Hi everybody! I'm starting this plog to show the stuff me and my friend are working on and to keep me motivated through those evenings when it feels like you've just been banging your head against a wall for a few hours.

So about 6 months ago after a couple of years out of the hobby after University got hard I bought a Valkyrie kit in a moment of splurgy-ness. The kit got shoved to the back of the spare room as me and my girlfriend were looking for a house to buy, but once that little nightmare was over I decided to dig it out. Back at Uni I got quite into the CAD side of things and, since we had a CNC machine just lying around (as you do) and Avatar had been out that summer I thought the Valk would look pretty hot with a set of rotors rather than wings. This led to getting reacquainted with Rhino (the 3D modelling package not the tank) and fast forward a couple of months me and my friend figure "hey let's go nuts and make some stuff". Once we've managed to nail the valk, we're gonna look at maybe some Rhino and Guard tank bits, maybe an armoured Sentinel conversion, who knows.

So the basic idea for the valkyrie is obviously the Scorpion gunship from Avatar, after all it was about the only thing watchable about that film ;P at first I was just going to do a set of rotors but it soon turned into a set of rotors, skids, wings and a rotating chin turret. We're both CAD nerds, so thought yeah why not 3D model and manufacture the whole thing ourselves at home and in my little garden workshop. We both have degrees in modelmaking and are massive geeks so at least it should keep us busy.

Whoops realised I posted the wrong pic of the rotors. That's what you get for ogling models way past your bedtime

The pic under the rotors shows the axle that would allow the valk full 3D movement in the air. The big axle pivots on one axis and then the fan pivots on the perpendicular (is that right?) axis. So the valk could strafe and fly forwards or backwards, or diagonally, etc. I plan to make it so the practical kit moves properly.

Really should go to bed now, up for work in 5 1/2 hours

The fingers on the hand looks to glossy are you going to fix that? It is bugging me so much right now, but all and all everything looks very nice.

I'm loving the idea so far! I shall be watching this very eagerly!
btw, what is your day job? you make realistic arms....? or props?

Your day job looks to me to be some sort of backyard limb butchery... most awesome!

Whoo there goes my forum cherry lol!

my day job is making silicone covers for prosthetic limbs the shinyness is due to the naphtha we use to smooth the silicone like you'd use water to smooth greenstuff. We cover them in baking powder and they come out of the oven with a matte finish. I quite fancy trying to sculpt a warhammer giant out of it at some point as it would have a squishy feel to it but thats a project for another day.

I will post lots of pics this weekend of the valk as these are from about a month ago but wanted to start from the start if you know what i mean.

Okay good I was getting a little worried about the glossiness.

Very interested to see where this is going...



So which is it, do you dismember bodies for the mafia, or do you manufacture male Real Dolls?

I love the idea and the initial test for the wings and skids look great. I can't wait to see the rest of this in action

Hi all, since I posted a few valkyrie bits I figured we should some of the 'other assorted bitz'.

So alongside the valkyrie we've been working on some bits that we can make with our nerdy CAD skills. After playing around with engraving on the CNC we thought how cool it would be to have an army mounted on bases with 3D scrolls on top to paint squad names on. This snowballed into a whole bunch of ideas, including engraving squad names directly into the bases, squad numbers on the bases, and even scrolls around the bevel of the base with all sorts of fancy stuff on it. We've been working on them for about a month now, once we realised that you could only really buy bases with rocks, paving slabs or sci-fi mesh on.

We've been using a combination of laser engraving and CNCing, the laser ones are quicker and easier, the CNCed ones have been a bit more of a headache but here's some of the progress we've made.

Very nice. I'm looking forward to more CAD stuff

Thanks I'm cutting some designs for space wolf bases right now so hopefully you'll like them

I wonder how much these cost to make. If you ever decide to sell them then you might see a lawsuit from GW, but GW doesn't make any custom bases. So I do not know how they would lose any sales unless they want a part of your action. :/

These are all our own designs so their wouldn't be any IP issues. A lot of GW stuff is generic anyway, particularly the templar stuff. When we first had the idea we did a couple of testers with GW images just to see how it would work, as we wanted a really sexy base for the valk, but they were strictly for our own use. I've always had the hots for inquisitorial stormies in Rhinos, and the image of a bunch of them jumping out a valkyrie was just too good ;P

Wow, your work is getting better and better! I love the bases! so unique!

