Millennium Falcon Coffee Table by R-9.

 

 

19/07/11: Well, James and John (two thoroughly nice chaps, it has to be said) delivered this on a 300 mile round trip. Phew. So, she’s here and although i’ll confess be being a little biased and think that she’s quite beautiful. 🙂 The tables been lowered by about three inches and does look better for it.

Please forgive the poor quality photos, but i only have a Blackberry.

The table itself came in 3 parts. The Base, the Falcon herself and the glass top.  

The Falcon has a screw in support which then goes through a hole at the bottom of the table. There are also two smaller support struts on the base to stop any rocking motion.

You don’t really approciate how big 42″ is until you actually see it. I did toy with the idea of contacting them to see if a change in the support legs and a larger glass top could be made in order to turn it into a dining room table. I’m glad i didn’t though. You can clearly see that it’s a massive table. Although it’s cast in Bronze its surprisingly light and can easily be carried by two men. Once the glass top’s on that’s it, all done. I started taking photos from all sides, just to appreciate it.

Because it’s cast in bronze it has a beautiful finish which i can’t really show in these photos and the scuplture has some really nice pattination all over its smooth finish. Very cool.  

This is one piece has the added bonus that it’s going to get better looking the older it gets. 🙂

 That cockpit’s as big as my fist. 🙂

Although the sculpt is generally of a smooth finish there are some nice touches of detail in the recessed areas that give the impression of working parts.

I must confess that when i first heard that there was going to be wooden finish around the side i turned my nose up a little and didn’t think that it’d work at all but i’m very pleased to say that i was wrong and the wood/bronze mixture is surprisingly easy on the eye. Dare i say classy?

 

I’ve received some scoffing for this on some of the other forums and will be rubbing their noses in it shortly ( 🙂 ) but i would like to point out that this is a piece of art. A sculpture made by two very talented people and isn’t meant to be a model of any kind. I love it and it promises to be a great conversation piece. Now, where can i get some Millennium Falcon coasters?

At the moment this is the only one, although James and John said that they may do a limited run in the future. I find myself hoping that there’s enough interest in this to get that run going. Sure, it’s not cheap but it is a quality item. It’s estimated that shipping to the US for this would cost around £350 which isn’t that bad when you consider i paid more than that to ship my MR Falcon.

Although i’m rather embarrassed to say that i wasn’t a very good host (i’m in the middle of decorating), i was able to speak with them on their plans for the near future. There’s the possibility of a lamp (At the start of ROTJ when the droids approach Jabba’s palace, there’s some sort of eye thing that pops out of the door and questions the droids. James is particularly keen on the ideas of using this as some sort of articulated lamp.) They’ve also been asked to do something relating to R2. Perhaps some sort of tall table.

Whatever they decide, i wish them the best and will be keeping an eye out.

(Mike, i feel kinda guilty about getting this as it was you that pointed it out to me. I have talked with Di and if anything happens to me she said that she’ll arrange for it to be sent to you. 🙂 )

22/06/11: Third and final payment. I’ve had to defer delivery for the time being as i’ve gor some builders in at the moment but this should be at it’s new home in a couple of weeks. This is getting posted everywhere. 🙂

06/06/11: This has just been posted on Geek-art.net. 🙂

22/05/11: Second payment away.I’m really looking forward to this.

27/04/11: My first payment was sent today. 🙂 Hopefully, i’ll be taking delivery of this in three months time.

30/03/11: I just had an e/mail from James Millward of r-9 with this link showing the completed coffee table. They went with the bronze look in the end with a wooden veneer on the outside edge. At the moment it’s a one off piece. (But there is a possibility that there will be a limited run at a later date. The price on this will be in the £1000 region.) James has agreed to let me have this one for a great price that’s just too difficult to pass up. What a coup for my collection. 🙂 Finances are pretty hard, so they’ve agreed on three installments.

It was never meant to be a detailed model of the Falcon, just a bare bones “artistic” representation for a functional piece of furniture. The more i look at it, the more that i like it. First impressions aren’t too bad and i’d imagine that this would be be pretty impressive when seen in person. It’s interesting that they chose to leave out the quad guns, but the rectenna is added.

Here are a couple of pictures.

I’ve posted this everywhere and i have to say that i’m surprised by the underwhelming response this work of art has received. Mike and i both love it. Surely we can’t be the only ones?

I’m very much looking forward to seeing what other projects that they have in the future. (They’re hoping to do something from Ghostbusters.)

03/02/11: I emailed them yesterday to see how much it was going to be and see it i can get an estimated release time and received this reply.

“We havent got a release date for the falcon yet, BUT it will be pretty soon. It has gone through many design changes, and we are still finalising the finish. Our last test, will involve a genuine rust finish. This was actually the original intention, as a play off Lukes description of the Falcon (‘what a piece of junk!’) Bronze looks nice, but we are concerned the amount of bronze needed will push this out of a normal price range.” Cool.

Mike just let me know about this interesting project on the RPF about Bronze cast Millennium Falcon coffee table. At 42″ long, it looks like an amazing project and after checking out their site (http://www.r-9.org.uk/), it could be pretty reasonable too. They did a Han in Carbonite coffee table for £1000 which is a great price in my opinion. It’ll be a nice companion piece for my Scrap Metal Falcon too. Click on the link below for some in progress photos. I’ll let you know if i hear anything from them regarding expected completion dates and prices. This is going to be great. 🙂 Thanks for the Heads up Mike.

http://www.therpf.com/f11/our-42-millenium-falcon-coffee-table-build-update-2-final-test-pour-86221/

Just to show you what this’ll look like, here’s a photo of their Han in Carbonite table. I like it.