Carlos Avina’s B-Wing
A while back I purchased what was possibly THEE most fun SW Kit I have ever built in my life. I’m sure all of you are familiar with Scale Model Technologies and the outstanding kits they produce. I have been waiting for a larger scale B-Wing to come out well, forever. I’ve seen a few scratch builds that really looked great but my favorite of all time was made by a guy named Robert Campos. I can’t seem to find too many of his excellent SW scratch builds on the web anymore but, I urge you to seek them out because they are DEFINITIVE examples of what scratch building is all about. His B-Wing scratch build is what really inspired me to purchase this one. And even though my skills aren’t quite up to par with his, I’m very happy with my results. And I should let you know, because of current living circumstances, I can’t use an airbrush in my home so, everything I do is painted, aged and detailed using acrylic brush on paints. I also used pastel chalks for some of the weathering too.
Anyways, now that I got that out of my system, If you’ve never purchased a kit from SMT I strongly urge you to do so because as I said they are great fun (I was actually smiling thru most of this one!). Building this was great, even for a novice builder like myself. The parts fit together pretty easily. I opted to pin some of the parts together for added stability and strength. One thing I noticed is that when you piece together the main parts of the fuselage, it’s like one big floppy burrito, bending at the joints because of the weight of the massive main wing structure. So, I ran some rods through the engine nacelle compartment and the wing itself… it worked peachy.
The guns that come with the kit well, let me just say if you’re a stickler for accuracy, they don’t quite cut it. But that was part of the fun! I opted to make my own using various diameters of aluminum tubing from my hobby shop. The provided pieces, served as length & width guides, which were so curved and had quite a bit of flash and off-center seams… too much work for this boy… make your own!
I always intended to place it on a stand and wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. I knew the center of balance was the engine nacelle compartment so, I thought of building a structure inside that would allow the ship to bank and pivot at various angles. Well, I simplified that idea and just chose to place a block of wood cut to size, inside. I went to my local hardware shop and had them bend a 10″ brass rod, that was threaded at both ends, to a 90 degree angle. I then drilled a hole thru the block to allow for a long hex nut to be worked into it a fair distance. I then attached the rod and an extra nut on the exposed part of the rod so I could tighten it firmly against the block of wood. I can now unscrew the nut to detach the base from the model when I need to.
I wanted the s-foils to be able to clear the base and expand & close when I wanted so, I drilled deep holes thru the wings “hinge” area and ran brass rods thru them, joining them at the front of the main attachment. It took a bit of noodling but it works pretty good. Another item I picked up at the hardware shop was a metal, outer coupling dome, used to mount ceiling fans. It worked perfectly as a base but needed some added weight to ground the weighty kit.
I bought some heavy-duty 3″ sized machine washers and ran them thru the other side of the threaded rod which dropped inside the base. I then tightened them in place with a nut. Seems to work well. I plan on painting the base and rod and am having a plaque made for it.
When you order one of these from SMT they come with a little limited edition plaque that lists the production run. Mine is “123 of 500”. So, out of respect and bragging rights, I designed my own plaque that I’m gonna have a trophy maker etch for me. I’ll post that ASAP too. Well, there’s not much more tell except, I’m not the best builder out there but boy this was fun! Get yours NOW!
Carlos Avina