Hey!

Thanks for all the kind comment guys!

We have a few more tricks up our sleeves, but we'll have to make / paint them before we can get them on the forums! I just managed to get a base on eBay UK - can I post links to there without getting in trouble with the mods?!!

If you have any requests for your own bases, I'm sure we can get something sorted

Ed - Warmill

Wow, those are great! The intricacy of the text is something you just don't see on any other 40K models/bases/whatever, beyond a few very skilled freehand painters.

Another place that you might apply this is custom-etched extra armor plates for vehicles (both text and pictorial).

If you need to make a bit of extra cash, consider tossing a few of these onto a sales site. I bet the text bases you go like hotcakes.

I like Savnock's idea, I would definitely be up to buy a few custom Rhino plates or similar!
As for bases, IF you decide to take requests I would be massively interested in one, just for my master of the forge (since my whole army is techmarine based) so anything heavily based on gears or machinery/the like

Poly

I would love some of those bases.
And thats some awesome work overall

Thanks again guys, the reaction is great!

I'll draft up some Rhino doors / extra armour plates - I think we would stuggle to distrobute them though, as the doors / armour would be so specific that GW's laywers would be right on our back!

As i mentioned, I managed to get one base on ebay, but i'm such a noob that it took me ages to sort it out! I'll add some more listings over the next couple of weeks, only thing is though, I am limited to 10 listings a month as a new ebay user! :(

more as it happens,

Ed - Warmill.

What's your ebay page?

If you have a Paypal, we could just send you monies, and you can do us the bases.

I have some ideas about custom bases, and would be willing to pay for them.

Ditto on Lorna's post, I wouldnt worry about copyright stuffs on my end cos the bases are for personal display models, not for competitions or gaming (:

Very active thread!

Our single ebay page!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270732071261&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

The ebay page is or our 'platnum' bases - these take time to make hence the cost!

Our regular 25 / 40 mm bases will retail around a fiver a set - 5 bases at 25mm and 3 bases for 40 mm but these are not yet final.

Will add more tonight I guess! PM us the ideas / drwaings you have and we can check the feasability of running them off for you!

I'll definately work on the 'generic sci fi apc door' [Rhino] doors / armour also

Ed - warmill




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Hi everybody!

Regarding doing custom basesfor people we've got a few ideas on how to reduce costs to make it economical to do unique bits like bases with a different name on each base if you wanted to have a really personalised squad without adding too much to the cost. Once we've had a chance to develop it a bit and rough out a few prototypes we'll post some pics.

Thanks for the interest everyone!
Harry - warmill

Wow fantastic bases!!!!

OMG, Brilliant

Hi all

So it's been another busy evening for us, we cut a couple more sexy laser bases and carried on with the CNCed ones from last night. The basic idea to reduce the cost is to CNC bases with pockets cut out to pop small lasered panels in, that way if someone wanted their personal space marine chapter's logo on one we would only have to laser a small piece and we could keep a stockpile of blanks ready for them. We're cutting a couple of rough prototypes for the CNCed bits now so once we've got some lasered bits done we'll post some pics.

Cheers

Harry - Warmill

Love ittttt!

Woah... These are disturbingly cool.

Disturbingly Cool is the name of my Simon and Garfunkel cover band.

the bases are awesome, and woooo custom bases.

Hi all

So since this thread has been getting a little derailed I thought I'd bring it back on topic and start a dedicated plog for the bases and stuff like rhino doors that would be related, and get this thread back on topic with a valkyrie update. The idea for the valk was to totally self-produce a proper kit on a sprue, modelled in CAD and moulded and cast totally in-house. When I say in-house I really mean in the flat me and my girlfriend were renting while we bought our house, since all our tools and stuff were in boxes and the only things I had out were my PC and the CNC, which was sat in the living room as it wouldn't fit anywhere else. Of course there's nothing about it that some of the awesome scratchbuilders on here and warseer, WIP etc couldn't have made with some styrene, but that wasn't an option and I didn't want to wait because I'm a bit of an impatient git sometimes.

