Finished: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

[Booyotch]

Hi everyone!


This time I'm trying to post things up as I go along.


OK! Shuttle Tydirium! This one is getting the full workup, including Arduino-controlled nav lights, lots of cockpit work, and attachable landing gear doors so that I can put it in either mode when it's on display. I'm using the same kits (Flakverling & hanomag) as the original model used.


Let's start with the cockpit:

First step is to greeblie up the back of the cockpit:

Then, build an accurate set of wing guns:

Next it to cut out everything from the cockpit, so that i can get it back to proper scale:

Then, start building up the cockpit:

After that, start building up the jump seat risers, and wall for the recessed door and blue panel lights:

Alright! Time to start running fiber and lights!

Presto! The lights change color in different sequences. (CLICK FIRST & SECOND PIC TO GO TO A VIDEO)
20170621_191305 by Booyotch1, on Flickr


20170626_204837 by Booyotch1, on Flickr

Now let's add some teeny seats from Shapeways! I also lensed some larger gague fiber to make little spotlights for the inside. It's hard to capture, but you can see everything nicely through the cockpit glass.

After that, it was time to make the gears and gear bay doors. They will attach with magnets to the fuselage. Tried to get it close to screen accurate, but had a little fun with the extras. When painted up, hopefully the illusion will be that the bays will be open, and the attaching panel will be matte black to look like it goes into the ship.

 

[masterjedi322]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

Slick! Looking forward to seeing more!

Sean

 

[edge10]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

Umm, wow! That's blinking amazing so far.

 

[JediMichael]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

Wow, looks really great.

 

[bwize]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

WOW! This is so awesome. That cockpit looks fantastic and love the landing gear. Looking so forward to seeing this WIP.

 

[Booyotch]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

Thanks! Next up is running lights and wire through the wings, and hammering out the Arduino to control the blinking pattern...

 

[blakeh1]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

Awesome

Forgive me if I missed it, but is this the old Kenner one?

If so, any idea what scale it works out to (1/48th maybe?)

 

[Booyotch]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

Awesome

Forgive me if I missed it, but is this the old Kenner one?

If so, any idea what scale it works out to (1/48th maybe?)

It's the 2009-ish (I think) hasbro, which i think had a few changes from the original. As for the scale, i suppose in the ballpark of 1/48...

 

[Booyotch]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

Also, here's the Flickr link with the higher res dumps of my pics:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/thebooyotch/

 

[rbeach84]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

It's the 2009-ish (I think) hasbro, which i think had a few changes from the original. As for the scale, i suppose in the ballpark of 1/48...

That's what I assumed when I picked up one...;^P

Regards, Robert

 

[Booyotch]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

Ok! Been trying to make some progress on the shuttle. Got the landing gears done, and magnets in, and I think it came out pretty cool! Happy with the illusion, and being able to detach for flight mode is pretty sweet.




Ok, after that, I got to work on the Arduino controller for the rest of the lights (Everything except the cockpit).
Programming is hard! Still tinkering, but now it's controlling the 6 nav lights, 2 landing, and 4 engine lights. I went back and checked the movies, and got the timing and delay on the ligts exactly like they are in RotJ.
Lets see if the video link works:
(Something happened to the original, here's the full light test):

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYlj5stHdK5/?taken-by=booyotch

Early test:

 

[TazMan2000]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

How did I miss this? Great work!

Tazman2000

 

[Gimme Shelter]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

lordy dordy - this is brilliant - makes me know I'm not all alone in the world of mass fibre optic lighting and kit bashing / scratch building

 

[blakeh1]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

That is going to be an amazing display piece when done

 

[Bigbot]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

Okay, So I've been a long time lurker of these forums and HAD to finally make an account and post because of this project! You are basically doing what I have always been wanting to do! Your project is turning out awesome, and I will be following this closely. The fact that you're using original models on the toy has never crossed my mind as being possible! I just figured it wasn't in the right scale.

My question. You mentioned Flakverling & hanomag models. Which ones specifically? I'd like to try and acquire some of my own. I understand the Flakverling is a anti-aircraft model, but I've seen several scales and have no idea which one is which (and have no clue what hanomag is referencing). I've seen charts on here that find all the specific greeblies called out, is there one for the shuttle? I search but I haven't found anything. Thanks for any and all help!

