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 Davylove21 wrote:
You have to be in the top percentile of hobbyists in terms of getting value for money. Massive kudos.

I myself struggled with the Armoured Proteus Land Raider. Doors didn't fit, tracks were a nightmare and the hull took forever to reshape.

Huge respect to you on getting that build together - FW should make it clear just how much it takes to actually build the bigger kits beyond "advanced users"!

Yeah Davy, I agree on the model difficulty ratings. I know many of the plastic kits on the market (planes, tanks, and automobiles) have a 1, 2, 3 rating system. However this doesn't even come close to what a kit like this entails. To be honest, many of the GW kits are a skill level 1 or 2 in that they are quite easy to assemble, and fit remarkably well even when a complex shape. Then you add some small resin parts and/or photo-etch and it becomes a skill level 3 which again many folks are capable of building without too much trouble if they have some experience.

Then we get into vac-u-form, full resin, and scratch building. Unfortunately those 3 particular skills can become quite intermixed. For example in Vac kits the parts are molded on a sheet of plastic. Detail wise they can be anywhere from poor ( like throw the sheet plastic out and start over) to really nice in that there is quite a lot of nice detail on the surface and it just needs to be cut out and glued. Any more these kits also include resin parts and photo-etch. A prerequisite skill is the ability to scratch build in order to make parts, fit parts, and know how to attach odd things and do so in a clean way.

Resin kits are more like the molded plastic kits and it really depends on the kit quality in order to determine what skill level it can be. Some are crisp and clean but again need the ability to scratch build though you will rarely need to make complex parts.

Scratch building can be anything from making a small shape, bracket or item to creating a whole new major part or assembly.

After reviewing these I would recommend the following ratings:

1, 2, and 3 are already stated and in use. Most GW plastic molded, Fine Cast and "simple" Forge World kits fit in these levels. Also individual figures can have fit problems, but a small part misfit is quite different from large multi-part misfits.

4. Skill level will require making parts from base plastics and other materials. Including major parts and assemblies that have major fit problems.

5. Skill level requires all previous skills and adds an ability to work with, reshape (de-warp) and form resin parts. It can also include making new master parts, molds, and resin casting.

6. Skill level requires all previous skills plus ability to work from accurate drawings to make parts, assemblies, and make accurate parts from base materials as well as work with fine delicate sheet plastic forms.

7. Skill level requiring advanced skills beyond just in building model kits. Ability to look past instructions and find problems from just a parts inspection. Metalworking, machining, microscopic manipulation and high level skills that take a model beyond just assembly and an ability to diagnose and solve problems in constructive ways. (basically a catch all for the "no one can build it kit" that is over and above trouble)

As I have stated throughout the building process this model is not for those new to model building. At the least the builder should be comfortable with levels 3 and 4 type builds and such that they can make parts and deal with serious fit problems.

At the least the Storm Eagle kit is a level 5 kit just due to the fit problems and warpage. It requires the ability to work with sheet plastic and ways to touch things up and make parts or corrections due to manufacturing issues. Most higher level resin kits are going to rate a minimum of a 4 and in this case I would rate the Storm Eagle closer to a 6. The 2 tank kits I picked up this weekend I would rate as a 3.5 for the Thunderer and a solid 4 to 4.5 for the Armageddon Pattern Basilisk. The Thunderbolt aircraft kit I have, would also rate at a 3.5 to a 4 quite nicely. Sometimes the ratings are not so much the difficulty of the kit as much as dealing with misshaped parts and warpage. If a part is quite solid so that it does not tend to warp and the casting is good and true it can really make the kit so much easier to build.

Hi!!!!

I have nearly finished the assembly of my Storm Eagle! Not as profesional or exhaustive as yours, but I have followed your guide and have proved of very valuable help, so I owe you a great thank you!

I have a question regarding green stuff and filling the gaps. I'll use GW new liquid stuff, but I have an old pot and is a little cured and less fluid. Could I thin it with toluene or xylenol?

As soon as I finish it I'll post some shots.

Good luck with your moving!

 Itto_Okami wrote:
Hi!!!!

I have nearly finished the assembly of my Storm Eagle! Not as profesional or exhaustive as yours, but I have followed your guide and have proved of very valuable help, so I owe you a great thank you!

I have a question regarding green stuff and filling the gaps. I'll use GW new liquid stuff, but I have an old pot and is a little cured and less fluid. Could I thin it with toluene or xylenol?

As soon as I finish it I'll post some shots.

Good luck with your moving!

Thank You Itto! Glad my build guide was a help. That is why I made it and carried it to the detail level I did. If it is super detailed you can take it to the level you want.