So it seemed pretty straightforward, ignoring the fact I hadn't used Rhino in 4 years and the CNC had never been used as we were told our landlord was selling our rented house just as we got all the bits for it. How hard can it be to make a sprue, right? Really, face-achingly hard, apparently. Still, progress was made. The basic turret is finished, I thought adding some rivets but decided against it as I wanted some loose detail bits like aquilas and stuff that could be stuck on, the rotors got redesigned as they just looked too flimsy and small, though there's still a bit of work to do on them, and the skids and wings were tweaked but are now finished.

As far as cutting sprues goes, we've been focussing on the turret as a guy I work with wants to buy a few for a terrain diorama he's working on, and with a couple of tweaks it would look pretty sweet on a chimera. We've had a couple of goes at cutting a sprue, obviously having never done anything like this before it's been a slog but we've pretty much nailed it. Once that's perfected, probably rotors then wings. We're also doing a custom GK dread spear with a heavily engraved blade for the guy who wants the turrets, but that's only come up in the last couple of days so pics'll be a while.

So here's some pics of the valk

Harry - Warmill

So the turret I'm guessing will be built for underneath the Valkyrie...?

Yeah theres a cutout underneath the bottom turret ring that fits over the four pegs on the valk where the landing gear used to go. The turret will have full rotation and elevation, which is why it's been such a nut crusher to model.

So, you make prosthetics for a living, eh? One of our group used to do that. He had access to so many tools and exotic materials...I hate you. I really hate you. And I mean that in the most loving way possible.

Your stuff looks great. I'd gladly shell out cash for those bases.


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Seriously, if you want to make a few extras of those Inq. bases and sell them, P.M. me.

Wonderful work. You have quite an impressive set up.

This is great stuff, im eager to see what your wolves bases look like

Lol if you could see my tools.... I have dremel heads glued into empty biro tubes, lollypop sticks glued together with nylon stocking wrapped round them, and fishing wire. Not quite so exotic. It is fun though.

If you want some custom designs, PM us with an idea of what you're after and we may be able to sort you out.

Harry - Warmill

Hi all

So we're pretty busy on bases and other little nik naks, not to mention day jobs, and I wanted to show that this somewhat ambitious project isn't gonna turn into vapourware. We have got a s far as cutting a tester for a sprue, unfortunately having absolutely no experience in this area means I wasn't in the slightest bit surprised when the tester exploded while roughing out the second side. The first side had been finished off with a 0.5mm square endmill and was looking beautiful, unfortunately the sprue frame wasn't strong enough to hold up to roughing the other side, plus the chemiwood was a really soft variety. We've learnt though, and I'm confident that it only needs a couple of supports adding and it'll be a goer. The cannon wasn't on the sprue as we have a rotary axis that we plan on using to cut a range of different guns that fit into the turret. I have a couple of weeks holiday coming up that is gonna be mostly finishing off my house and garage, but I hope I can get the definitive sprue cut.

Harry - warmill

I was just about to ask what happend to the valk idea, NICE JOB!

This is simply amazing, awesome work all around

just wondering what program do you use to draw the parts in? Cause I'm taking a stab and saying solidworks?

this is a great thread.customisation options are brilliant.

@Da Big Mek

Cheers mate it's been a grind but I've learnt a lot and hopefully the rotors and wings should be a lot easier once we've nailed the technique with the turret.

I'm using Rhinoceros 4.0 for these bits, Ed mostly uses solidworks for his 3D modelling but we prefer Rhino for 2D stuff as it's nicely compatible with illustrator.

@shingouki

Thanks for the support! What's here is about 4 months worth of work condensed into a week so the updates will be slowing down while we get some other projects out the way but it's very much first in my heart and will definitely not be allowed to die even if I have to give up sleep for the next few months! We're also planning a battle tank version of the turret that can use the same guns as well as some bigger ones.

On the one hand, it's taken a lot of work to get this far, but on the other I hadn't done any 3D modelling for years at the start so I am getting quicker. The hammer for my mate's dread in our other thread only took a couple of hours to model, and involved a lot less screaming and throwing things at the cats, who have a tendency to lie on my arms when I'm trying to work. Consider this the thread for major projects and our other one the thread for quicker smaller projects, so it should get updated more frequently.

