Bannockburn's hobby projects - 5th Company, DW, and more

[MoK]

I for one am hoping the rumoured Plastic Thunderhawk is true. I'm also annoyed that we can't take the Storm Raven.

[Chaplain Raeven]

Great stuff you got in here. I like your Fortress of Redemption in particular. Good luck with the T-hawk.

 

 

Welcome back to the Rock Captain. I just finished browsing through all your pics. That's quite the force you've got there, and you've even got the battle barges and cruisers! It all looks great

I'm really looking forward to your progress on the hawk over the next few weeks... Or months... Or years(?)

 

Stobz set the standard, so we're looking at 5 years of work. Or if Cpt. Bannockburn isn't a slacker, a week.

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

Thank you for the accolades, everyone.

 

It will be more than a week, but I plan to have it done in a few months. The build goes along well, but painting it will be an interesting challenge.

It's great weather outside today, so maybe I'll glue the Fortress to its base.

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

Sure enough, I did not glue the Fortress to its base.
Instead, I glued knife scales to a knife I'm making, and decided that while I was messing around with two part epoxy, I'd glue stuff to the thunderhawk.

I've got no exciting pictures, since it's sitting in the garage for the next 24h or so, but I've mounted the center engine exhaust, the cockpit enclosure and the landing gear (temporarily, but so it's in the right position for the final assembly).
Furthermore, I've straightened the lower fuselage a bit more and made the front ramp fit by attacking it with a file as well as the nose with a blow dryer.
Edit: I almost forgot! The cannons are magnetized now for easy switching of the weapon options.

This evening I've also cleaned up the heavy bolters. The frontal bolters worry me a bit, since they're very loose, but the wing-mounted turrets are a snug fit and thus spare me the hassle of finding a way to magnetize them.
We'll see how this works.

Hey, here're the five dudes I'm painting right now. Mostly constructed from spare bits.
The need highlights and a final coat of dark green ink (I wonder what I'll do when the pot is empty) and they'll be prepped for decals!

Edited March 28, 2017 by Cpt. Bannockburn

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

Here are the results of messing around with two-part epoxy. The main body is pretty sturdy right now, but not yet glued.

Next step will be the construction of a bigger subassembly consisting of the upper body parts, the gun housing, and the tail and its fin. I'll probably also add the wing flaps there.

After that, or in parallel, while the epoxy dries, I'll see about stabilizing the wings with a large gauge wire (coat hanger, probably).

I'm still not sure if I want to make them removable, but I will make the top fuselage removable to show off the interior when I want to.

 

Magnetized battle cannon:

 

 

Rear:

 

 

Front view of the nose, with fitted assault ramp, not fixed in position yet:

 

 

And a final view on the landing platform, from the side. Please excuse the mess. It's a hobby table I share with my GF

 

[Chaplain Raeven]

Damn man, those are some serious gave you'll have to fill. I do not envy you.

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

It looks worse than it is, since this isn't even its final form!

Seriously though, the dry fit showed only a few gaps that need fixing. They just open when I take my hands off for photographing.

For most of those gaps, liquid green stuff should suffice.

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

I for one am hoping the rumoured Plastic Thunderhawk is true. I'm also annoyed that we can't take the Storm Raven.

So, apparently, I've been stupid.

 

Well, this is annoying.

 

Could have saved a lot of money if I had just waited for another month.

OTOH, this may result in me having two of the beasts.

 

In actual news: I've fitted the gun housing and the air intakes of the wing engines yesterday. The epoxy is drying and I'll post pictures this evening.

The rear is impossible to fit with the slow drying epoxy, since I can't clamp. I'll try to glue it with superglue after scoring the little surface there is. Hopefully it will be a tight fit, but if not, I may have to resort to some sort of fiddly pinning.

Edited March 28, 2017 by Cpt. Bannockburn

[Chaplain Raeven]

You were the first one that crossed my mind when i saw that post 

 

To be fair, they did announce it on the last possible minute. You couldn't have known.

