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I was asked about my method for getting open hands for Guard models, in particular for using 3rd party weapons, so I thought I would do it properly

For my Guard I've pretty much exclusively used Hasslefree CAD guns and you get very few open hands in the Cadian box as the hands are moulded to the lasguns, so the following method is how I fixed up my guys:

Starting off with a random lasgun. There are a few different styles of lasgun arm, but I'm not sure if it makes much of a difference to the hand.



Slice off the gun just in front of and behind the hand.



Use a small drill bit to bore a hole through the remaining lasgun stock. You want to use a larger bit to widen the hole in the next stage, so just think for a moment where you want the bit to go in relation to what will end up being the palm of the hand (and drill carefully).



Then use the larger bit through the pilot hole.



Now carefully slice the sides of the lasgun foregrip using the drilled hole as a guide.





And you'll end up with a pretty rough open hand with small flecks of fore-grip still attached. Use a sharp knife to carefully trim the edges away until you get to the hand itself.

You might also want to trim or file the palm and fingers a bit to fit your chosen weapons.





and an example with a random P-90 I had kicking about.





The only downside is that you waste a lasgun for each of these hands, but if you're replacing the gun anyway it shouldn't really matter. Maybe keep the muzzles for other uses, such as sights or suchlike.

Hope this is useful and please share your results!

And some more examples when painted:

What are the third party pieces from?? I don't recognize the heads or the weapons.

very nice work, more importantly are those battle rifles from halo they look awesome in your army.

Great work Flinty. Very clever.

WeaponePrime - The heads are from Pig Iron and the guns are from Hasslefree.

Salamander - Those are CAD guns from Hasslefree. Now that i look at them though they do resemble the Halo battle rifles.

They do look awesome, would love to get myself some of those weapons, anyone know if they would fit marines?

Hi guys. Thanks for the feedback.

The Hasslefree weapons are quite a bit smaller than GW standard. They are especially quite a bit more slender as well, less chunky, so they might not fit with Marines particularly well. You could make them fit, I'm sure, they might just look a bit weedy by comparison to bolters. Having said that they are really rather cheap so you may as well check them out and pick up a couple of packs to test

Yesss! Just what I was looking for! I have 15 plasma guns from kromlech, but not enough guard arms to hold them properly... until now. Cheers!

How long does that take once you have the gist of it down? I'm figuring probably 3-5 minutes per trim-down?

Probably. Maybe a bit faster. The drilling needs a bit of attention to position properly, and the final trim needs some care so you don't lacerate yourself Oh and be prepared to drop the little blighters quite often... however it is a cost effective way to get a bunch of hands.

Another way might be to do 1 and then make a GS press mould. You don't need any detail on the palm side anyway. Damnit. Didn't think of that when I did my guard.

That's not a bad idea, and the wife already has everything to do low-rent resin casting at home ...
Thanks again!