Cheers everyone
Harry - warmill

Any updates?

Hi all

@bigmek35

It's good to have someone keeping me motivated lol. I've been cutting out the thunder hammer for my mate's dreadnought, which is taking quite a while as I'm using a 0.5mm tool to get a really nice finish and fine detail, so I won't be having another go at the sprue for a couple of days, but I did get a little bit of time on the rotors, just making a new fan and putting a guard around it that attaches to the axle that supports it. It does clear the wing, just about!

I also modelled up a cutom base for my AOBR marines and any marines I get after them, I've set it up so that I only have to change one bit and I can use it for my guard as well. the WarMill writing and the scroll will be 3D off the base surface with the Tactical or whatever writing engraved on the scroll. For the guard I'll probably go for squad names on there. I'm on holiday for a couple of weeks after friday so I'll be cramming in as much modelling as I can in between finishing off my house, and Ed is back so we will be steaming ahead with some ongoing projects.

Here's some pics, I'll get some up of the hammer once it's finished.

Cheers guys!

Harry - warmill

Hi all

The rotors for the valk are finished, I didn't add much, just a few panel lines and a slightly beefier clamp for the main axle. I also split the support for the fan up so that it will be movable when the kit's assembled. Now I just have to cut it up into machinable pieces (this is the part that causes the real headaches) and arrange it on a sprue.

Had a bit of a mishap with the hammer when it popped off the bed of the CNC, double-sided tape is just never as strong as you want it to be. Luckily I had a jig set up so I could stick it back down and get it going again, but let's just say it's going to look a bit battle damaged ;P My mate is planning to model his dread fighting a daemon or CSM anyway, so maybe it'll look alright.

Cheers guys

Harry - warmill

Hello!

Been a while since i updated anything - to busy being on holdiday!

So we have had a couple of requesest by fellow dakkerites, and got some cool pics to show off our new 'generic APC top access hatch'



fresh off the laser


With a wash to shot the detail





The hatch was created for dakka user poly8D



I hope you all like it! Hopefully we'll get an image of it painted, and glued to poly8D's model, so we can upload that to!




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Repost from our other post!

Hey!

We had a request for some less than ordinary movement trays from a fellow Dakkerite - as he was fed up moving 60 boys in his first turn of movement!

So the brief was to replicate something that looks like a 5 on the face of a D6 - whilst keeping all units within coherency! As an Ork player, we felt something Orkish would be most appropriate!

The image below is more a taster of whats to come really, until we get some more cut, designs finalised, and some sexy pictures taken!



What you can see in this pic - a base big enough for 5 guys on 25mm bases! wither troops or perhaps a command squad!

Eldar, Ork and Marines - the bottom plate has a small recess which is apace enough for a small washer - so magnets on the underside of our bases can be inserted and keep the models in place!

Please give us your thoughts and suggestions - as they are still in their prototype stages!!

Ed - WarMill

sweet mother of lord that hatch is amazing! Thanks a lot guys! I can't wait for it to come now!

great updates,the apc hatch looks naughty.

Hey!

Glad you like it!

Naughty is good, right

Subbed! Hoping to see more of those sexy clear bases.

Horribly intricate stuff, and I seem to know where the idea of those fenestrons came from. Joking aside, remarkable work, both as far as CAD (Solidworks, correct?) and the real world results are concerned.

Rhinoceros 4.0 and Illustrator actually Whats a fenestron?

Oh, I wouldn't mind learning a bit more about your workflow, I've been dabbling in Illustrator a bit. As for the fenestron, well, it's actually a shrouded tail rotor, used primarily on helicopters made by Eurocopter. The entire rotor assembly of yours reminded me, apart from "Avatar", of United States Coast Guard Dolphins, and the sadly discontinued Comanche.

Ah consider me educated

The nice thing about Rhino is you can drop illustrator files straight in without any converting, as the bezier curves in Illustrator are basically the same as the NURBS curves that Rhino uses. We created a bundle of icons and shapes in Illustrator and then we can use those as the basis for our 3D models for the CNC, so you could do a technical drawing in Illustrator and drop it straight into Rhino to be turned into surfaces and solids.