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

Hindsight is 20/20 or however that saying goes in English ;)

Still, it's fun to work on the beast, even if it challenges a rather different skillset than what I'm used to from modelling.

[Greenz]

You were the first one that crossed my mind when i saw that post

Same here, horrible timing!

 

Captain, that Hawk is coming along beautifully! You're making very quick progress. I'm really loving your play by play with this construction.

Edited March 28, 2017 by Greenz

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

As promised, here are a few pictures of the assembly.

Unfortunately, the pieces need to remain in the garage for now, which doesn't make the pictures very exciting.

 

Here's what I did in the last two days:

 

 

As you can see (or not), the upper hull is almost done. The tail fin will be attached tomorrow and then this subassembly is complete, apart from the air brakes which will be put on after they're painted. 

Speaking of which, here's a closeup of the clamped tail fin:

 

 

And another one of one of the wings. Both are clamped will be ready to be fit to the hull tomorrow. Unfortunately I don't have large enough pins right now, so that step may have to wait.

 

Edited March 28, 2017 by Cpt. Bannockburn

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

It's good news / bad news time.

 

The good news is that the epoxy is very tough, and impossible to break. Glue two parts together and they are henceforth one. Better than rings.

 

The bad news is that this means if you make a mistake and only notice it in the next evening, you'll be forced to saw through a substantial part of the upper hull assembly. I didn't put it down on a flat surface due to the clamps. Unfortunately, the clamps weren't as tight as I thought and the two big parts slid away from each other, resulting in a crooked assembly that could in no way fit to the lower hull. This is my first major setback in this project.

 

The good news is that it's not critical. It can and will be saved, but I'll have to construct some plasticard bracings on the inside.

 

Neutral news: The wings are set, and I've fixed up the tail fin now and am waiting for the epoxy to dry.

I've also bought a compressor and an airbrush. Payday is a great day!

 

Here's a pretty unspectacular picture of the wings: 

 

 

And here's the result of letting your enthusiasm get away with you. Use your head. Measure twice, glue once and so on.

On the plus side, I didn't use enough epoxy on the other side, so I could save that part.

 

Edited March 29, 2017 by Cpt. Bannockburn

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

Nothing special here today, just another dry fit. I'll try to repair the damage and glue the two upper hull parts together today, but I lack the material to do anything more until the weekend. Maybe I'll finish painting the veterans tonight.

 

So, for now, here's the picture on the cluttered hobby table. Yes, this is a squad of terminators in the background, waiting for their final coats of paint.

 

[Greenz]

That sucks about the setback. At least you kept your spirits up and didn't see how well it flies across the room!

 

It's coming along beautifully by the looks of it though

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

No worries about that. It's a bit expensive to be throwing it around

 

Anyways, here's an update.

This is the first time it stands unsupported on its own. The nose is still not attached until after I painted the interior and the command deck, which is why there's still a gap visible. As you can see, the wing flaps still need to be glued in. The first try with just superglue went awry so the next time I'll be using a combination of superglue (to hold them in place) and epoxy.

This thing is massive. 

 

 

 

 

 

This is it for the beauty shots. Now you get to see the ugly interior.

Here's and overview of what it looks like in parts. I still couldn't repair / finish the upper fuselage, since I can't find my plasticard. On the other hand, I've bought everything for adding interior lighting. A couple of red LEDs, and a battery pack with a switch. Wish me luck, I've never tried this.

 

 

And here's a detailed view. As you can see, the rod holding the wings up is ... not really straight. The reason for this is that my drill bit was too short to drill through the whole body in one go and even after measuring twice I had to correct a lot. That's not too bad though, since it holds very firm now, even without glue. I think I won't even glue them. The gaps are almost invisible when the upper hull is attached.

 

 

 

And here's what came in the mail yesterday! Pretty excited about starting to airbrush, but unfortunately the air hose I ordered on amazon comes from china. That's bad since it means I can only start practicing in mid-april at the soonest. For that purpose, I've bought a Gauntlet Tactical Squad (the one with the Rhino).

