

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

You did a FANTASTIC JOB on this project! This is a great build thread guide for this model.
I hope that your friend likes it.

 

[mijob]

Great job RF its a great looking model.

 

[bigpetr]

Great build

 

[Walter2]

very well done, beautiful model

 

[Chuffy70]

A rather splendid looking A, I'm sure your friend will appreciate it - nice job!

 

[Revell-Fan]

Thank you very much! I'm glad that you cannot see anything of my faux pas. The model will pop again once I'm getting to the vacuforming.

 

[spaceagent-9]

Perfect!!! Great Job! If you get a heat gun at ace hardware, and some yellow furniture foam, you can push mold the canopies easily using clear picnic plastic plates by heating it up and pushing your positive into the plate against the foam. I have found that vacuforming is difficult at best and wastes plastic trying to get a perfect forming.

 

[Revell-Fan]

That sounds interesting. I have never heard of such a technique. Would the hot plastic not melt the foam in the process?

 

[Chuffy70]

That sounds interesting. I have never heard of such a technique. Would the hot plastic not melt the foam in the process?

It does sound and interesting technique - one which requires a tutorial methinks

 

[Chuffy70]

Perfect!!! Great Job! If you get a heat gun at ace hardware, and some yellow furniture foam, you can push mold the canopies easily using clear picnic plastic plates by heating it up and pushing your positive into the plate against the foam. I have found that vacuforming is difficult at best and wastes plastic trying to get a perfect forming.

I think a few pictures and a tutorial on method and supplies is in order

 

[bigpetr]

I did my A-wing canopy by pulling hot plastic over the plug. All you need is two of theese (every hardware store have them):

form a rectangle from them, put piece of plastic on them and fix all together with few of theese clamps:

then put it over the stowe, into the owen or use heat gun to melt the plastic until it sags, then quicky push it over the plug.

It took two attempts for me to get perfect canopy as you can see here (I even did not use the holder, as I described here, I just holded the plastic in hands):

Star Wars A-wing / Shunichi Makino + heavy mods/ 1:48

Good to hear that you get motivated. Cant wait to see your on going and upcomming projects.

www.zealot.com

 

[spaceagent-9]

I think a few pictures and a tutorial on method and supplies is in order

I will do that!

 

[lfriesen]

Love to see these build posts, mistakes and all. I’m learning a lot and have even looked up a few YouTubes on forming canopy bubbles. Great job on the build and the post!