 

[Booyotch]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

Okay, So I've been a long time lurker of these forums and HAD to finally make an account and post because of this project! You are basically doing what I have always been wanting to do! Your project is turning out awesome, and I will be following this closely. The fact that you're using original models on the toy has never crossed my mind as being possible! I just figured it wasn't in the right scale.

My question. You mentioned Flakverling & hanomag models. Which ones specifically? I'd like to try and acquire some of my own. I understand the Flakverling is a anti-aircraft model, but I've seen several scales and have no idea which one is which (and have no clue what hanomag is referencing). I've seen charts on here that find all the specific greeblies called out, is there one for the shuttle? I search but I haven't found anything. Thanks for any and all help!

No prob!
Ok, here are the links to what I've been using. The Flakverling has lots of parts on lots of Star Wars ships. The guns are part of the side guns on the AT-AT and the Shuttle, If not exactly as the model for the shuttle they're damn close with some rebuilding.. The armor panels form the front panels to the left and right of the shuttle cockpit. They also are the bottom panels on the AT-ST (see my pic below). They also are on the butt of the AT-AT. The seat is all over the TIE bomber. And it's either the suspension from that or the Hanomag that are on the rear of the TIE fighter above the exhaust. The hanomag is on a few other ships too. They're a great way to add some accurate details without breaking the bank, because they're still in production and cheap. I just like to do the projects, and trying to hunt down every single model used would be super expensive and I'd spend more time on ebay than making the maquette. I try to find a balance between accuracy and fun.

I've never seen a chart of greeblies on the Shuttle, I just recognize them now
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000LFWKIO/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000WN8AHA/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I've also added other greeblies that I collect here and there, there are some good ones inside old LCD monitors. I used some of the filters for the LCD screen lighting as the engine filter, double layered with a little bit of space in between to help with diffusion.
I'll put up some pics tonight of the front of the shuttle with those panels...

Post up any other questions you have, I subscribe to the Adam Savage model of Making: Share what you learn!

 

[Bigbot]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

Thanks Booyotch! I had no idea they were so cheap and available. I knew model kit parts were shared across several models, I just figured they were all expensive. I too believe in the "share what you learn" mentality. When I get up to speed on all this I will definitely do that! The thing I'm going to see if I can achieve is working landing gear. I know that's insane, but it'd be the thing that would really set it apart. But switch out the gear like you did would be a great fall back.

The shuttle is my all time favorite SW vehicle. It looks cool and has a...grace, that I don't think any other ship has. I've searched before here on the boards and have been surprised how few builds have been done. That needs to change.

EDIT: And subscribed!

 

[Booyotch]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

Thanks Booyotch! I had no idea they were so cheap and available. I knew model kit parts were shared across several models, I just figured they were all expensive. I too believe in the "share what you learn" mentality. When I get up to speed on all this I will definitely do that! The thing I'm going to see if I can achieve is working landing gear. I know that's insane, but it'd be the thing that would really set it apart.

That would be awesome! Part of the reason to integrate an Arduino in this one was to force me to get off my ass and start learning it, my hope is to put in servos into future projects. But I think I need a 3D printer first so I could rapid prototype gear systems instead of trying to make ones from scratch. Hopefully this project is a gateway to me getting more complex, and I like to try to learn new things with each project.

 

[Booyotch]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

Finally got some more paint in, so it's been a busy weekend. Waiting for the paint was holding up pretty much everything.

First up was doing a dry-fit to make sure the top and bottom halves still fit together after all the modifications.




After that, it was making sure that the Arduino and all the wiring would actually fit.


So after that was done, it was time to do the final wiring and make sure once everything was buttoned up that it would work ok. It went fine, had to rewire a couple of things, and the wires to feed the wing lights are exposed in Landing Mode, but there's no safe way to route them otherwise...

So, that leaves weathering on more of it, plus attaching the wing guns, and building the adjustable mount.

 

[Bigbot]

Re: WIP: Shuttle Tydirium Teardown & Conversion

:eek It's so Purdy!
Looking awesome Booyotch!

I got my model kits this weekend and was looking it over. When I get the shuttle out of storage i'll start messing around with them.

Question about the seats, you mentioned you got them on shapeways. I didn't see any Shuttle seats, but several for the falcon that look very similar. Did the shuttle and falcon share seat designs?