Estes Maxi Brute X-Wing Fighter

[James Duffy]

Made a bit of progress on the other three wings over the past couple of weeks, and thought I'd provide a quick update. The first task was to cut out the balsa cores and the .015"-thick styrene fascia sheets. After cleaning up the cut edges with sanding sticks we can spray them with 3M High-Strength 90 contact cement. After the contact cement flashes off for about ten minutes the parts can be joined.



After this sets up for a couple of hours the panel lines are scribed into place, followed by gluing the void inserts in place with epoxy. (The completed wing panel is shown for comparison.)

The wings can then be sprayed with Tamiya white primer, lightly sanded, and then sprayed with the AS-20 Insignia White lacquer base coat.

More later,
James

 

[James Duffy]

Here are a few highlight shots of the detail painting of the wing panels. Since the process was highlighted on the earlier test wing, I won't go into much detail on the process.

I ultimately decided to go with purple as the squadron color for this unit, as that color doesn't show up often in the SW universe (Mace Windu's light saber is a notable exception). Because "Purple Squadron" sounds stupid, we'll call this the "Royal Squadron," and this fighter will be "Royal Three." As mentioned before, the backstory will also dictate that many replacement parts were scavenged from other damaged X-Wings, resulting in a variety of mismatched components.

Fin flash being masked.

Here are the completed wing panels. The primer/repair colors differ slightly to provide a bit of interest.


Just for grins, here's a preview of how a wing will look attached to a wing saddle.

We the time comes we're going to weather the s@#% out of everything.

More later.
James

 

[afadeev]

That's not an unreasonable request, and frankly one that I have expected. At this point I really don't wish to get into the resin parts business, but I may have a better idea. What if I were to send the masters to an established 3D printing company so that they could duplicate the parts digitally, and offer the fiddly bits as 3D printed parts?

James,
The challenge is that I am not aware of any "established 3D printing companies" that would do a laser scan of a part, and output a .stl files for 3D-printing. At least not at below 5-digit price points.
Once one has a .stl file, there is a slew of printing options available: from free at local libraries (and personal 3D printers), to inexpensive "for hire" printing arrangements (upwork.com and similar).

The starting point for 3D printing is a .stl file.
Once can build it by hand, but I'm not sure if you are up for that, James?

Fun fact: the wing saddle contained in the original Maxi Brute and NCR kits was a single component. Here, we've added a total of 23 resin and styrene detail parts.

Out of curiosity - what are you planning to do to structurally reinforce the wing?
All these holes, in the already flimsy balsa wings, can't be good for strength.

On my model (just finished 18mm MMT X-wing, about to start on 24mm MMT one), I felt compelled to paper and CA-impregnate the wings to strengthen them for flight.

What, if anything, are you planning to do with yours?
Will yours fly?

a

 

[James Duffy]

The challenge is that I am no aware of any "established 3D printing companies" that would do a laser scan of a part, and output a .stl files for 3D-printing.

When the model is complete I'm going to lack up all of the detail masters and ship them off to Mike Nowak of Galactic Manufacturing. He will reverse-engineer them into the appropriate format and make 3d-printed versions available for sale. No idea when that will happen, though.

Out of curiosity - what are you planning to do to structurally reinforce the wing?
All these holes, in the already flimsy balsa wings, can't be good for strength.

Because of the laminated structure the modified wings are stronger than the standard kit components.

What, if anything, are you planning to do with yours?
Will yours fly?

It will certainly be capable of flight, but I won't make that call until I complete construction.

James

 

[James Duffy]

The wing panels have just been mounted into the wing saddles with epoxy, so here's a bonus photo.

Upper wings are at the top of the photo, lower wings below.



More later,
James

 

[James Duffy]

Work on the airframe of the X-Wing commenced over the weekend. The process was completed pretty much as directed in the kit instructions, and nothing unexpected happened during the process. The fuselage is easily the best part contained in the original Estes kit, and the reason why the model is sought after by serious modelers to this day. If you want a large, studio scale model of the X-Wing fighter with an accurately shaped fuselage, your easiest starting point is the Maxi Brute kit.