Hope that helps

WarMill wrote:Ah consider me educated

The nice thing about Rhino is you can drop illustrator files straight in without any converting, as the bezier curves in Illustrator are basically the same as the NURBS curves that Rhino uses. We created a bundle of icons and shapes in Illustrator and then we can use those as the basis for our 3D models for the CNC, so you could do a technical drawing in Illustrator and drop it straight into Rhino to be turned into surfaces and solids.

Hope that helps

That's a great explanation. I'll have to try it out for myself. Thanks!

Hi All!

Everyone who's been following us will (hopefully) have noticed that this thread's been a bit quiet for a while, what with us going full steam ahead on our bases and brainstorming lots of things we could develop, like our "generic APC" doors and display bases, as well as a couple of commissions. Well, I managed to squeeze in a day on our Valk kit, and I've managed to make a decent bit of progress.

Having had a bit more practice on the CNC and a good old chat with Ed, I've decided not to do the sprue for the time being and concentrate on getting a kit made first. I've worked on the rotors, tweaking the design a bit, and broken up the model into kit form. I've made it so that I can split the model in half then pour silicon into the recess to make a mould. At least then we can get a few kits cast up for our own models and anyone who wants one, then later I'll go back and try the sprue when I've got a bit more experience.

I've also had a bit of a rethink about the turret, and decided to remodel a bit of it to make it look a bit more Imperial-y, give it a bit more detail and what-not. Most of it'll be the same, as I can't bring myself to redo all that work splitting it up

We're also cutting some bases for our AoBR orks, I'll post pics in the other thread tomorrow when they're finished.

So without further ado, here's the assembly instructions for the rotors! Hopefully I can get the master cut over the next week or two and we can get one cast up!
Comments and suggestions always welcome!

Cheers all!
Harry - Warmill

Why did I not notice you had 2 threads?

Love the "APC" hatch (having seen it I may have to look into seeing if you could do a drop pod "extra armour" kit *whistle/designs*) and your IG conversion work is looking rather fun

Wow, awesome work! I've done some fooling around with Solid Edge and other 3d programs, but this is beyond awesome.

Any chance of C&Cing some extras and putting them up on Ebay or the Swap Shop? I'm sure lots of people would love their own custom Valkyries.

WOW! These are amazing! I've got your ebay on my favorites right now. I'll be watching these plogs for your progress.

Thanks for the kind comments guys! The valk is still being worked on, it's just a considerably bigger project than the bases so updates are a bit slower. I've got the wings ready for test cutting and I'm working on improving the turret at the mo. I may just have to start cutting the rotors today :-)

The valkyrie kit will be on ebay and our website, I've modelled it so that I can cut the model in half and CNC a 2 part mould to churn them out :-)

Hey all!

Well this weekend has been insane, I spent most of Saturday answering PMs and Emails, and between us we worked on 6 commissions! Ed's been beavering away like a daemon on his Necron inspired bases, going from picking up a pen on Friday night to the awesome designs on our other thread, as well as frantically working on our website.

Over the weekend we had a few inquiries about whether we would be making the Valkyrie kit available to buy, and yes, we defiinitely will! I've been modelling it specifically to be machined and cast up, so they'll be on our website and ebay as soon as they're ready, which will be a while yet as it's a pretty big project. The Valkyrie's been taking a bit of a back seat while we work on getting our bases launched and developing our ranges, but with the renewed interest we thought it worth spending a bit of time on it, so today I started machining the first master for the rotors. This is the first of four masters, 2 each for the left and the right rotor. Today we finished the roughing pass on one of them, next up is the finishing pass with the 0.5mm tool to get the really nice finish and all the detail, then only 3 more to go!

I've also done a bit of work on the turret, remodelling the main section to give a more rugged look and a bit more detail. I've been re-learning Rhino doing this project, as I hadn't used it in 3 years before starting it, so I've been reworking parts as I've improved. I also need to model some more guns to go in the turret.

Here's some pics, thanks for the support. We've being posting some new work on our other thread http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/358792.page , including a commission from SilverMK2 that is going to look incredible!

