Introduction: UCS Millennium Falcon Wall Mount

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Ever since I got this set, I had a hard time figuring out where I wanted to put it. I didn't really want to build it into a table, and the bottom isn't nice enough to hang it from the ceiling. Ideally, it would be mounted on the wall, with some back-lighting to really show it off. This is that process.

Supplies

Ingredients

Tools

Step 1: Warning

Over the course of building this mount, I managed to smash the set three separate times, which took hours to fix and a lot of frustration. If you're planning on following this yourself be warned. You are very likely to break something.

Step 2: The Main Mounting Board

This is a piece of ash that I had laying around the shop. Chop the board down to size, about 13" wide and 22" Long. Almost any board should work, but try to find something almost 1" thick. You want some decent screws holding in the brackets, so they need some decent material to attach to.

I'm using a 45-degree router bit to add just a little bit of a chamfer around the edge. it's not necessary, it just makes it look a little bit nicer.

Using 120 grit sandpaper, sand down the bulk of the material then give it a nicer finish using 220 grit paper. This wood isn't something that anyone's ever going to need to touch or even really look at, but if they do, it should look a little nice

Step 3: Mounting Brackets

Bring in the Falcon and set it down on the wood. Try to keep it centered and make sure to have all of the feet on the board. The feet will take some of the weight when hung up.

Remove the top centre plate and two from the back. Feed the brackets up from underneath. You want the brackets pressed up against the main Technic pieces and as far as wide as you can go. There are a couple edge pieces that you can push them up against

Once the brackets are in place, use a piece of 1"x2" and some clamps to hold them in place. This makes it so you can easily pull the Falcon off without having the brackets move. Once the Falcon is pulled off, use a pencil and mark out the screw holes. With those two brackets in position and centered, take the third bracket and measure so it's centered between them.

Measure from the back of two lower brackets to the front of the front one. They should be is about 4.25" apart. It is really hard to place the front bracket under the Falcon, to you have to do it by measuring.

Unfortunately, I didn't measure the spacing inside the Falcon before I bought the brackets. Because of this, the brackets didn't quite fit. I had to use an angle grinder to cut off about 1/2" from each bracket.

Step 4: The Top Bracket

The front bracket needs to be split around 2 pieces of Lego. To make this happen, find a 2-wide plate in your collection, and mark the width on the plate. Use an angle grinder and a cutting blade to cut open a little rectangle in the bracket.

To remove the rectangle, cut a small notch with the angle grinder and use some pliers to break it off. You can use a grinding disk to clean up the edges so they aren't sharp. Of course, use safety glasses and ear mufflers just to make sure you're safe.

Once that piece is cut, use a drill and make a hole below the cut. This hole will be used to hold the Falcon to the mounts using a wire.

Step 5: LED Strip Slots

Back on the router, use a 1/2" flat router bit to route four slots along the front of the board. They only need to be about 1/4" deep. Make sure to not put these slots under where the feet of the Falcon are or the brackets as these slots will be used to hold the LED strips.

On the back of the board, add another slot near the bottom. This slot will be used to route the wires where they won't be seen.

Step 6: Finish the Board

Go through and drill out the holes for the mounting brackets. While you're doing this, also drill a hole through where the front slots pass over the back slot. This is the hole you will use to pass through the wires, so make sure they are big enough for your wiring

I'm staining this because I wanted to match the other wood that's inside my office. I could actually have used a big hunk of walnut or something like that, but that would be really expensive. This is a piece of wood that I had laying around, so just putting on some dark stain gets it close enough.

Wipe-on polyurethane is my go-to for most sealing needs. It is super easy to put on and protects pretty well. Make sure to use a glove and a soft cloth to wipe it on. Also remember to do the back of the board. It isn't something you're going to see, but it helps make sure that the wood will expand and contract more evenly with temperature and humidity changes. You probably only need one layer, but it just will help preserve it and keep it from warping.