That is not to say that there are not some challenges to be faced. In particular, the injection molded styrene cap has an indifferent fit onto the blow-molded main structure, and will need extensive filing and sanding in order to look presentable.

There's also a little injection molded part that fits on the underside of the nose cone that is a bit of a mess. There are some tricky part geometries that necessitate the inclusion of the detail as a separate part, and it frankly could have been done a bit more elegantly. However, I can imagine that the pressure on the Estes designers to get the product out of the door in early 1978 was pretty brutal. ("Good enough is the enemy of great," or something like that.)

We'll call this injection molded part the "beard," as it fits onto the chin of the blow molded nose cone part. Makes sense, right? The chin part is simply too long, so a bit of length needs to be trimmed to make the flow and fit between the parts make sense.

Once trimmed to length, the transverse left-right fit of the parts are wonky, so a shim made from .010" thick styrene is attached to the nose cone.

Finally, the beard is glued into place underneath the chin.

We'll need to do a significant amount of filling and sanding, but the initial fit is pretty good.

Before we do that, though, let's take a moment to bring the fuselage parts together and see how it looks. FYI, the fit of the aft plate and inner stuffer tube was great, and required no unusual trimming or fitting. Assembly of the stuffer tube was completed using 5-minute epoxy.

Some initial work on the turbines has also taken place, and I hope to share that in the next few days.

More later,
James

 

[mo2872]

Ok, what happened next????

 

[James Duffy]

It has been 16 months since my last post to this thread, and I've decided to get back to work on it. The last year and a half of my rocketry life has been consumed with a variety of other projects, most of them with some sort of "how to" video aspect. You can see those here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMb0g2tgJlcSVE_niblHbwDD5Ckwek4On

Time to get back to work on the X-Wing, though. We'll pick up exactly where we left off, integrating the injection molded and vacuform plastic bits at the forward end of the fuselage. Recall that this model was developed very quickly, almost a panic project at Estes in late '77/early '78. The goal was to get product out the door and into the hands of Star Wars obsessed kids, not produce a perfect kit. As such, these are not Tamigawa-quality parts, and just about everything requires a bit of fiddling to achieve a good fit. Generous shimming with sheet styrene scrap is being used to fill the canyons between poorly fitting parts, and that is followed up by generous applications of Tamiya white putty.



After the putty dries we begin sanding with a variety of sanding sticks. So, so very much sanding...

More later,
James

 

[James Duffy]

After several putty/dry/sand cycles, the final bits of excess putty are cleaned up and polished by working the surface with a series of Q-tips, moistened with Tamiya lacquer thinner. This little trick was stolen from a scale modeling DVD set hosted by Floyd Werner, a master craftsman renowned for his helicopter and Luftwaffe models. I repurposed the technique while building my V-2 and Bumper models.

This short video will recap the technique, if you're interested. I cannot recommend using alternate products (such as Squadron putty) using this trick, as I've never tried it. Tamiya products have never let me down, so I keep using them.



More later,
James

 

[James Duffy]

The blow-molded nose piece has a thin area that has unfortunately developed a small tear, and we need to fix that. There's a quick and easy way to do that using medium CA glue. Here's the hole that we need to fix.



Just hit the hole with a drop of medium CA, followed by a drop of accelerator.



I use a small bottle with a needle dropper for applying accelerator. These are available from Amazon, and beat the heck out of spraying your desk, model, and dog with the aerosol or pump applicator: https://www.amazon.com/Squeeze-Plastic-Dispensing-Dispenser-Applicator/dp/B07M5NL9LL

The drop will cure right away, after which a few passes with a sanding stick will smooth the spot and fair it into the rest of the part. Pro tip: sand it right away, as CA glues have a funky two-stage cure process. After a few hours the CA drop will become rock hard and unworkable, so don't think that you can come back and work on it later

It may take a few glue/cure/sand cycles to fill the spot. This particular repair took two cycles and a total of about four minutes.