Cheers all
Harry - Warmill

Is that chin turret for Valkyries? If so that's awesome! I've been planning on doing a Vietnam-esque gunship for a while now. It might have to wait until I get my hands on your kits!

It is, and will be fully rotatable with a movable gun

Hi all!

Well after 2 day of cutting the first master for the Valkyrie right wing is almost done! The finishing pass has been going for 2 days with a 0.5mm bit, cutting paths 0.01mm apart! By the time it's finsihed the tool will have travelled 39064 inches, or to put it in perspective, 8 metres short of a kilometre! Numbers like this are why the kit is a big project, as this is for just 1 of 4 masters to be cut, followed by the turret and wings. Then there's moulding and casting... and I thought this would be a nice little project to knock out in my spare time

Ed's been putting in extra hours at work but still found time to knock out some awesome Necron-inspired stuff on the other thread, with some awesome coloured acrylic bits. We're planning a painting session on Friday so we should have some nice glamour pics to post shortly after.

Cheers all

Harry - Warmill

Very nice indeed - also like the mention of my magic bases

Regarding which I am just sending you an email about

The valk kit is looking pretty cool - had no idea it took that long to tool the masters

Valkyrie conversion looks very nice. Looks sort of like avatar gunships but not. Like the turret. How will you handle the wing mounted missles/rocket pods and will there be a Vendetta option with the 3twin linked las cannons?

^ What he said! +1

Hey guys!

Thanks for the kind comments! It's motivated us to get this kit ready for production, so hopefully we'll be able to post a finished model in a month or 2!

@Avariel

The wings on the skids have weapon hangers on them to use the standard rockets that come with the Valkyrie kit. Maybe we'll produce our own rocket pod in the future once the turret and a couple of weapon options have been made. I think it would be a shame to go to all this work and not make a vendetta kit

We will be trading kits for money ;P

Cheers all
Harry - warmill

Wow, nice job on the valk engins,I knew that you did bases but vical parts as well this has deffently made my friday.Lol!

Glad you like them this has been a bit of a pet project for months and it's so good seeing it come together! We still need to mill the other wing after this one but hopefully we'll have some resin to show before too long

Harry

Hi all

The second master for the wing finished cutting on Saturday, so we only have 2 more to cut before we can start casting some up Hopefully we can get this done in the next week or so to get them up for sale within the next month. Now I just have to finish modelling the turret and tweak the skids ready for splitting up. This kit will be entirely self-produced by me and Ed from data to machining to production, and I have to say it's been a mission to get this far but it's worth it! Once this is out the way we can start on our next project, which will be slightly smaller I think

Cheers all
Harry

Joshh wrote:

What he said warmill.

I NEEd this for my gaurd

I need valk engins for my thunderhawk WIP engins plese.

Hey all

Well the Valkyrie has been on the backburner while we got our website and base ranges up for sale, as well as doing a few commissions, but at long last I've found both time and a big enough chunk of chemiwood to start machining the other rotor master, so fingers crossed we might actually have something to start moulding in a week or two! (Probably two )

I also did a bit more work on the turret, I just need to model a new cannon for it and refine the skids and wings ready to be cut. Exciting!

Cheers all, here's to a week of the CNC going "NRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR whirrrrrr NRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR..."

harry

Pretty sweet looking turret.

That turret looks awesome, I would use it for my tanks as well.

I've tried to design it so that with one different piece it would be a good light tank / AFV turret. It'll probably be a bit small for a battle tank but there will be a bigger meaner version for the big guns

I was just thinking it would make a great light turret for a razorback or a sentry/emplacement turret

Any idea what they would retail at? Or do you need to wait until it is done so you know how much material/etc they require before you can price them up?

Nice!

I'm super excited for when the Valkyrie conversions are up for sale! Looks really good guys!

WarMill wrote:I've tried to design it so that with one different piece it would be a good light tank / AFV turret. It'll probably be a bit small for a battle tank but there will be a bigger meaner version for the big guns

Well, now you have me looking forward to yet another no-doubt awesome kit.

Hi all

The CNC is buzzing away happily now we've got a few chunks of chemiwood big enough, so the next 2 masters should be done in a week or so. Been working on new and improved heavy skids as well, the previous ones were just too weedy!