I put on three layers of wipe-on poly. Before the last layer, sand the whole thing down with 220 grit sandpaper. That makes it nice and smooth and gives it a really good finish

Step 7: Prepping the LEDs

Take out the strips and measure roughly how long you want them to be. I recommend an inch or two away from either end is probably good. Inside the strip you'll see two little copper pads and a little scissor image. At that spot, you can just cut them. You can use a knife or scissors, whatever you're comfortable with.

These strips are waterproof, so they have an extra layer of silicone on them. Use a knife and cut back that silicone. Make sure not to cut all the way through and cut the circuit on the back. If you cut close, you can usually just bend it and crack it off.

Once the silicone is cleared off the ends, tin them and a set of wires. Wires that are twisted together are much easier to work with. Optionally, you can re-add silicone to the ends of the strips. This isn't necessary, it is so you don't have to worry about shorting out wires internally when you put on some heat shrink.

Once the silicone is dry, you can come with some heat shrink and shrink it on to the ends. I recommend using a hot air gun or a proper torch if you can. A regular lighter is not recommended.

Step 8: Wire It Up!

Feed the wires through from the front of the board to the back. Press the strips into the slots you cut on the front. You shouldn't need glue or anything like that to make them fit nicely. On the back, cut the wires to a nice length and connect them together so that you have power on one side and ground on the other.

If you're not great at soldering, using some heat shrink to hold the wires together before you solder them can save you a little bit of time. Once they are soldered together, you can use the terminal block that's included with the power supply to do a really quick test.

Now that you know it works, remove the terminal block and solder on the power supply wires directly. Press the wires into the extra slot that you routered in the back

Step 9: Find Where to Hang It

I want it centered on this wall. Measure how wide the wall is and then mark a line down the center. Then, using a stud-finder, find the nearest stud to the center line and mark that as well. You definitely want this in a stud. It is reasonably heavy, and even if it wasn't, this isn't something you want to finally

On the back of your mounting board, mark the center line, then make a second line that has the same spacing as your wall centre and your stud. Down that second line, drill a few holes for some mounting screws. Since you're going to be using some decently long screws, you want to make sure that the bit is a little bit wider than the screw itself. That will make sure that the screw doesn't bind on the board.

Step 10: Final Test Fit

Attach the mounting brackets to the front of the board. Do a quick test-fit of the Falcon before you put this up on the wall. If these don't line up right, it's much easier to find out now instead of when you are holding the Falcon in the air.

Step 11: Mount the Mount

Line the mounting holes up with the stud line on the wall. Take some long screws and drive them through your mounting board, right into the stud.

Definitely make sure that this is on there really well. I ended up hanging off of mine, just to make sure that it could hold my weight.

Step 12: Minor Modifications

The Falcon was never meant to be hung up like this. Because of that, a lot of the plates just sit on top and use gravity to hold them in place. When you hang them on the wall, gravity is going to pull them off. I made some minor modifications to a couple of these plates to make sure that they stayed on and stayed together. This is not the only way you can do this this. It was an attempt to use as few pieces as possible and to modify the set as little as I could. Feel free to use this as a guide, but change it however you see fit. I'm not going to explain each step in this process. I took lots of pictures here for your reference.

There is an extra plate that you need to add once it's back on the Falcon (the biege plate). In the pictures, I show it attached just so you can see where it will go once it is added later.

Step 13: I Love You

Before you hang the Falcon, take some decent wire and put it through that hole that we drilled in the center bracket. You can do this for the other brackets as well, but for me, one was enough. You can pick up the Falcon by taking off the top centre circle and reaching in and grabbing the main structure.

It's not a particularly light set, but you should be able to lift it with one hand. Take the Falcon up to the mount and feed the wires through the Falcon, around the double piece the top bracket attaches to. Once you have those through, take the Falcon and slide it onto the mounting points. Take that wire and twist it around like a twist-tie and pull it tight so that it ties the Falcon to the mounts.

Step 14: I Know

I'm really happy with how this mount turned out. Yeah I smashed it a few times, and it didn't turn out exactly the way I had planned, but that's okay; It's finally up off of the floor where I'll stop tripping on it, and up on the wall where it belongs.

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