As to the GW liquid Green Stuff versus the Squadron Green Putty; The GW Liquid Green Stuff is a water based filler type and adding the solvents will mess it up. They don't mix. Add a little water or an acrylic based thinner.

I found that the GW green stuff was a little bit on the brittle side and didn't bond all that well to flat surfaces. It would tend to chip and flake off. I had a lot of trouble using it on Fine Cast resin mini's and when I went to my Squadron Green Putty with Xylene (toluene works too) it actually bonds to the surfaces of the resin and works well.

I see that you are located in Spain? If so, the Squadron putty might not be readily available. In that case check for a fine putty in a tube that is solvent based. Toluene would be most likely the solvent in the tube type but read the label for contents, and experiment with it a little to see how well it spreads and how easy it is to work with and sand down. You might find something that works even better!

With that I look forward to seeing photos of your Storm Eagle. There were several in the US Games Day this weekend. After building mine it was quite easy to see where folks had just glued them together for use as a game piece and not worried too much about some of the fit problems. Generally they were fairly decent looking models, and the majority of the flaws would never have been noticed by most of those in attendance.

Wow, completely and utterly epic write-up. Amazing work, man, seriously.

HI,

A picture from the french White Dwarf #74 / june 2000.

Not so much about the Emperor Eagles ...

I really search threw this issue and not find anything less regarding them.

Sorry

Incredible tutorial, although it has made me think twice about forge world products. At least till I get some more experience with regular plastic kits.

Arkham wrote:
HI,

A picture from the french White Dwarf #74 / june 2000.

Not so much about the Emperor Eagles ...

I really search threw this issue and not find anything less regarding them.

Sorry

Please! You do not need to apologize!

I knew this was a very brief listing for this chapter. I did not expect a photograph to go with the caption. My gracious and heartfelt thanks to you for the time you took to look this up, photograph it, and post it for me. There is way more here than I expected Arkham.

What I was expecting was a small paragraph with some text and just the name, so this is wonderful!

Here is what the reference looks like at 1000 Space Marine Chapters:



All I was hoping for was a confirmation of the name.

Hey all! Just hought I would drop a note to let everyone know what has been going on. It amounts to basically, "Geez I didn't realize I had SO MUCH STUFF!!!!!"
Tore down my main desktop today and both of the hobby rooms are down to large furniture only. This is being done off of my tablet, which works well for this. Have been thinking on the color "pattern" for the Storm Eagle, and I believe I have a concept for it in mind now. I just have to get my work space all put back together so I can do it.

On another note, I received the Mecharius Omega mode from Forge World. It was warped almost as bad as the Storm Eagle was, and this was with the large heavy parts. I believe I have an idea as to why so many of the FW resin kits end up so warped. First off, the large gates are left on. In the Mecharius Omega both track sides were warped from straight because setting flat on the table, the gate caused them to bend up from flat. The second problem is how the model is packaged for shipping. Everything is tossed in a plastic bag then tossed in a box with some bubble wrap. No care as to how the parts are setting against each other or the box. My hull bottom is quite warped from what it should be due to this. (and yes the large gate sticking out of one end didn't help)

On a positive note, for some reason there were 2 sets of the small parts in the box. This was good as one set was quite infected with "the warp". The other set was as it should have been. The worst piece was the rounded cage that fits over the rear of the main gun. That is pretty much a lost cause. Once I get settled and unpacked, I will contact FW about that.

Well it is getting late, and tomorrow is going to be a busy day. TTFN

Hey every one! I have not abandoned he thread, I have just been quite busy with unpacking and setting back up all the hobby stuff. In addition ATT did not have any DSL available at the new house. (DSL is in the area, just no ports left to hook up to) You would have thought that they would have told me that when I called in with the order. They said they sent me a notice in the mail (of course it still has not arrived).

Next option was to get cable, as I don't watch cable TV, it is a bit more of a bother. After setting up an install, that didn't go through either as the hook up is on a phone pole in the neighbor's yard next door. Long story short, internet is still in the future. UGH!

Good news is that my desktop should be up and running in the next couple of days and first job to do is to do a new update to post as soon as I have internet. It should be a decent update as it covers a number of custom mods and add ins.

I am still able to check my e-mail here at work on my mini tablet, so if you have questions I can still get them. It might be a little while before I can reply but I will reply.

Geez moving is a pain!

Be back soon!

Really nice work. The small details you did (hydraulics, wiring under the wings' grill, stormraven lights) are awesome. Huge respect for the amount of time you put in.

The stormeagle was my first FW purchase, and you can add me to the long list of people with initial problems building it. Finally got the hull straight after 2 days of hot water/blowdryer and rubberbands. I wont say it looks great as yours, but i am quite proud of my end result.

