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Much credit out to JSV on the BWC archives for the templates for the Thunderbolt Scratchbuild. This is the first of what I hope will be a small flight of Phantine XX Thunderbolts to go along with my planned Tanith First and Only army.

It's been awhile since I've tried to scratchbuild anything for 40k - I tried a drop pod a couple years ago, but it looked like duff so I never finished it. Considering my experience with that one, I was pretty nervous about this one. But I just followed the template and it went together fairly easily. This took me about 3 hours to do. I had some trouble with the nose (which you can see in the front view) and with the tail, but all in all, I'm pretty happy with it and I'm looking forward to cleaning it up, adding the jets and the weapons and detailing it up.

Right Side


Front View


Left Side


Any comments, suggestions, or questions are welcome.

Thanks!
Jacob

Edit: AW MAN! I just realized I put the horizontal tailfins on backwards!

The only problem I've found using cardboard is that it tends not to stay flat. But that's really good work there. Love to see how it ends up.

nice work, but like skinnattiatar said you might have problems with cardboard bending and not having much strength. also it will be hard to fill in the edges to paint, and the wetness of paint might do some harm, in the future i might try foamcore, it will give you a smoother finish and be alot more durable.

A papier mache covering solves all those problems.

...but makes the model look like they built a plane out of concrete.

Go with plastic. Stonger, more durable, takes paint well. Thick plastic cut-offs are available from some industrial sources depending on where you live.

But I like the Thunderbolt you did out of card, all told. Can't wait to see the whole flight of them side by side... or better yet, in action! That will be a game of Apocalypse to remember.

mmmmm...concrete plane......

The most difficult part will be trying to prevent the ribbing from bleeding through. There are paints that will make the cardboard not look like cardboard, but the ribbing will still be there. One way to cover up the edges is to just use regular paper and water based glue. With care it will look great!

My plan is to take and cover the edges of the cardboard with scotch tape to conceal the ribbing. Then I plan on using some of the thinnest plasticard I can find and cut panels out which I'll glue over the base of the cardboard.

That said, I'm already making plans for my second and third one. I plan on doing one out of thin card and one out of the thin plasticard that you can bend. I thought about foamcore, but I've worked with it in the past and prefer plasticard to it. I'd rather do multiple layers of plasticard than a single fat layer of foamcore.

Yeah, while other folks are making Titans for Apocalypse, I've always been of the opinion that 40K needs more air cover. Consequently, I'm figuring that if I can get 5 Thunderbolts up and running, that'll boost any Imperial Army I field by 900 to 1100 points.

Air cover and artillery, both highly under-utilized. A good artillery bombardment would knock the crap out of any assault, and since the Imperium is almost always on the defense, it would make tactical sense.

That looks nice! I'm going to try my hand with the templates soon, but probably modify them to extend the fuselage and wings a little. Right now I don't see how that thing can possibly generate enough lift, and with heavily anhedral wings and small control surfaces, it would be somewhat maneuverable, but incredibly difficult to fly. Rate of roll would be phenomenal though.

i actually just got done playing two games of tactica aeronautica...very cool game that i would recommend. Air support is alot larger part in actuall wars than in 40k, but also in 40k the navel support of space ships kind of makes up for the lack of fighters...if you can just lance the ememies position without the fear of getting hit, its alot easier.

Silverthorne wrote:That looks nice! I'm going to try my hand with the templates soon, but probably modify them to extend the fuselage and wings a little. Right now I don't see how that thing can possibly generate enough lift, and with heavily anhedral wings and small control surfaces, it would be somewhat maneuverable, but incredibly difficult to fly. Rate of roll would be phenomenal though.

I agree completely with your assessment of the aerodynamics of all the birds in 40k, but the thing you have to remember (and that I had to keep remembering) is that they can compensate with anti-grav tech to help with some of those nasty issues.

Hm. Tactica Aeronautica with 40k scale flyers....

Okay, so I went to the hobby shop today and picked up some thin plasticard - two thicknesses (although I'm not sure what the specs are). I believe one may be about 0.5 mm and the other is about 0.25 mm. I bought the 0.25 mm to use to skin the thick card Thunderbolt. I picked out the 0.5 mm card as it looked thick enough to provide some good structure, but thin enough that I could bend into shape like card. I also picked it out as it looked like I could run it straight through my laserprinter and print the template directly onto it.