Next, we'll begin defining the panel lines on the fuselage and begin scribing those details.

James

 

[James Duffy]

The Estes Maxi Brute fuselage has the right shapes (more on that in a bit), but it is devoid of any interesting surface detail. The studio scale models were covered with a network of panel lines and greeblies, and just about everything was painted in a slightly different shade of filth. The next step will be to scribe panel lines onto the fuselage using frames from the films, photos of the studio miniatures, our little Baidai reference model, and intuition. Unlike a traditional "real" scale subject, the references often conflict with each other, so we have wide latitude for interpretation.

We'll be scribing the panel lines using Dymo tape, the back side of a broken X-acto blade, and a purpose-built panel line scriber.



After choosing a pattern, we can draw the details onto the surface of the model with a pencil.



Next, we lay a strip of Dymo tape along the line. The Dymo tape serves as a guide along which we can drag our scribing tools.



If you'd like to see a bit more detail about this process, take a look at my Bumper WAC build, starting with this post.

Once a section has been scribed, it is lightly sanded to clean things up a bit. The pattern is then drawn and scribed on the opposite side of the fuselage. Just for grins, I highlighted the panel lines with some accent color so they would show up a little better for the camera.



I noted in the first paragraph above that the fuselage shapes were pretty good. In transferring the pattern from one side of the fuselage to the other, I learned that they are not quite perfect, though. In particular, I learned that the fuselage is not symmetrical! That's not really a surprise, as we know that the model was designed quickly, using 44-year-old tech. Still, it's fun to find the flaw, even if it won't impact the final model.

There's a great deal of real estate to draw and scribe. This may take a few days.

James

 

[James Duffy]

Here's some more progress scribing detail into the surface of the fuselage, completed over the last two evenings of League Championship ball in both leagues. (You'll need to click on the image to see the detail.)



Searching images of studio models has proven to be a real PITA, and most of the images seem to match the little Bandai model that I have on hand anyway. This little thing is great, and has become my primary reference for the scribing process.



More later,
James

 

[James Duffy]

The past few days have been spent watching playoff baseball, and I am happy to report that my Houston Astros (yes, they are mine) will be facing the Atlanta Braves in the World Series. I used this time to complete the bulk of panel line scribing on the fuselage of the model. With that done, attention can now be turned to "greebling" the surface of the part, or adding details.

We'll start with the three prominent hatch details on the left, right, and underside of the fuselage. There are pretty good references available for these hatches, and they all pretty much match our Bandai reference model. Unfortunately, the side hatch detail on the Estes fuselage is the wrong shape, molded as square elements instead of the appropriate trapezoidal shapes. We could correct that via major cosmetic surgery, or we could simply make the best of the shape that is already there. Let's take the simple path, no?

The first task is to create a set of pattern drawings, which are attached below as a .pdf file. Working from that, styrene strip and sheet stock is used to create the simple flat shapes that we need.

Left side:


Right side:


There is no bottom hatch detail on the Estes, so that element was cut from .010" styrene sheet and attached in the right spot with Tamiya thin cement. Greebles were then glued onto the hatch.


This is quick, easy, and fun to do, and adds a great deal of interest to the model.

There are a bunch of raised greebles all over the forward end of the fuselage. We'll get to work on those next. If you're interested in learning more about greebles (or greeblies), here are two great Adam Savage videos that touch on the concept:





James

 

[GuyNoir]

I'd seen the Adam Savage bit on the Universal Greeble before. A quick scan of Thingiverse found it right away:

Universal Greeble by Xanthra47

Just a quick model of the "Universal Greeble." Scale and print as needed.

www.thingiverse.com

 

[John_lennon]

To some, a greeble is an invisible critter only seen by cats. Ever watched your cat intently staring at something you can't see? It's a greeble!

