I take apart lots of lawnmower engines. They come to me fairly easily through freecycle and by word of mouth, and I get lots of interesting parts out of them as well, the feet of my R2-steamdude came from 4 matching old flymo engines for example. These 4 matching engines also yielded 4 thin and slightly odd shaped aluminium plates, looking at them it was plain for all to see what was going to happen next!

Doubling them up I now had an upper and a lower shell to make a model of the infamous smuggler ship the Millennium Falcon! Firstly I had to join the upper and lower shells, together. Thankfully the plates each had 4 lugs around their outer edges and I was able to use the original bolts along with some bike chain links drilled out to a larger holes size to accomplish this joining of parts.

All done! Oh wait, it needs a tad more detail first really don’t it? To bulk out the dorsal and belly areas of the ship I had a mower camshaft & timing gear on the same shaft, this was inserted through the hole in the middle of the lower part and topped off with another smaller gear on the top side, these bits being steel they were later welded together. Next up the ship needs a cockpit, after all how is it going to have a roguish pilot without a place for him to sit? For this I chose a mower carburettor, partly because it was the perfect size and shape but also because these things are kinda hard to work into other sculpted pieces. By loosening the joining links at the cockpit side of the ship I was able to squeeze part of the smaller side of the carb between the plates and with a skilful couple saw cuts into the carb got it to lock in position once the plates were again joined.

The 2 front forks of the nose of the ship need to be longer as the aluminium plates just were not long enough in this area, I inserted 2 bits of box section from an old school desk up inside the ship on either side. These box sections had holes drilled in them near where the middle of the ship was, the reason for this will become apparent later on, but for now they were pop riveted in place. Adding detail to the sides of the ship required long thin strips of metal that I got from part of an old oven control rail, I used both parts in the photo, square details at the front, round at the back. I cut the strip of steel for the front forks into 2 pieces, and with each piece in turn lined them up with the sides of the ship and drilled holes to match the bolt holes of the plates. These strips of steel were then bent around the box section and back towards the middle of the ship. The other strip of steel I had was used for the rear section of the ship, again held in place by the bolts for each half of the shell, and also drilled and pop riveted to the other strips where they met and overlapped.

I have in my time worked on many kitchens and as a result have a box full of old kitchen hinges, well I had a box full, but I discovered that they and their parts make great surface detail for spaceship sculptures! Most of the surface detail trim parts for this piece were to be pop riveted on, as with a die cast aluminium body the mainly steel parts could not be welded in place. I started adding these parts from the nose of the ship and moved backward to the tail, first on the top side then on the belly side. Place hinge part, position, drill, insert rivet, pop it, repeat a great many times! As well as hinge parts I also had a shaped steel piece from the back of an oven which I cut in half and riveted either side of the dorsal gear to be the main roof ridge of the ship. In the rear compartment of the real Millennium Falcon (it is real I’ve seen it!) are 6 heat vents for the sublight and hyperdrive engines, for these I had 4 mower engine valve spring caps, and a couple washers the same size. Again drilling and pop riveting them in place was very straight forward.





For the circular docking ring and ramp/escape pod bay at either side of the ship I had some nice big bearings from a car engine. These were to be held in place by a long piece of threaded rod running from one side, through the two sets of holes drilled in the box sections and back out the other side. Large washers and big nuts held the bearings in place but I left a short length of the rod, about 70-80mm sticking out of the side of the docking ring. The reason for this will become apparent later…….

For the rear engines, always the big burning blue band at the back of the ship in the movies, I cut three lengths of bike chain and layering them one on top of the other riveted them to the steel strip running around the back of the ship. For the communications dish I had a very worn red tap handle from an old fire hose reel which I cunningly riveted to a piece of hinge that was in turn joined back onto a hinge bracket using the original fitting screw on said bracket, meaning it can be spun and turned around for fun.

