Luke Skywalker's X-wing fighter

12/10/2024 Update:  I added a dot of black paint and then spread it with an alcohol pad.  So, I added two pictures where I add the smoke effect on the model. 

First, let me apologize for so much support material required for this model. I tried to minimize the support required but there was just so much overhang required. Because of this I very strongly recommend a support interface material. I used PETG interface material for my main PLA print filament. Without a barrier type interface, it is going to be very hard to cleanly remove the support material. Again, sorry for that. Multifilament printers greatly reduce this issue.

My next apology is for requiring gluing the parts. I tried to minimize required glue by making the tolerance very close, but with the small parts it will be necessary to glue. I even recommend several other places.

Additionally, again I made the parts with minimal tolerance. You may, even likely, have to do some post-print sanding for some of the tight fits, especially the support rods for wings and canopy.

My recommended order of assembly:

Back and Front Sections: Print the back section first and then the two front sections (with the nose) along with the attachment plugs. The rear mechanical plate can be printed any time. But, don’t assemble the front and back sections together until you print and attach the red panels and stripes. The nose will have to be glued in place, but I suggest doing that very last after all other assembly. The panels and stripes for the front and back sections should snap in. You can assemble the front and back sections, likely best with glue, if you like, but attaching the wings to the back section is easier without the front section attached.

Included in the back/front section is the cockpit seat and canopy. The cockpit seat is a single part that fits tight enough to help hold the front sections together. Another feature, other than the internal engine parts, that will be hard to notice, is the front panel of the cockpit seat. I point this out to make sure you notice that detail. I printed the canopy last.

The wings are next. You can print all four wings before printing the engine parts. There is actually just two different wings. The top right side and bottom left side are identical, as is the top left and bottom right sides. (If you are navel minded, then replace “right” with “starboard” and “left” with “port”) I would suggest printing the wing red panels on smooth PEI plate and print the “top” surface face down on the plate for a smooth surface. The small leading-edge panels will require glue and I would recommend gluing all the wing panels. The support rods are best printed horizontally but this usually requires some post-print sanding to get perfectly round. Again, I kept this a tight tolerance to provide some resistance on rotating the wings. If not enough friction exists then I provided “X-wing braces” to keep the wings deployed in attack configuration. Since I plan to always display the model in this configuration, I used this as my baseline. The brace should not require gluing.

Without support interface material, the support inside the engine compartment of the wing may be difficult to remove. Once the wings are printed you can print all four engines – they are all identical. I used grey for the internal engine parts with red for the very front. I thought these internal parts would be more visible, but the individual parts are mostly hidden inside the engine. The exhaust piece and the front red will need glue. I suggest just a very small about to the middle of the red turbine face. This will allow it to rotate if you needed.

Cannons: The cannons are all identical and can be printed on a single plate. Additionally, you should not need glue except maybe for the very end dish. Due to keeping the tolerance tight, you may need some sanding of the shaft of one part. While the cannons will not require glue to assemble, since two will be on the bottom of the lower wings, I do suggest gluing the assembled cannons onto the wingtips.

Mech Droid printing: The R2D2 droid used 3 different colors and support filament unless you plan on painting. This uses a lot of wasted filament for 4-filament printing. It will also take from 5-6 hours for a very small part but I had to add a mech droid to the model.

If you want a simpler droid I provided my version of the R5 droid, but it is also three colors, just at fewer layers.

Stand: The stand is the simplest part, but you may want to print this out of order to hold the print assembly while working on the other pieces.

Canopy and glass: The canopy, I printed last because it took some parameter adjustments. I have been experimenting with transparency. I hope you have good luck with this. The individual windows are printed with transparent filament. I have tried several variations and what I provided is the best results I had. Below are settings based on what I got from Bambu Lab Wiki and since I used Bambu PETG transparent filament I tried theirs first with some small additional adjustments (I will note the changes) and I got the best results:

1. Turn off the any cooling fans: this is under the filament settings.
2. Increase flow ratio and nozzle printing temperature. This is also under the filament settings.
   1. Flow ratio: 1.05 (Bambu used 1.01)
   2. Print temperature, Nozzle: First Layer 270℃, Other Layers 270℃.
3. Layer height, set to 0.1mm and line width to 0.5mm.
4. Set the number of wall loops to 1, remove the top shell and bottom shell, set the infill density to 100%, and change the infill direction to 0° or 90°
5. Set all speeds to 15mm/s (Bambu used 20mm/s)