Sunday, March 1, 2015

Real quick Dreadclaw update... come fly with me...


Yesterday ended up being a really good day for hobby time as I was able to pretty much finish the Dreadclaw minus some bling.


As you can see there's a lot more plasticard from last time.  Basically it was really simple to trim a piece down to fit where the pods retro-thrusters would normally go.  I just traced the outline of the bottom on to the plastic, and then cut it a little big at first after measuring how much to trim off.  Then trim and check, trim and check, yadda, yadda.  The door for the bottom is from the old-old Rhino kits before the current version.  I also sawed out some replacement fins for the top out of some really thick plasticard, and the template I made earlier worked like a charm.  Add some tubes, stick some claws and tentacles in a few of those tubes for the Demonic Possession rule, some teeth-like protrusions... and presto.  One, mostly, finished Dreadclaw!

But then there was the whole thing about getting it onto a flying stand...


If you do a lot of modeling and don't have one of these, I really recommend that you get one.  This one was a little bit more expensive.  It's variable speed which came in handy, but the thing to remember is as long as you can change out bits you'll be fine.  This made cutting the hole for the flying stand go so much easier and faster.  By faster I mean about 40 minutes or so.  Doing it before hand, you know... before finishing the model, probably would've been better.  If I make another, now I know.


I ended up using the flying stand from my Heldrake to pencil out where I wanted to start cutting/drilling/modifying.  I had a 1/8" wide, ball cutting bit chucked into the Dremel and used short stokes to work the entire "cross".  One thing I should mention. I did use both halves of the door for the finished model, as I wanted something sturdy and more rigid.  This actually helps with the flying stand since you have more material to actually rest the pod on the stand with.  I had gone through the first layer of the door, taking my time, and checking the top of the stand to the hole often to see where it was and where it wasn't lining up.  Put the pod on the stand, and it was way too tippy as the area the stand rested in was just too shallow.  Only about 1/4" in depth.  So it was a simple matter of going through the inner part of the door, just like before.  Once both halves of the door were cut in, I switched bits to a 1/8" cylinder cutting bit.  This allowed me to really shave off just a little bit of plastic at a time on both halves of the door at the same time.  Again going slow, and not pushing really hard either.


There you have it, now my Dreadclaw can go into flying mode...


Or hover mode!

Now if I could just get a flying stand ordered, most places... including GW... seem to be out at the moment!






10 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks Jay, It's taken a bit of time but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

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  2. Whoa, up to this point, your Dreadclaw conversion looked like pretty much all the other kitbashed Dreadclaws out there: nice enough, but nothing special. But these latest additions have truly transformed the model into something else -- an excellent interpretation that is very nearly on par with the official model (and actually much cooler, once you get around to comparing price tags).

    Fantastic work, Chris! And additional kudos for going the extra mile there!

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    Replies
    1. It took a long time to figure out how to make it look closer to the FW one. It was a long afternoon of starting to put it together and discussing the fins at length with a buddy of mine. That was the first session of about 6 hours, and just over a month ago.

      And thanks! ;-)

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  3. That is one fine looking Dreadclaw, it looks even better on the flying stand. Great work!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! I think the flying stand really makes it BE a Dreadclaw, and really helps make the Heat Blast attack easier to imagine.

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  4. Replies
    1. Fantastic model. What did you use for the missile launchers on the side panels?

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    2. Those are just Typhoon Missile Launchers from an online bits store.

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