HE,

Thank you for taking the time to make such a great thread, you are a grand master modeler! Really enjoyed the read, and the pictures!

Will you come over and help me build my titan? I will get to GD Memphis next year, I'm over East of you in North West Arkansas. I look forward to more posts!!


Wow, I re-read that post I made at oh-dark-thirty and I think I was trying to say that I hope I run into you at Games Dat Memphis next year... If you paint the way you build I'd suggest entering in the contests if you haven't already.

I just thought I'd add that I bought a fire raptor at GD13 and there was little if no problems building it. I wonder if they fixed the "bending" issue or I was just lucky.
Thanks for a great thread.

My word what a fantastic build mate!

A heads up to some, sometimes FW does produce terrible models and its worth an email or call to them. I had a necron shroud bomber that did not fit together at all and they sent be a whole new one, that was test fitted before the shipped it, still trying to salvage the first one but second was spot on! little fixing.

Also the drilling out of the engines is smart never thought about removing resin to lighten the model. I feel enlighted in the modeling aspect with all of this thank you.

Thanks for posting your photos of the Fire Raptor Mike! At Games Day here in Memphis back in July Stewart just had a couple of photos of a prototype. As I had my tablet with me and thus had a link to this tread he and I endedup visiting for a while about the 2 models. There are some parts thatare shared by the 2 kits (namely the engines, rudder fins, and the plastic Strm Raven parts) most likely you could end up with the same problems with the wing mounting and rudder fin angles.

Stormoffires this is only the first FW kit I have assembled. I do have others all of which have some problems. The last one I bought was the Mecharius Omega tank. It ws shipped over here in the August heat so I am not too sure how much of the warpage was from factory handling, and how much was due to heat during transit. All I know is that the 2 track "sides" still had the large gates attached and that the bend of the warpage looked to be from the gates not letting the 2 parts lay flat when shipped. There are 2 ways that this problem could be avoided; first FW could use a band sawto just lob off the large gate leaving a stub, or pack them better for shipping. I think it should be a bit of both as the gates add extra weight, are not really needed, and as in this instance can cause damage. Packing as I have seen in other resin kits I have purchased (WW2 model aircraft in large scales) is also not really up to par.

One last thing I will address in this post is that one fella on this forum PM'ed me a while back. Due to the difficulty in getting around the forums and internet stuff, I havenot really been able to reply as I should have, and I do apologize for that. He asked if I would consider building up a Storm Eagle for him as he isn't readily able to do so himself. While there is a part of me that would like to help him out, I learned a long time ago that if I do work for other folks I loose my hobby as it becomes a job and a chore. So I don't do consignment as a general rule. Sometimes it is had enough to just do the projects that are mine. Afterall this Storm Eagle project has been going on sice the first of the year.

Still don't have internet at the new house (UGH!) maybe sometime here soon.

I just recieved my Eagle in the mail yesterday. After unboxing it and inspecting everything it looks in pretty tip-top shape to me. No major bends like in your tutorial. Your tutorial is amazing and I will be using it to build mine up. I'll post a pic once I have it at least built.

-Lucazi-

Seriously talented, Superb model..... Well your finished article is. The techniques you employed are amazing. However I cannot beleive we pay that kind of money for such poor quality kits. I built the first casting of the Thunderhawk and it was a nightmare. I have built several other Forgeworld kits and they have all had problems - damaged parts, parts that just dont fit, miscasts. I could go on. Thank you for sharing this, It is an outstanding post.

Lucazi wrote:
I just recieved my Eagle in the mail yesterday. After unboxing it and inspecting everything it looks in pretty tip-top shape to me. No major bends like in your tutorial.

We know at least some GWS staff read Dakka; I have to wonder is this thread resulted in a mold reworking.

I got a Fire Raptor recently which is very very similar, and had none of the issues seen in this tutorial (although I have issues with virtually every single FW order previous to this to some degree).

This thread is superb, and i didi learn a few things and the existence of helpfull tools.

But i can't stop thinking that for going through all this hardship only to make a decent "out of the box" model like it should be when you buy it, i had a great idea when i decided to kitbash myself a Stormeagle from a Stormraven and a Valkiry.

Really the amount of things you have to straigthen and correct its just ridiculous for a kit that cost 150$...

But you did an outstanding job doing it!

Thanks for this thread, so much for me to learn and catch up on, this model is going to be a PITA.

While I would say my skil level is low, my demands on pefection are only slightly short on yours so I have my work cut out for me.

 Requiem wrote:
Suddenly filled with respect for people who can actually assemble this! Nice tutorial, lots of useful stuff in here

Truly an excellent write up and worthy of note.
Inspirational attention to detail !

Great thread. Thank you for taking the effort to share and teach the knowledge.