Cheers all

Harry

Hi all

Well the stoopid double - sided tape didn't hold the block of chemiwood in the CNC properly so a day of machining and a pice of chemiwood was wasted when it popped off the bed. I've restarted it now, hopefully it'll hold

I've finished modelling the new skids, now it's just a matter of breaking up the model into kit form and set it up for cutting. This satge is both fun and incredibly annoying, so I think it can wait for a day or two

Harry

Interesting, I'd definitely buy a conversion kit for a valkyrie and I might be wrong, but I'd bet there a plenty other people who would do the same.

Hey all

After a few false starts another master is done! Only one more master to do then we can start moulding and casting rotors. Once we have the landing gear and wings finished we can get them on the website, with the turret to follow once I've modelled up some guns. It'll be nice to see something come of this project, it's been going on and off for almost a year now in dribs and drabs!

With CNCing the masters, it takes longer to model as you have to really consider how you model them and break them up into kit form over 3D printing where you can be much more careless with undercuts etc, and it takes quite a while to machine bigger parts (especially if you're a noob like me ) but you get a much nicer finish straight off the machine than 3D printing, which saves a LOT of post-machine clean up time preparing for moulding, as well as being cheaper (if you have a CNC sat in your dining room). While there is a bit of stepping in places, which can be avoided if you have a small enough ball-nose end mill, the material takes seconds to sand smooth.

Harry

Hey all

Just a quick update to say I'm going to start machining the last master for the valkyrie rotors tomorrow morning so fingers crossed by the end of the weekend they'll all be ready for a quick spot of tidying up and moulding. It's taken almost a year of spare time but soon ther'll be something to show for all the headaches.

I've finished breaking the skids up for kit form and machining purposes, and have taken a bunch of renders for assembly instructions which I'll be posting tomorrow. Once the skids are machined we'll be able to start casting up and getting the kit on the website

Harry

yay! Any estimate on when the kits will be up for sale? I know I'll be getting one for sure!

this is sooo cool!

I don't know what to say!

Just keep it up and may the force be with u! ^^,

Joshh wrote:yay! Any estimate on when the kits will be up for sale? I know I'll be getting one for sure!

Cheers mate! Well hopefully (fingers very crossed) there won't be any problems with the casting and we'll have them up on the website before August. I've left the connecting parts of the sprue off the masters so we can lay them down in something like sculpey that we could just peel off and rearrange if the sprue doesn't cast well.

Here's the assembly instructions for the landing gear and wings. This should be pretty straightforward to machine.

very skillful

Man, this is some really amazing stuff here man. I'm sure you're being flooded with requests now. I'm sure you could make some money with this.

I think it's good work man. You should make some Space Marine stuff after this, I think it would work well

Lol we've had a bit of interest but tbh it started as a personal challenge last year and it's only recently we started warmill so I'd be doing it no matter what.

As for SM stuff I want to do jump packs and maybe alternate weapons before we start another big project. An armoured sentinel kit could be cool, or maybe an alternative bike / attack bike

New jump packs would make my life. Armoured Sentinels would be awesome to see what you guys come up with. Have you ever thought about doing an old Zippo-style Hellhound? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M48_Patton#U.S._variants , scroll down to the M67 Zippo.)

aroured sentiniel FTW!!!!!!!!

prototype_X wrote:aroured sentiniel FTW!!!!!!!!

QFT

I love what you guys are doing. It's people like you that make me glad for my procrastination, as I have been trying to start an Army for the past year telling myself I will, only to find an awesome new mini or conversion kit to make me wait to start.

From your avatar it would seem you're a fan of Elysians. You'll be needing lots of valkyries then

Just to announce the final master for the Valkyrie rotors has finished cutting today! We have a few other projects on the go at the moment but we will try and get them tidied up ready for moulding as soon as possible! Once the bases for the Pre-Heresy Conclave are finished I'll get the landing gear masters started.

Ooh exciting!

WarMill wrote:From your avatar it would seem you're a fan of Elysians. You'll be needing lots of valkyries then

Just to announce the final master for the Valkyrie rotors has finished cutting today! We have a few other projects on the go at the moment but we will try and get them tidied up ready for moulding as soon as possible! Once the bases for the Pre-Heresy Conclave are finished I'll get the landing gear masters started.

