Lego Millenium Falcon (10179)
The saga for this Lego set began in 2007 when I first saw it for sale online. The biggest problem was that Lego Australia sell it for $979.99, yet it is only $499.99 USD. With the American dollar being as weak as it is, that translated into about $550AUD. So I asked my friend Dave to buy it for me and ship it out. Even with all the extra postage, I still saved about $150AUD on doing it this way. How stupid is that.
It arrived in early December, but unfortunately I simply didn't have the time to start work on it until Christmas Day, after all the Christmas *stuff* was over and done with. So as soon as we got home from lunch, I started.
The box was massive. When packaged, it all weighed 12lb, 8oz.
The manual was even fatter than the Star Destroyer's one.
Inside, all the different sorts of pieces are bagged together - there's no division based on section, so it was a lot of work to find pieces as I went along.
Everything is spread out over our dining table
Here the chassis is complete. This thing is rock solid and strong enough to bear the weight of all the lego when the ship is complete.
By Christmas night I'd finished this much of it
An in-progress shot on Boxing Day
A shot of the seven landing struts while they were in progress. I missed the instruction at the beginning that said there were seven of them, and so had completed one when I saw x7. So I then had to make the other six.
Showing the landing gear attached
Looking up from underneath
Working on the engine lights
Back view of the engines attached
The outline of the ship is now defined
A front view
The pieces are starting to thin out now
Looking up from underneath at the newly attached lower skin
A shot of the left side
And the right side - showing the way-cool lowering gangway
The upper and lower gunnery covers
Looking through to the lower guns
Top view when all the lower surface is finished
Stu holds it up for me to show the whole base
One of the side attachment gizmos
Cockpit base is now attached
By Boxing Day night, this was how far I'd progressed
Han stands next to his ship for scale
Work completed by the 27th - not much else has been done!
At this point we flew away to Queensland for five days. Other than a case of strep-throat for me, we all had a great time.
Back on New Years Day - engine covers now done
Here's everyone except Luke in the cockpit
Finished!!
Well at this point I hadn't *quite* finished. There were two 2x3 grey plates missing, and a small right-sided wing. Yet strangely enough I had a left-sided wing left over. To complete the set for photographs, I took a couple of plates from non-essential surfaces and the wing, and attached them to the places you can actually see. So it wasn't until 5 January that I could complete photographing it.
Here's some shots of the finished Lego set
Some detailed shots
These were the pieces I had leftover. Strangely enough, three other people had a *whole bunch* of wings leftover, and I ended up with one missing and one leftover of the wrong sort. I suppose I could have made a mistake somewhere, but I doubt it, as to be missing pieces would mean getting out extra for the inventory for the step, as well as finding a place for them not in the instructions. Very odd.
My manual also had a mistake on page 152. The image it showed for the section to be built was not what was actually built in the section - it was a repeat of the image for the previous section. tsk tsk Lego ;)
And a final shot of the finished set, including the name plate. Being a Lego purist, of course I couldn't ruin the sticker/Lego by actually *attaching* the sticker ;)
So there we go. Eighteen hours of work. When I pull it apart I'll be pulling it apart carefully in sections as per the instructions. So the next time I build it it will be a lot quicker. It'd be very cool to get the Millenium Falcon and the Star Destroyer built together. Pity I don't have the Tantive IV.... One day... :)