Getting home, I printed the templates onto the 0.5 mm plasticard as well as onto some thin card (like manila folder/3x5 card thickness). I was really excited to see how the 0.5 mm plasticard would work, and so got to work cutting out the secondary fuselage. I started making the folds and it was going well until I needed to fold a 90 degree angle. While the plastic cracked nicely along the template line, it did break the plastic - not quite what I was wanting. Additionally, using the plasticard meant that my bends needed to be much more accurate to match up with appropriate corners - I couldn't very easily just re-bend it to match like I could with the thicker card. At this point, I was a little deflated, so I set the plasticard aside.

I picked up the thin card templates and began cutting them out, which took no time at all compared to cutting the plasticard. Now having used the template a couple times, I was beginning to get more comfortable it and remedy some of the mistakes I made with the first Thunderbolt. The tail turned out much better than the first one, but the front end was still a little wonky. Problem is, the weight of card I was using is way to flimsy and the plane was just...squishy. I finished assembling the fuselage and secondary fuselage and have set it aside for the day. I probably won't take that one any further.

Next up, I need to find some good card that's thicker than the stuff I was using today without it being corrugated cardboard. Unfortunately, yesterday was recycling, so what usable material I had got tossed and my wife frowns on me deconstructing the cereal boxes while we're still using them...

I'm also going to try to develop some templates for the armor plates to skin the first Thunderbolt. I've got some good pics of Thunderbolts from IA I that I can use and get ideas for detailing.

I'll probably come back and try again with the 0.5 mm plasticard when I've got some more time. I didn't want to mess with it more today as the breaks in the plastic meant I'd need to get out the glue and I'd just wanted to see how far I could get with folding today.

Lesson for today: you can't do origami with 0.5 mm plasticard.

For the plasticard, anywhere that you're bending you should score the plasticard first along the bend line. You'll have much better results, even when you need to do a 90 degree.

How do you recommend scoring the plasticard? I was using a plastic tool to score the cardboard I used for the first Thunderbolt. Should I just use a dull knife? I'm kind of a noob when it comes to plasticard conversions. I'd use my exacto, but would be afraid of cutting all the way through.

Try breaking the very tip off a #11 blade (carefully) then reverse the blade and use a metal ruler with a cork backing.

This thread delivers! Heck, anythin with thunderbolts in it for me

Nice job on this, I might have to check those templates out... After I finish some other stuff that needs to be finished first :S

Death By Monkeys wrote:How do you recommend scoring the plasticard? I was using a plastic tool to score the cardboard I used for the first Thunderbolt. Should I just use a dull knife? I'm kind of a noob when it comes to plasticard conversions. I'd use my exacto, but would be afraid of cutting all the way through.

I'd never recommend using a dull knife...thats an accident waiting to happen.

I just use my x-acto after drawing a line with a pencil and ruler. Once the line is there to guide me I drag the x-acto across it without too much pressure. Usually one initial to get a very small score then a second one with a bit more pressure that is just dragged along the line from the first. Try it on some off cuts and you'll see what I mean.

Even if the piece accidentally breaks off, nothing some glue and a bit of greenstuff can't take care of. You'll probably want to greenstuff parts of the plane anyway once it's done to fill in cracks, etc.

Xanthos wrote:Nice job on this, I might have to check those templates out... After I finish some other stuff that needs to be finished first :S

PM me your email, I'll send you the templates.

One thing to note guys...from the guy who made the templates, they need to be about 40% bigger. Nothing a trip to Kinko's/Staples can't fix (or yourself at home if you're savvy with Adobe)

Plastic being difficult to bend, I'm wondering whether going with cardboard isn't such a bad idea after all- if one follows up by using modelling putty or something similar to fill in the ends afterwards.

DeathByMonkeys, what do you think?

Ya know, after trying this in cardboard, plasticard, and thin card, right now my preference is thin cardboard. I still need to try a thicker thin card, but one of the other guys on BWC Archives posted pics of his finished cardboard Thunderbirds and they looked great - he didn't add any additional skinning, either. Sharp stuff.

I'm still planning on skinning mine with armor plates, but right now, I'm looking at keeping with the cardboard base for the model, although I may do the canopy in thin card just because it'll be a pain to fill the corrugated portion on that.

Well, it is a good start. The detailing will do everything from here.

I'm really not sure if thin card, platicard or cardboard is best. I've used a bit of each for terrain pieces in the past, but I wonder if it wouldn't be different with minis themselves.

How are you creating the interior of the fuselage with the templates? Is it mostly thin plasticard with nothing inside, or are there structural supports? If the former, you might find just a few spare bits of plastic glued in to hold some shape here and there will go a long way towards making it more stable. Sort of imagine a honey comb, only not nearly so densely supported.

Looks good though so far. I really like the air cover angle, and heartily agree it is seriously lacking from 40k.

