After three years of working on this project, the end really was in sight. This would be our last delivery for building the Millennium Falcon. My daughter (Ember) and I had started this project when she was six years old, believing it would take us a couple of years. Oh, how wrong we were! Almost three years later we have an almost complete studio replica of the Millennium Falcon, standing in my study, looking as awesome as the ship I had idolized since I was five years old. Now we were on the last stretch, the final four issues had been delivered.
Emotional would be an understatement, but let’s save that for when we get to the end. I opened the box, not too sure what to expect. Four issues, with the last magazine containing nothing more than a remote! Well, that was interesting! There were also two posters, one of the topside pieces, the other the underside of the starship, showing the finishing touches. To have these big images of the Falcon I’m sure would come in handy for when I came to actually painting the Falcon. I opened one up, and the detail is very clear to see and I’m glad they’ve been included. I remembered having the outline in the first issue of the magazine… and suddenly remembering… I got Ember to lay down to the new one, pulled up the original photo I had taken and it was very clear to see how much she had grown in the time we had been doing the Falcon. Let me not pull too much at that heartstring!
I was pleased to see that while only four issues, this delivery still had a lot included, things that I’m sure would prove useful, even after the build was finished. There were no big ‘wow’ parts and at this stage, I wouldn’t expect there to be. The Falcon looked like Han’s ship. Apart from the heat vents and the quad cannons (which were delivered years ago) the only thing I could presume was there were lots of details to add. I sat down and started to have a look through the next magazine, to see what we would be doing.
Ever since I started this project I have looked through, to see if anything needed doing before Ember joined me. While this has not really been a problem for months, the one time I ignored it, was the one time I needed to do something! Looking through the magazine, there was nothing that needed prepping but the number of details we would be adding was crazy! We needed to add fifty-two different detailed pieces to the Falcon, as well as the other vents. I’m very glad for the vents as they are the most obvious thing that was missing now. But that number of details was a lot! Having had some previous installments not having much for us to do, this seemed to go completely the other way with too much to do!
I knew Ember would probably be happy to clip the pieces, file the pieces and get me to glue them into place. But there were also some very thin pieces that I’m sure she would hand over to me as she would be worried about snapping them. I didn’t want her to be bored at not having anything to do. It was time to get the tweezers out. This would be the perfect time to get her to practice putting pieces on and avoiding superglue at the same time. It would take a little longer, but I think it would be worth it. I did start to wonder if we would be able to do this in a single sitting! Guess there was only one way to find out.
Let’s start at the end. The Falcon looks great and the details added really do look great. The journey there, not so much. Ember and I started off absolutely fine. She was clipping and filing the pieces, I was gluing them. We started by finishing the vent covers which I was more than happy with, the Falcon was looking like the Falcon! Then, the instructions tell you to refer to the end image to make sure pieces are in the correct place and the right orientation. This was a lifeline for most of this magazine. We got to step fifteen and sixteen, for parts thirteen and fourteen. Where it was telling you to place the piece compared to the image at the end was wrong, they didn’t line up. Thankfully, these two pieces were ultimately identical, so it did not really matter. Clearly just an oversight. Or so I thought.
There were two sprues with parts on. Ember did the first part and then said, as I knew she would, that I’d have to do the second sprue as the parts were too thin. I could see she was tired, so rather than try and persuade her to glue, I got her to find the parts on the end image to help me out. Thank goodness I did that, as it was this part in the instructions that things began to unravel. Parts twenty-five and twenty-six are in the wrong place, flat out. They refer to pieces that were originally added in the last magazine. The place for the parts you need is not too far away, so thankfully I was able to figure that one out.
Then it was part thirty-seven. I was ready to throw this part out of the window. If you look at the image in the instructions, it will show you the holes to glue for the three ends. Because of the length of this part, you can’t physically do it. I was stumped. It was only staring at the end photo that I could figure out what was going on. The right most hole they tell you to glue is actually for part forty. The piece actually sits on part two. While this was annoying to say the least, but then I came to fit part forty, which must be glued under part thirty-seven! It is extremely difficult to do and if these steps had been switched, the process would have been much simpler. And it would not be the only time. Part forty-two tells you to slip the pieces under piece thirty-two! I had to put some force into this and bent the part. Again, this could have all been avoided by switching the order of instructions. This didn’t feel like an oversight anymore, this felt like incompetence.
Thankfully Ember was busy doing her finding of parts, leaving me to problem solve and sort out these frustrating problems. It meant Ember enjoyed it; I was… frustrated with a lack of clear instructions. Like I said earlier, the Falcon looks great and the vents add so much to the ship. It was a long magazine, which wouldn’t have been a problem if not for the wrongly ordered instructions. As I stared with Ember at the back one thing was clear, there were still lots of slots on the engine cover that were going to need details added. It was not over yet!