It's Spirits definitely spirits your greebles are. You like that how I threw that Yoda part in there. Lol

 

[John_lennon]

@James Duffy you're a true genius this model work up is a great read & you do a lot of amazing work. I'm just starting out in building my 1st kit with my grandson when I see him which isn't often turning an easy buil into a month by month project. But I don't want to do all the work without him so he feels left out. I'm a Star Wars fan and I'm not surprised that Estes came out with their models. Although I think you're highly detailed rework of the kit is mind blowing and astonishing. I hope one day to be able to scoop up an X wing kit. Just for my love of the movies. I remember going as a kid with my Dad to the 1st Star wars movie I was very young but a memory engrained upon my mind nonetheless. It was probably my 1st ever movie experience and I'm sure my Dad was left to be the babysitter that day, thinking how do I keep these kids excited and not screaming for a few hours. So he brought us to the movies, Thanks to him and probably my older brother suggesting or even begging to go see the movie once he'd seen the trailer commercials on the TV. How long have you been building models a lot of what you're doing is foreign to me as well as processes or products used in your build. But you use these things to an accuracy like non ever witnessed by myself. I loved reading about your process in finding the most accurate model to work from. I'm following this till the end. Thanks again.

 

[James Duffy]

...you're a true genius this model work up is a great read & you do a lot of amazing work.

Thank you for the kind words, but I'm just one of many here doing cool stuff. I resolved recently to get some of my techniques out of my head, and share them either here, or via video. You can find a playlist of my technique videos here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMb0g2tgJlcSVE_niblHbwDD5Ckwek4On

Nothing that I do is especially hard. I've mentioned before that I do a whole bunch of simple things in a logical sequence. What that sequence is seems to be the secret sauce that comes with experience.

As for the most recent work on the X-Wing Fighter, the greebling of the fuselage has been completed, and here's the current state of play.

Left (port) side:


Right (starboard) side:


Upper surface:


Lower surface:


A quick count reveals that I have added 87 separate greeble details to the fuselage and about 200 separate panel lines. Next, the fuse will be carefully sanded to clean things up, then sprayed with Tamiya primer. We want to preserve as much of the detail as possible, and the Tamiya stuff is much, much thinner than the high-solids primers traditionally used in rocketry.

More later,
James

 

[neil_w]

Nothing that I do is especially hard. I've mentioned before that I do a whole bunch of simple things in a logical sequence. What that sequence is seems to be the secret sauce that comes with experience.

There's an important second ingredient: patience. If you're in a rush to get it done, or just don't feel like dealing with it anymore, the sequence won't save you. Gotta be willing to go as slowly as needed and spend the time.

 

[Stewman]

Patience, bah humbug! James, I started following this thread and continue to be amazed at your meticulous work. It's like a surgeon working a scalpel. Can't wait to see how this turns out. Me, I would be overjoyed just to get a really smooth finish on a balsa fin, LOL.

 

[James Duffy]

Progress on this project has paused for over a year due to other demands on my time. I'm the Event Director for the upcoming World Spacemodeling Championships, and that is a full-time-plus job. Once that is over, the X-Wing is my very first hobby project that will resume.

In the meantime a fascinating eBay auction popped up recently. In the first post of this thread I noted that the Estes Maxi Brute X-wing kit is the preferred starting point for serious replicas of the studio scale models used during production of the original ST trilogy. This auction is for a remarkably well-done example of one of these, using the Estes Maxi kit as a basis.

Star Wars X Wing Red 4 Studio Scale 1/24. Estes Maxi Brute Scratch Build. | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Star Wars X Wing Red 4 Studio Scale 1/24. Estes Maxi Brute Scratch Build. at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

The fuselage is from the kit, but resin cast parts pulled from molds taken from original ILM parts were used extensively. It appears that some of the Estes kit parts were used for the laser cannons on the wingtips.

This auction page is likely to disappear soon, so check it out quickly!

James