Modified B-Wings

I love the X-Wing game.  I like the ships.  I like the game play.  I love that they boys like to play it.  This is a great game and I'm glad I tried it.  There are a lot of people out there modifying their ships.  To this point I've not done that but the B-Wing just begs for it.

Image from Wookiepedia.

The image above is how I've always pictured the B-Wing, cockpit to the side.  Fantasy Flight decided to mount theirs in the vertical position.  There is nothing wrong with that, the B-Wing's cockpit rotates so that it is always up, an odd idea in space, but whatever.

Image from E-bay

 This pose will work, and it will be easier to work with on the table, since it won't get in the way with other ships too much, but it doesn't look like I always pictured the B-Wing looking.  I've seen a couple of different mods for the ship online.  They didn't look like a lot of work, so I decided to take a chance and go for it.

The B-Wing cut into three pieces.

The first step was to cut off the cockpit and the collar for the flight stand.  I used a hobby saw for this and it worked a treat.  Both pieces cut through cleanly and left nice, flat edges.

The cockpit and flight stand collar, removed and ready for re-attachment.

The collar is mounted between the engines, so cutting along those gave me a nice flat surface for gluing.

The collar mounting point in the engines.

This is where I ran into my first problem.  It turns out that all three of my B-Wings are mounted at a slight angle on the flight stand.  When you cut it and twist it this effect is magnified.  I pried the collar off and filed it down so it was even with the front of the flight stand.  In order to ensure that everything was facing the right way I went ahead and assembled the flight stand and glued the collar to the ship that way.

Finished modification.

I finished by gluing the cockpit back on, top up, (again, there is no up in space) and I was done.  This is how I picture the B-Wing looking.

Modified and un-modified B-Wings.

The whole thing took about fifteen minutes and was so easy that I decided to modify my third one as well.

All three B-Wings, ready for action.

Assuming they stand up to gaming, I'll be very happy with these.  Since the ship can change it's orientation, it just seems cool to have them in several different positions.