TIE Drone
Bandai fuselage glued together and the ends of the arms cut off
Inside of top window painted with Tamiya clear red and then silver to make a red glow without lighting. Also added some Three Green flexible nose weight into the bottom of the fuselage to try to balance the eventual weight of the wings
I wanted to have the wings rotate so cut a piece of aluminium tube to length and epoxied it to one wing. Wings also painted flat black
The kit replacement glass is open. I wanted it glazed so pored in some clear resin and sanded and polished it. Unfortunately it ended up with some visible inclusions in the resin sections so I decided to use it a a master for a new version
The back of the master was hollowed out and polished as well
To make some framing on the master I masked the clear sections and spayed the front with a few coats of filler putty, then removed the tape. I also took the opportunity to reduce the width of the centre window opening. I them made a mould and eventually got a good casting!
I drilled the arms to accept the rod for the wings but had the drill press speed set too high - that melted sections of the arms where the plastic was thinned. I had to replace those sections with parts from some Revell TIE fighter arms from the spares box
I decided that epoxying the second wing on at the end would be difficult so I glued it on and then cut the rod in half to allow it to be inserted from both sides and then glued in the middle. I also cut a key slot and built a keyed support piece to be inserted into the rod halves
All the main pieces together and painted in Tamiya Haze Grey, with the canopy in Neutral Grey. A separate piece of tubing has been cut to size to join the guns together - that will run through the wing connecting tube so they can move separate to the wings
Wings attached and glued with 5 minute epoxy
Everything glued together
And just to prove everything rotates as designed!
Comments
30 July 2024, 08:07 -
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This is the TIE Drone conversion kit from Modelwerks, using a Bandai TIE Fighter kit as the base. The craft is a fan design and not seen in any of the films, games or comics, but it does look cool. I've made some mods to allow the wings and guns to rotate separately as pairs.
