Soon after the bigbadaboom of the Galactic Empire's boitoy Deathstar, Darth Vader realized that he had not felt such a disturbance in the force since he hooked up his respirator to a blender by accident! The Rebels, now a bunch of scruffy-looking nerf-herders - and on the run, hole up somewhere in the Hoth System. However, before the Rebels can rest their frosted behinds - the Galactic Empire, led by Lord Vader, launch a fleet of Probe Droids who relentlessly search for the Rebels that pissed them off. Today that search leads us to Lasse Henning!

"Scratch-building is a continuous circle of learning by experimentation; trial and error." Lasse explains, "and after a while you will begin to see how things work. By looking at model shop pictures from ILM or other studios you will soon realize what techniques they use and hopefully how you can accomplish the same results at home." Now to my ears, as a fellow scratch-builder (and Editor of Starship Scratcher), this is not only truth - but it is the way I began, and the quintessential method of any Applied Science.

Lasse understands that "the main problem for hobby-scratchers is that their budgets are somehow less elaborate than those of the established studios. We must therefore find alternative ways to achieve more in a more economical way." As a way of helping fellow scratchers, Lasse established an amazing "Make Your Own" web-site for Star Wars model-builders and movie buffs. His goal was to author a site that will serve as a homing beacon to those hopeful ones aspiring to recreate their own part of the Star Wars Universe.

Scratch-building may seem an impossible task for the inexperienced, but this need not necessarily be the case.

"If you consider yourself to be a fair craftsman, all you need is a little faith in your own abilities and some good old patience. My only advice is not to start working on a hopeless project. Start with a model you feel confident about and get a feel for the materials and the basic techniques." -Lasse

As an effort to help others get started, Lasse shows you some of his scratch-built Star Wars models and describes the process behind making them.For instance, ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) called the Escape Pod a "five day wonder." Lasse explained how that in one day he made the construction plans and constructed the entire body! He used the image in "The Lucasfilm Archives" for reference. "His replica took about 10 labor-intensive hours," he said. "The rest of the job was done in the two following weeks. For those of you that are new to scratch-building, this is a fast and fun project to get started on.

The model is built entirely from polystyrene and PVC. (ILM used discarded paint buckets for the body, but that just makes mine more durable). I constructed the model in two main sections, separated at the equator parting line. Each section was made by cutting circles and ribs to form the inner structure. The structure was then laminated with 1-millimeter styrene sheets. The hull plates were made from 0.5-millimeter styrene. I kit-bashed for most of the greeblies, (detail pieces) and used a lot of styrene rods and tubes from Evergreen Plastics. Several details and the rocket engines were turned from PVC on a small lathe, and PVC is a fantastic material for that purpose.The most time consuming part was applying the many rods around the model equator, or parting line and the small plastic squares around the entrance hatch on the side of the pod. For the flexible tubes connected to the rear engines I glued two styrene rods together. I then softened them in boiling water and bent them into the desired shape."

Lasse serves up some amazing Star Wars scratch-built replicas. One of my personal favorites is his "Y-Wing Fighter." Visit Lasse Henning's Model Shop and Photobucket for his latest scratch-builds.