Falcon Rebuild Diary · Part 4

Examining the Stickers I Drew. Carefully.

I finally received the stickers from my supplier.

Time to peel off those tiny cutouts I defined earlier — these are the button shapes that I want to light up.

They were laser cut based on my drawing, so the edges are clean.

Of course, the fiber optics holes weren’t included, since those are way too small to be machine-cut.

I’ll have to drill those manually later.

Even though the cutouts were pre-cut, they’re really, really tiny — just 0.5mm.

I had to carefully peel each one off from both the vinyl and the sticker using a sharp tweezer, making sure not to damage the gap between two buttons.

It took a while.

Once all the cutouts were removed, I used the guide pins I set earlier to align the sticker with the vinyl layer.

This way, each hole matches up exactly.

It’s a small step, but critical to get everything looking clean when the lights come through.

Before I started drilling for the fiber optics, I felt the rear cockpit control panel sticker looked a bit too flat.

So I decided to add some 3D buttons on the sticker.

Just cut a few pieces of 0.5mm plastic rod and glued them on using Tamiya cement.

It adds a nice touch of realism.

—

Then came the fiber optics drilling.

The fiber strands I use are 0.25mm, so the ideal drill size is 0.2mm for a snug fit.

But... I broke all my 0.2mm drill bits during my last MF build.

So I had no choice but to use 0.3mm this time.

And yeah — halfway through, I was getting sleepy and... snapped my last 0.3mm bit.

So that’s it for now. I’ll continue once I restock.

Hope to get more done in the coming weeks.

— Chong

DeToyz Notes · 2025.07.24

 → Read Part 3: Falcon Rebuild Diary · Part 3