We've featured custom built Star Wars woodworking projects before, but nothing like this masterpiece from Martin Creaney, who hand-built the iconic Millennium Falcon over a year using more than 3,000 individually carved pieces of wood.

He had previously built an R2D2, an AT-ST Walker, and an X-Wing Fighter, but wanted to go big on his next project. His initial thought was to build the project using medium-density fiberboard (MDF), an engineered wood project that looks flat, which would require paint. But that would have hidden the detailed woodwork so he decided to leave it natural and make the body from real timber.

The journey to build the Millennium Falcon began fittingly on May 4th, 2014. The frame is constructed from MDF but the body was built using a variety of wood, starting with what Martin had as scrap in his wood shed and then what color/shade of wood would be best suited for that particular piece. Martin is based in Australia where the wood species differ slightly from what's available in the U.S. He considered building the entire spaceship out of radiata pine as it was the cheapest stock but it didn't provide him with the depth of color needed to truly represent the Falcon. So he went with a huge mix of wood including baltic pine, cypress pine, mulga, huon pine, black wood, ebony, red cedar, sassafras, camphor, rose wood, jarrah, red gum and a number of timbers that he had picked up but wasn't aware of their species.

The design was guided by a toy model he had purchased more than 10 years ago. Martin's artistic skills are apparent when you look closely at the shape and scale of individual pieces, as well as how adjacent colors are well thought out and work as a uniform palette.

Almost every tool in his workshop was used to build this piece including a lathe, belt sander, detail sander, thickness planer, scroll saw, compound mitre saw, table saw, Japanese pull saw, hand planes, chisels, and even a scalpel.

This walk-around video of the project shows the immaculate detail that went into the project as well as the scale of the ship.

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The finished project measures 6 feet long and 5 feet wide and is currently on display in Martin's workshop. He has yet to decide what he'd like to do with the piece but is considering how feasible it would be to display it at comic conventions. A better solution would be for Disney to come calling and set up the Millennium Falcon as part of their new Star Wars land at Disneyland. We hope it lands somewhere for public viewing, as this work of art deserves a large and appreciative audience.

For more photos and information about Martin's work visit his Facebook page.

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