With the cardboard, the interior doesn't really need too much extra support. I've seen pics from a couple other Thunderbolt builders who used some additional supports in other ways (bracing wings, etc), but I haven't really found them necessary so far. After looking at one, though, I cut a piece of thin card to cover the hole in the fuselage where the pilot should be. This was partly for extra structure, but mostly to give a secure place to attach the canopy.

Unfortunately, my family's been fighting off Papa Nurgle's latest "blessings", so I haven't gotten to spend much time on this lately.

So, I'm bummed because I can't find my camera to take pics of what I've done today. I was able to go out yesterday and buy some IG heavy weapon teams. While I wanted them specifically for the lascannon and autocannon bits for the Thunderbolt, I'm planning on using the other bits for my eventual Tanith First and Only conversions. I was also able to make up armor templates for cutting out the plates for skinning the bird. After some issues with scaling, I was finally able to get the armor plates the right size, printed them on my 0.25 mm plasticard and cut them out.

While this may come to bite me in the butt later, I used a gluestick to adhere the armor plates to the body of the plane. While some portions of the plane turned out better than others, I'm pretty pleased with the result. I also cleaned up the heavy weapons, drilled out the barrels and fit them to the plane. The lascannons look really good, but I'm actually a little disappointed with the autocannons. The new plastic ones just aren't as hefty as the old metal ones and so consequently, they wind up looking a little weedy on the front of the plane. I'm not going to change them out as I've already hacked them up and don't know what I'd do with them otherwise, but I think on the next Thunderbolt I build, I'll just scratchbuild the autocannons out of plastic or brass tubing. In the last thing I did for the day, I added a plate on the nose with the Imperial Aquila.

Next steps will be:
1) Buy some hardware to use as the jet intake and exhausts and install it
2) Figure out a way to set up some magnetized underwing hardpoints so I can mount either bombs or HK missiles (I'm planning on using the ML missiles from the Heavy Weapon sprue for my HK missiles)
3) Put in "window panes" for canopy and attach the canopy

I've really gone back and forth about whether or not to do clear plastic panes for the canopy or just put in opaque plastic and paint up the canopy. While the thought of converting up a Sentinel pilot with a GS airmask for the pilot is really appealing, the point of this exercise is to make some nice-looking, but cheap and generally hassle-free Thunderbolts. Consequently, I pretty sure I'm just going to go the route of the opaque canopy panes.

I'll look to get some pictures early next week after I get the hardware for the jet intake and exhaust and put the canopy together (I should be able to dig up my camera by then.

Sounds like you have made good progress. I think the decision to use an opaque cockpit here is a good one. The amount of time it would take to flesh out a single cockpit you could probably frame another thunderbolt with. And four thunderbolts with opaque cockpits is still more impressive than two with detailing inside.

Wurf. My prototype Thunderbolt is about ready to be primed. (Ack, just realized that I forgot to add the tubing from the engine manifolds to the primary fuselage!) It could and should get some more clean-up, but frankly, at this point, I'm really considering this my first try, with more to come. Consequently, I may do a little more work on the modeling on this, but I'm about ready to leave it to paint and start on a second Thunderbolt.

So, I left off having put the armor plates on the model and having added the weapons. After I posted, I completed the canopy and added it. I think on the next model I do, I'm going to use plasticard or thin card for the canopy. As with most of the rest of this model, the canopy is thin cardboard. Rather than painstakingly add GS to the card edges to hide the corrugation on the cut sides, I used scotch tape, hoping to seal the sides smoothly. While it was a quick way to solve the problem, it is definitely quick and dirty. There are many places where the tape has curved or bowed in rather unappealing ways - this is particularly noticeable on the canopy. I used my 0.25 mm card to add the panes to the canopy which looks pretty clean.

I went to Home Depot on Sunday to pick up some lawn plumbing pieces to use for the engine intakes and exhaust ports, but didn't get a chance to work with them until this morning. Ugh. What a pain. You want to talk about bad flash on GW or FW models? The flash on this stuff was ugly, but even worse was were the brand logos on the pieces - particularly the parts I wanted to use for the jet intakes. The logos are placed in an indented area and are raised about 0.5 mm. Their location in the indentation made them a pain to get rid of, especially as I can't find the charger for my dremel. I finally had to use a small flathead screwdriver to chisel them out. I'm really unhappy with the result and once I do find my dremel charger, plan to go back with a narrow grinding bit and smooth it out.

At this point, I'm passing on adding the magnetics for the underwing hardpoints.

