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Ok,

This tutorial is on how to make railguns using crisis suits weapons. It can save a load of money, because instead of buying a broadside, you can just use a crisis suit.

What you need to make 1 railgun:

Fusion Blaster
Burst Cannon
Hobby Saw
Superglue

What you get:
1 Railgun
1 Snub-nose burst cannon


How to:

Cut along the dotted red lines with a hobby saw:



Cut along the red line:




You now should have 4 piston like things from the burst cannon, and the fusion blaster in two parts.

You then glue together to look like this:



I cut of the little canisters from the back of the fusion blaster to make it look more like a railgun, but you can decide what you want to do with it.

To get your burst cannon back, you put together what was left after you took off the little rods, to look like this:




All done:





Sorry about lack of pictures describing certain steps, I didn't have a lot of time to make this.

I hope this helps. If you don't have that many spare fusion blasters for your crisis suits, you could just use one railgun per suit.

That looks great! The burst cannons with the short muzzles fit the Tau perfectly and the railguns look great! Although I am curious about how easy the railgun might snap, because it doesnt look to strong when you just glue the two rods together? o:

They definately aren't incredibly strong. The only time I broke them was when I dropped them onto the ground >.<

I haven't had any trouble with their strength yet though.


You could use piano wire instead of the parts from the burst cannon.

Btw, gluing it together is rather difficult.

Or you could use plastic or brass rod of the same size the entire way through. If pinned into the model, it will be stronger than the current solution.


Simple and great tutorial, nonetheless.

awesoooooome

Great stuff!!!! Will enjoy making a few cheaper broadsides

Cool! The shorter railguns would be great for doing the reverse broadside, with missiles on the shoulders, and railguns on the hands, without the necron bits, like GW's older conversion guide.

you sir, are my new god

I agree, some plastic tubing with some sockets drilled into both end parts would be stronger and you wouldn't have the obvious join. Great idea though.

Ifurita wrote:I agree, some plastic tubing with some sockets drilled into both end parts would be stronger and you wouldn't have the obvious join. Great idea though.

I probably should have pursued that path.

The join wasn't there from the beginning, before I dropped them they look fine. You could use an exacto knife or a file to take it down if you have trouble with it.

You may be able to pin everything together, but it would be rather hard. I would just suggest some thick wire, with a slightly thicker wire at the end.

Wow those look almost identical to the normal ones!

The Bringer wrote:

Ifurita wrote:I agree, some plastic tubing with some sockets drilled into both end parts would be stronger and you wouldn't have the obvious join. Great idea though.

I probably should have pursued that path.

The join wasn't there from the beginning, before I dropped them they look fine. You could use an exacto knife or a file to take it down if you have trouble with it.

You may be able to pin everything together, but it would be rather hard. I would just suggest some thick wire, with a slightly thicker wire at the end.

or alternativly going to the train shop , buy the brass rod , and a plastic tubing that will fit it so that you dont then have to join the 2 wires .

Great conversion ideas there would be a little worryed about the rail gun strength but apart from that they are very cool

Nice conversion, great idea to way to avoid metal models or ordering from Forgeworld. I'm so gonna do something similiar when I decide to start working on my old Tau again.

I thought of an alternate method that would do a couple things.

If you don't want the burst cannons for your hammerheads, you could use those instead. They are somewhat thicker, and they look like a shortened version of the two Crisis-Suit burst cannons put together.

The railgun would be even shorter though, but you could make two for every burst cannon, and they would be stronger.

I'm not too sure about the scale comparision but could you possibly make the rods from cotton buds/q-tips? Or would they be too thick?

If I have time this weekend I'll play around with alternate methods.

I don't think the q-tips would work well because they are thick and they would be an odd texture... or at least the ones I'm use to are.

Sweet they would be perfect underslung on the arms

dang I really need to show my friend this

I like the look of the burst cannons more than the standard BC. The railgun conversion is awesome!

Amazing!! I think the spindly-ness fits the tau perfectly, the current ones are a bit bulky.

I made some rail rifles/small railguns using a similar method to this, but I left the cylindrical bits on the fusion guns.

The barrels were made by drilling (two holes) through the muzzle into the body BEFORE cutting the muzzle off. Then I got some brass rod (1mm), cut it to length and glued it into the body of the gun, before fitting the muzzle onto them carefully so that the ends of the rods (which had been filed flat) filled the holes left by the drill in the muzzle end.

Once painted, you couldn't tell the muzzles were anything but the original plastic.

Good tutorial though.

What I want to know is how does the ferromagnetic dart slide down the rails , this makes it look like a DEW weapon of some type, rather than a railgun. It would look rather realistic to make it out of plasticard and sculpt in the sides with miliput, to give it a smooth finish.
But it does look rather cool the way you do it way I admit.

cool, now i can make my wraithlord look like he's stepping on a railgun

They look really good, Plus they aren't metal so they'll be easier to glue on without coming off, ill probobly do that now!

Nice, im definitely going to try this.

zilegil wrote:What I want to know is how does the ferromagnetic dart slide down the rails , this makes it look like a DEW weapon of some type, rather than a railgun. It would look rather realistic to make it out of plasticard and sculpt in the sides with miliput, to give it a smooth finish.

This is the 41st millenium! screw practicality


In my free time (whenever that is) I will be trying alternatives that are stronger... and more like the original railguns - or at least practical.



If anybody wants to, feel free to include pictures of your take on it. (I'm looking at you Chromedog )

I might just check this out, I like the idea of the conversion but not the actual conversion itself too much, I think those burst cannon barrels have to be bulked up a bit...

maybe using a layer of green stuff to make them bigger or just cutting parts off of a plastic frame and filing them down

Neato! Maybe I can make broadsides with a couple suits I have. Great tut!

Nice weaponry will have try this for sure