For the top cover of the loading bay, the area between the two front forks of the ship, I had found an empty CO2 gas cartridge that I cut in half and riveted in place through the holes in the small steel plate in the front of the gear. It looked good so I decided to use another one for the underside cover as well. Just one problem, the only other CO2 gas cartridge I had was full, but not for long!!!! See video. With the gas vented I also cut this in half and riveted it to the underside of the ship.





Now for a few finishing details, The blaster cannons on the roof turret were just a couple mower engine valves, first welded together in the bench vice, then welded to the roof gear at a slight angle to suggest battling incoming tie fighters. The same was done again for the blasters on the belly turret as well, the cut off tops of 2 valves welded to the bottom of one, then welded to the belly gear. For the landing legs I used 3 more mower valves, shorter ones which were also welded to the big belly gear and the CO2 gas cartridge.

The last few details were just some more old washers and other small bits and pieces riveted to the topside and underside where I deemed necessary. The final very last thing was to make a stand for this ship. For this I used the bit of threaded rod sticking out of the side of the ship and a foot bracket from a telegraph pole which I bent out into a basic tripod shape. With the ship fixed to the stand with a couple nuts as spacers and fasteners all I had to do was find the balance point to stop it falling over, as despite its small size this thing is a heavy bit of kit, but it’ll still make the Kessle run in less than 12 parsecs!!!





But wait, there’s more!!! As I said at the start of this post I had taken apart 4 flymo engines and as such had another two falcon shaped plates to make use of, so I did. Here in brief this time is how I put the second ship together.

The parts pick was a little different as I didn’t want doth ships to be exactly the same. For the siding between the two plates I used some thin mesh from an old SKY dish I found in the street one day coming home from the bar. I used smaller gears from a motorbike for the belly and dorsal turrets, held in place this time with threaded rod and nuts, we’ll come back to those at the end.

Next up the 2 bits of boxsection for the front forks of the ship were riveted and rodded in place, I also added the bearings at the sides again with more threaded rod, washers and nuts.

Onto the topside details now, for the centreline roof I used a couple old hinges from folding chairs long since burnt, these were welded to the gear at the front and riveted to the top plate at the back. I still had lots of kitchen style hinges lying around so used these again but in a slightly different layout and pattern than before, variety being the spice of life after all.

The cockpit of this Aluminum Falcon was going to be a very different affair from the first one. Where I had used a whole mower engine carburettor before I now had a small 3 gear shaft from a bike gearbox and a very well used holesaw rescued from the bin when my brothers bathroom was fitted (thanks Dave the plumber for that). The gear shaft fitted neatly through the centre hole of the saw so I just ground off the paint and welded the two in the bench vice. To join the cockpit to the main body I first used a big kitchen hinge and long thin bolt from my magic bolt box. The hinge was fitted into the body by cutting a hole to accept the flange part, rivets, then the bolt was fed through the hole down the centre of the gear shaft and topped with a nice crown nut. This single hinge on its own was not enough to fully support the weight of the cockpit, but also it was far too weedy in appearance so I added more hinge parts top, bottom and back, riveting them to the body, cockpit and each other for extra strength.

For the heat vents I used 6 large self tapping bolts with chunky wood anchors on them that I just screwed into the plate once I’d drilled holes of the right size, i.e. 0.5mm smaller in diameter than the bolts.

On the underside I drilled out a couple holes already present on the plate to a larger size then tapped them with an M10 thread so they would take two square taper headed bolts from an old cast iron bath, as back leg. I had to use threaded rod for the front leg as it needed to be a tad longer. More hinge parts and pieces were added as detail to the underside and topside, along with little pieces of off cut and washers as extra details.

The dish on this one I made out of a couple big nuts fitted over a thin bolt and through a piece of hinge that again screwed into the original part on the body, meaning it also swivels like on the first ship. For the dorsal and belly blaster cannons I again went with valve stems, these were welded to the sides of the nuts top and bottom which allows them to still be turned slightly.



That’s it for now folks!! Happy Existing!