Ooh exciting!

You are correct good sir.

As soon as they are up for sale, I will definitely be buying at least 6 of your kits, and your jewel bases look interesting as well.

Would the rotor kit you have for the valk fit a vulture without too much work?

The rotors should fit no probs because the tail and wings look the same. The landing gear wouldn't fit without conversion.

May actually get to finish the valk kit soon

Excellent. Thanks for the quick response.

Excellent work. Looking forward to the finished piece.

As am I

Hey Warmill, did this Valkyrie conversion kit ever fly (pardon the pun)? I'd really like one of these guys.

Well the masters for the rotors have been machined as above, but we got started on the battlesnap terrain around that time and it's been our main focus since then. I was in the process of getting the model of the wings and landing gear ready for machining at the last count, but unfortunately I ballsed up upgrading the CNC software and now I need to get it fixed :(

The valkyrie hasn't been forgotten, it's just been put to one side while we got some products made. We've got a big to do list from now until Christmas so it won't be on the website for a while but we may find some time to cast up the rotors and start getting them ready for sale.

As always, too much to do, no time to do it!

WarMill wrote:Well the masters for the rotors have been machined as above, but we got started on the battlesnap terrain around that time and it's been our main focus since then. I was in the process of getting the model of the wings and landing gear ready for machining at the last count, but unfortunately I ballsed up upgrading the CNC software and now I need to get it fixed :(

The valkyrie hasn't been forgotten, it's just been put to one side while we got some products made. We've got a big to do list from now until Christmas so it won't be on the website for a while but we may find some time to cast up the rotors and start getting them ready for sale.

As always, too much to do, no time to do it!

Thanks very much dawg. Any chance of an advance order for yours truly? I've been planning this conversion since about June.

Now this is art!

Remember this project anyone?

While we've been churning out the pre-orders for the Portable Utility Pods, we found a bit of a time to knock up a quick mould and test cast for the valkyrie rotors, just to get an idea of size and fit. These are still a considerable way off production, as we need to get a good set cast up to clean up ready for remoulding, but still it's progress! This was about testing whether to cut resin channels in the master moulds made from the CNCed parts, or to cast up the 2 halves of the mould separately, glue the parts together and clean them up, then make a whole new 2-part mould from those parts.

No seriously, that is 20 different kinds of awesome. I'd pre-order the gak out of that.

Joshh wrote:

No seriously, that is 20 different kinds of awesome. I'd pre-order the gak out of that.

Second that! Th Id do the 2-part mold sunds intresting!

HAZZER wrote:

Joshh wrote:

No seriously, that is 20 different kinds of awesome. I'd pre-order the gak out of that.

Second that!

What they said! God iv'e missed this project! don't let me down now. Keep on building it so that I can buy it god damn it!

i like it.. but i think with rotors that big, your going to need to redo the tail as well

DiDDe wrote:

HAZZER wrote:

Joshh wrote:

No seriously, that is 20 different kinds of awesome. I'd pre-order the gak out of that.

Second that!

What they said! God iv'e missed this project! don't let me down now. Keep on building it so that I can buy it god damn it!

You've got that right!

HAZZER wrote:

DiDDe wrote:

HAZZER wrote:

Joshh wrote:

No seriously, that is 20 different kinds of awesome. I'd pre-order the gak out of that.

Second that!

What they said! God iv'e missed this project! don't let me down now. Keep on building it so that I can buy it god damn it!

You've got that right!

Damn, just as I thought I'd cured shiny syndrome.

Damn you fiscal irresponisbility fairy! Damn you to hell.

Brunius wrote:

HAZZER wrote:

DiDDe wrote:

HAZZER wrote:

Joshh wrote:

No seriously, that is 20 different kinds of awesome. I'd pre-order the gak out of that.

Second that!

What they said! God iv'e missed this project! don't let me down now. Keep on building it so that I can buy it god damn it!

You've got that right!

Damn, just as I thought I'd cured shiny syndrome.

But then theres paper syndrome!

Any updates on the release of the Valk kit then ?

What happened to this?