So, I’ve started work on my new army, Dark Angels, focusing on a Deathwing.
A good mate of mine bought me a Dark Talon kit, and I really wasn’t sure which model I wanted to have in my army (especially as I don’t own the codex yet…) So I thought to myself…
(For those watching at home, that’s a reference to an advertisement here in Aus… not sure if it shows elsewhere)
So, I got out my crafty conversion tools:
A Dremel Stylus, Games Workshop hobby drills, generic hobby knife, Army Painter super glue, 1 2 & 3mm drill bits, Back to Base-ix 3*1mm rare earth magnet discs and 3mm cubes.
The 1mm drill & bit is used to drill Hurricane Bolter gun barrels and guiding holes for the 3mm Dremel & bit for placing disc magnets into. The 2mm drill and bit is used to drill the heavy bolter gun barrels. The hobby knife is used to place magnets into their locations. And in case I really need to say it, the super dlue holds the magnets in place!
On to how I did it:
I started by assembling the tail section, wing section and cockpit. I didn’t glue the fuselage together as I want to paint the inside of the cockpit and this will be much easier to do pre-assembly. I wasn’t a fan of the aerials for the Dark Talon so left them off. I also can’t stand the stonework of the Dark Talon, so that won’t be seeing action on my flyer either.
I placed two cube magnets into the main cannon mount, careful to have them both align the same way. I have been working with magnets for quite some time now, and have this pretty much down to an art form (I’ll probably do a “working with magnets” blog post soon), but if you are new to magnets, the best thing to do is go through your new magnet pile and mark all of them on one side with a permanent marker (the same each time) so that you don’t accidentally glue them with the wrong polarity (facing the wrong way). Then, when gluing them, you just make sure you have one side of a magnet that is marked connecting with the other side which is unmarked, so they attract one another. I wish I’d known this simple trick when I first started with magnets!
Under the cockpit, I drilled and glued 6 magnets. These are used to hold the Stasis Bomb and thrusters(?) for the Dark Talon, or the hatches for the Nephilim Jetfighter.
Inside the wing weapon mounts, I glued two magnet cubes. As these are stronger than the discs, I glued them against the plastic lip (which is obscuring the bottom of the magnets) to provide an extra surface for the magnets to grip. Although they are small, they have a great amount of pull!
The components that swap on and off to change between flyer types.
Placement of the magnets to hold each component in place. Some magnets are drilled into components (Lascannon, Assault Cannon(?) Rift Cannon, Stasis Bomb, Thrusters(?) and the Heavy Bolters – Pictured below). With the bomb, I trimmed away the struts in order to place the magnets. The other components have their magnets glued straight onto the parts. This was necessary for the Hurricane Bolters / Blacksword Missiles in order to bridge the plastic lip I spoke about earlier. I also shaved a bit of plastic off the edges of the Bolter / Missile brackets to make them easier to remove from the model. It’s hard to see, but the magnets have been positioned about 1mm from the edge to provide room for the lip. The hatches (Nephilim Jetfighter) had their magnets glued straight onto them as the magnets holding the Thrusters(?) are quite far in, however the magnets still provide enough pull to hold the hatches in place.
The undercarriage assembly for the Dark Talon.
And now for the Nephilim Jetfighter.
I also used magnets (discs) to hold the Heavy Bolter (Nephilim Jetfighter) and camera lenses (Dark Talon).
This one had me a little stumped until I realised 1mm thick magnets (discs) would hold the camera lenses out of the groove they are supposed to be glued into just enough for them to be pried off. As you can also see, I like my gun barrels to be drilled out.
So, that’s where I’m at so far. I’ll undercoat what I’ve done to date (Thinking white primer with gold trim), paint the cockpit, and assemble. Hopefully my next blog post will be showing off this bad boy as both varieties.
Wazza Out. =D
