Before you begin:

• I bought this X Wing at a yard sale and it was a little banged up and some of the electronics weren't working so I decided to pull them all out to make room for the figures. There are ways you can keep the electronics, you may have a hard time finding a place for the batteries though. I mostly just wanted a cooler-looking X-Wing that you could put any pilot or astromech you wanted in there.

Step 1

Unscrew everything and take the ship apart. I pulled out all the electronics, wires and battery case. I salvaged the Targeting computer and the lever it's connected to for later use.

Step 2

Now it's time to go crazy with the dremel. The battery case is where the pilot's feet need to go so you must make that as flat and smooth as possible. You'll notice a few lips and ridges you need to grind down. The entrance to the cockpit has to be opened up to fit a figure. I ended up leaving the controls on the sides but it makes it more difficult to put a figure in there. I would recommend you cut out as much as possible. The mechanism that makes the wings go up and down is pretty much all one piece. You'll notice there is a large section that's connected to it that R2 sits on top of. You need to chop this whole piece off and you'll see this wont affect the X-wings. To make those big Astromech feet fit in there you have to make the hole larger. If you watch ESB Dagobah scene you can see that the hole for the Astromech is rather large. I decided I wanted to have all the blacked out rear windows dremeled out and replaced with clear plastic. This turned out to be MUCH more difficult then I realized but when you do this it really makes a huge difference. As you go you'll find other parts that need to be grinded down or removed, just remember it's easier to take away then to replace, so plan carefully.

Step 3

I wanted the cockpit to look as accurate as possible so I really went all out on it. I'm really bummed because I took some pictures of just the cockpit before I put the whole thing back together but they didn't come out at all. (I can't take it apart now without screwing it up) I started by making dividing walls for the cockpit and the astromech compartment out of scrap plastic. I then started gluing little pieces of plastic and wire salvaged from other toys and models. I filled in the gaps and made the seat with A/B Epoxy. I superglued an extra Commtech chip inside the astromech compartment so that the droid would have a peg to stick onto so he wont fly out of there. Getting that thing positioned just right is tricky but it helps.

Step 4

Now I wanted to have a Targeting computer that could still slide back and forth. I elongated the little slot that the lever slided in so it would have more room to move. I kept the existing lever but connected a piece of tie wire to it and bent it to go around the assortment and straight into the uppermost corner of the cockpit. Once I put the whole thing together I'll connect the actual Targeting computer to the wire thats sticking through the cockpit.

Step 5

For the new rear windows I used custom cut pieces of clear plastic. After I dremeled out the original windows, I filed them smooth and as even as possible and then I measured them for the cuts. I glued the clear plastic in there with Model Windshield glue.

Step 6

You want to paint the inside of the cockpit before you start putting everything back together. I also did some more patch up work on the Astromech compartment so you couldn't see inside the ship. After I put everything back together I did some finishing details on the cockpit which also made it so I couldn't open it up again. I also glued my Targeting Computer onto the wire and bent it just right so that it would slide back and forth easily. (If only it still lit up)

Step 7

Now I did all my touch up painting on the cockpit. I also painted some "dirty" washes and a few more blaster marks. I then continued the red stripes on each side and removed one red bar off each wing to give it a little bit of a different look.

Step 8

When I finished I just had to make the yellow ladder. It was made from a broken CD Jewel case dremeled into many pieces. >>

Tip provided by:  mcollins@premrad.com Michael Collins