Anyway, here are the pics for where I am:

This is a view of the front left and at this point, is probably the most flattering shot I have (sadly). Unfortunately, (and as shown by the next photos) it looks worse in person. I'm happy with how most of the body paneling went - it could use a few adjustments here and there, but the paneling on the nose immediately in front of the canopy really needs something thicker.

This is a shot of the front right - the next most flattering shot I could get. You can see some of the issues with the tape here as well as some of the issues with the body plating.

Finally, another front shot - you can see some of the lopsidedness in the nose of the model here and see how badly I chewed up the pieces for those jet intakes (although the aquila is intentionally offset). That's what I get for not using the right tool for the job.

And, in general, that's really the moral of building this prototype - you get what you pay for. If you choose to do something quick like using scotch tape to seal the edges of the cardboard or to hold the model together, then it's going to look crappy. If you want to rush getting the model done and not use the right tool for grinding off logos, it's going to look chewed up. My one hope is that a decent paintjob will help to hide the flaws - or at least help camoflage them.

Here's my plan for the next one based on lessons learned -
1) Build the body out of thin card (like cereal box card, not manila folder card)
2) Build the nose and tail separate from the cockpit - currently the template has you constructing the cockpit, tail and nose out of a single piece of card/plasticard. I think this is partially responsible for the wonkiness of the nose and tail.
3) Build the canopy out of 0.5 mm plasticard
4) Use GW plastic lascannons (from the IG heavy sprue or elsewhere), but make my own autocannons out of brass or plastic tubing
5) Possibly use 0.5 mm plasticard instead of the 0.25 mm for the body plates - although I want to see how this paints up to see if it makes that much of a difference.
6) Take more time to grind off the logos on the plumbing pieces for the engine parts

Heh. And speaking of using the right tools for the job, does anyone know if you can do panel shading without an airbrush? Can it be done by masking off the panels and using black spray paint? Or just using a brush to paint the black lines around the panels prior to basecoating?

I'm a nub, what's panel shading?

Panel shading is an advanced technique used by airplane modelers to add realism to their models. Due to sun and weathering, the body panels of a plane (or tank, etc.) weather more at the center of the panel than at the edge. Consequently, the middle of the panel is lighter than the edges.

This page (http://www.world-war-2-airplane-model.com/pre-shading.html) shows a good example and description of panel shading.

Because of some of my dissatisfaction with my cardboard Thunderbolt (which I've now designated Serial 99 in reference to a jinxed Thunderbolt in Double Eagle), I went back and re-attached some of the armor plates, cleaned up a few things, and added the tubing from the engines to the fuselage. I'm actually pretty satisfied now. The model has a good heft to it and I'm looking forward to priming it now. Here it is, pre-primed:



I also started on a new Thunderbolt based on my lessons learned from the first. While the thin card will be good as far as not having to go back and cover up the corrugation at the cut edges, it's got a much lighter and somewhat flimsier feel to it. It's not terrible, I'm just not used to working with it yet. I built the nose and tail separately, as I had planned, which worked very nicely and seems to lengthen the nose a little and certainly makes for a cleaner, straighter model. Additionally, I went off-template a little with the wings and tail fins by doubling the templates side-by-side on the card and then folded the card in two so that 1) the wings and tailfin are double-thickness, and 2) it's easier to bend flanges from the pieces to use to attach the pieces to the fuselage. I didn't have any 0.5 mm plasticard - I've only got 0.25 mm left right now, so I made the canopy out of the thin card and used the 0.25 mm card as the panels for the canopy again. I'm pretty pleased with the result. It may not be as good as the 0.5 mm card would be, but it looks pretty clean as it is. In general, as shown in the pics below, the new Thunderbolt (Serial 02, I'm calling it - Bree Jagdea's Thunderbolt from Double Eagle) is already a lot cleaner than Serial 99 was.



View from of the front left of Serial 02.

View from the front right of Serial 02.

So, Serial 02's already coming along quickly - I printed out the pieces on and cut them out Monday night and this is where I've gotten it to already. Next step is to skin it. I've got one last full sheet of 0.25 mm plasticard that I'd planned on using for the body plates, but I'm still tempted to go out and get some more 0.5 mm plasticard for the body plates. I haven't fully decided yet, though.

I did also go out yesterday and bought some new grinding tools for my dremel...now I just need to either find or order a new charger for the battery.

Can folks tell much of a difference between the use of the cardboard in Serial 99 and the thin card in Serial 02? The thin card makes for a much lighter model, but maybe it's just because when I compare the weight of the two models I'm comparing Serial 99 with all it's plastic plumbingware and body plates to the naked Serial 02.