Part one in what will be a short saga of access pits! The lower access pits are part of my model that wasn't part of the original Falcon as it appeared in 1977. Before they added the forward landing gear boxes for The Empire Strikes Back the lower access pits occupied a more central location on the lower saucer as seen in this image:
This original design was reflected in the full sized set pictured below, but if you look carefully behind the hoses you'll see a metal support.
The weight of the mandibles (as well as the cockpit in the case of this set) required more support than the single forward landing gear could provide so when constructing the set for The Empire Strikes back, two additional forward landing gear boxes were added to the design and ultimately the 5 foot filming miniature.
I had a hard time finding clear reference for the port side lower access pits so a lot of the parts in there were eyeballed to the best of my ability. As I uncover more about these parts I will continue to update. Also you'll notice some of the McLaren parts are mirrored from one side to the other. This was a tactic I used to fill space in areas I was unsure about or had poor reference for.
As always here's an image of our progress so far:
Thank you for reading! I also want to mention that with the help of Lee Malone of Rogue Studio Productions I will be updating some part ID maps. Tonight I've updated the Dish Greebles.
Next time: Upper access pits
