Y-Wing Fighter Build Diary

Resin forms, original kit parts, Plastruct T-Rod, turned brass laser cannons, brass rods, and plastic card went into the making of this replica. I decided to add electronics, and make the ship a hybrid of all of my favorite Y-Wing anomalies from the various filiming miniatures from A New Hope. So this is not particularly screen accurate to any of the original props, but it's mine - all mine! I even added window glazing and a female pilot. How "expanded universe" of me, heh.

So here is how I got to what you see in front of the ghetto bluescreen:

I decided to kitbash some greeblies inside the nose to make it interesting.

I also carefully routed out the cockpit to add leds (and a pilot). I used Hyperdyne's light board.

Once the electronics were installed, the cockpit was painted and detailed.

Pilot was painted, with the addition of a 1/24th scale female head. Why not.

Butt of the main body was hollowed out, and drilled to accept wires from the cockpit (shown is a placeholder
circuit board to ensure the Hyperdyne rig woudl fit). Battery lives in one of the L'eggs egg domes, which is held
onto the body with4 brass pins and pressure. Wires from the body travel to the pods through hollow tubes.

Artoo unit was carefully hollowed out, and the dome was cut from the body. Body was glued in place over
a hole that led directly below to a large cavity, that would hold the leds and hand-formed light pipes. These
pipes fed different colored lights to the little Astromech's dome sensors. This was painful micro modeling!

Lightpipe (heat formed) in my hand, and fiber optic bundles in place, within small holes cut into dome.

Another view of fiber optic bundles and the hole for the front side light pipe!

This animated gif shows the blue led and green led feeding into the light pipe. There is also a red led and
yellow led feeding into another light pipe, for the back dome sensor. So four colored leds, and a white led
for the fiber optic bundles (there are three holes for these) for this tiny droid dome. All this fit inside... barely!

Leds and pipes assembled and sealed in shrink tubing to prevent light leaks/corruption.

Cockpit wires and droid light wires are attached to the leads on the board (nestled in the butt of the bird),
heat-shrink tubes for safety, and gently crammed into the body.

The leads were just as messy back here.

Each engine has three leds - a constatnt-on red, and two flickering amber/orange lights. When seen from
the small thruster area, it looks like an engine flickering and burning - just like the movies!

Electronics are checked and tested before the buttplate is attached, sealing the assembly together.

Everything looks a-okay!

The pod that contains the battery (a 9 volt) also contains a switch. I decided to build a small switch on the
outside surface, as a greeblie that would blend in. A housing was built over top of the switch assembly.

A brass rod was carefully embedded into the switch itself, running up through a planted-on greeblie (in tan).
This would add strength to the switch itself, and would lessen the chance of it snapping off as it was
switched off and on and off...

Brass rod that carries power, switch, and engine light leads to the engine pods. Also adds stability to the wings.

Brass rods were also used in the neck assembly, for strength and rigidity.

Piping began, with plastic rod and plastic coated wire.

I added them where I wanted to - just making it look "right" to my idea of what Y-Wing looks like.

The non-battery L'eggs egg was test fitted the same day I glued the plastic T-Rods into place.

Brass "engine bumpers" were bent and glued into position.

One of the signature modifications is shown here. I routed off the LEM housing part on the top to make room
for the racing car wheel part. I decided to mount it to one of the metal heat sinks that are used in the engine
nozzles for the simple fact that it vaguely reminded me of a "Mister Fusion" base from Back To The Future.

Pilot painted, with some random decals for the helmet. Later, I added a yellow visor from theater gel material.

Lights were tested again - I can't get enough of these kinds of things. Each light in the cockpit shines through
a hole in the resin, which is covered over with a small clear plastic lens from Wave's Options line.

The engine lights are obnoxiously bright at this stage, but they will be cut back soon. Note the Sealab part in
the "vanes". Another signature modification that was not present on most Y-Wings.

Non-lenses are painted with enamel dots. Note the photoetched grill material too - an led sits back there also!

My dementia sets in, and I decide that it is vital that you be able to see into the cavity of the egg's mount. This
meant that I had to shave off the pre-existing parts and replacing them with custom parts that show undercuts.

Cockpit is test fitted. I carefully mounted plastic sheet to the inside surfaces to make it look like canopy glazing.

Engine construction is finished...

Visor is glued into place.

Painting begines in earnest. Body is greyish, and head/eggs are white. Everything gets a dusting of pigments.

Once the body is initially weathered/dusted, the cockpit is affixed. This protects the plastic from Dullcote.

Underside, mid-weathering. Everything also gets a couple passes with a transparent "filter" wash.

All that is left here, is hand painting and spot weathering/sub-assembly gluing.

Last shot of lights at full-bore....

MAN they were bright!

Astromech is hand painted. I liked that droid on Tatooine with the red dome...

Dry transfers form the 70s/80s were used to add "hash marks" on the body, where I thought they were needed.

I was even tempted to use those registration graphics on the domes, since one of the ANH Ys had them!

Hash-tastic! Also left one panel as un-weathered, to suggest recent replacement.

Launch tubes were weathered, and blast points were picked out and applied, with powdered pigments.

Click HERE for the rest of the build detailing!