 

[Chaplain Raeven]

I think have the same compressor. Works like a charm, but gets hot fast.

But seriously,  an airbrush? I thought you were going to paint the whole thing with a XS-brush. Don't disappoint us now man!

 

Which brush did you buy?

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

I think have the same compressor. Works like a charm, but gets hot fast.

But seriously,  an airbrush? I thought you were going to paint the whole thing with a XS-brush. Don't disappoint us now man!

 

Which brush did you buy?

I bought a KKMoon Airbrush. And I'm not in the habit of flagellating myself

 

 

Progress! (Kind of)

 

I got lucky and got my hands on the single copy our local GW had for sale.

 

 

Unfortunately, my airbrush is still not usable, since the hose is in transit from Hong Kong and there's not a single local store at which to buy one. So, I'll just wait. But, I built a command rhino which I'll use for the test painting. Finally a use for the FW Rhino doors I've had lying around (apart from the ose decoration on the Beast).

 

 

 

I mounted the missile mounts under the wings. Landing gear is only blue-tac'ed in, so it looks a little crooked. The missiles aren't really holding right now, they're just put on. I hope it gets better when they've got a coat of paint on 'em. If not, I'll have to glue them in and use counters.

 

 

Also, I drilled and pinned the ailerons (I think that's what they're called; the little front wings).

On the right you can see how massive the terrain from the SW:A box is. It's a great kit, very modular. If you don't want to, you probably don't have to glue most of the parts. This is just one of a large number of possible configurations.

Hey, this means, I've got my first scouts now!

 

Edited April 8, 2017 by Cpt. Bannockburn

[Chaplain Raeven]

You're in luck, the new TH is in resin as well.

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

Yeah, I just saw the pre-production model. Looking forward to seeing what they make of it, but it looks a bit smaller, although I must say I'm a fan of the frontal turrets.

 

Anyways. Today my airbrush hose arrived and I'm already in love with the whole thing. So much better than spray cans.

I undercoated the Rhino, but as was to be expected, I have to correct a few mistakes later, maybe tomorrow.

Had to find the right mixture of thinner to primer and the right distance to spray from, so it pooled in places. Not too bad for a first try, though, and towards the end I got the hang of it.

I see a lot of priming happening in the immediate future.

 

The compressor is great, by the way. It gets only a bit warm, and it has a steady air flow, even though I made a mistake and bought one without tank. I am very happy with it.

 

 

I also fixed one of the front wings with epoxy, but didn't take pictures, since it's relatively unspectacular and needs to cure now.

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

Not much, not much.

 

Had a little time this evening, primed a few guys. Deathwing Knights, the Rhino got a more even undercoat, a filthy xenos and some Grey Dude with a leather skullcap (Gorgeous model, will field him one day with 10 GK Terminators, since I have the parts from converting my DW Knights)

Also glued the other front wing. Tomorrow they'll both be cured and immovable forever.

 

 

Now for painting a few green guys.

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

In preparation for painting the Rhino, I've created a vector graphic of the DAW symbol to use as a stencil. You can download it here and use it freely

If I did it right, it should retain Adobe Illustrator properties. If you find it does not, please send me a message and I'll try to correct it.

 

Preview (filled, not strokes):

Edited April 13, 2017 by Cpt. Bannockburn

[MoK]

Is not just the Deathwing symbol? I thought the DA symbol had a solid sword. Not that it's a problem of cause, you could just fill it in. Edited April 13, 2017 by MoK

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

You're correct of course. It's a DW symbol because this is supposed to be a command Rhino, and Company Masters are from the Deathwing. I'll correct it in the original post, thank you for noticing.

[Stormxlr]

I always wanted a Thunderhawk for my 5th, but just cant justify getting it coz i will probably never field it on the table! Ill probably end up getting a Fellblade.