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Ahoy hoy folks, just wanted to stop on by and pick everyone's brain as whether I am once again blessed with with the joy and wonder that is GW's metal casting. (Bloody hurricane bolters!!!)

My wonder of wonders this night is the new Thunderfire Cannon that came with my spearhead. Now I'm once again faced with several maddening annoyances and I wanted to double check if anyone had the same experience, because...well seriously, I don't think sanding and dremeling one piece down for almost 2 hours just to get it to fit means this model was cast correctly or it was intended as such.

I guess we should start with the first thing that threw me off....



The left piece is the base that connects to the treads of the gun and the right is the gun mount itself. For the life of me, I cannot get this bastards to fit flush together. Judging by the pattern at which it's fitting, I'd wager I'd have to shave nearly 1/16 of an inch around the entirety of the gun base in order for it to fit the engine mount. I've been basically doing this on and off for the past two hours while I assembled the rest of the gun...


Next we have quite possibly the worst offender of the whole damn thing....after nearly spending 2 hours dremeling the base, I found myself sanding this bastard down for nearly an hour as well to try and make it fit.



What I am referring to is the metal piece which is supposed to represent the casing cluster of the 4 shells loaded into the gun. the gun itself is split into two halves and I'm guessing ostensibly the halves should fit snugly whilst encircling this cluster of shells in the back....

Mmmmm not so much...

in order to get the cluster to fit, I had to dremel the bastards down along with the mounts for them in the gun mount itself. Another hour and a half down the tubes....

Finally, but least annoyingly, when I assembling the good old techmarine...he proved to be fairly straightforward to assemble except regarding his right arm that's holding the auspex type thingy.



For whatever reason, I was faced with the proverbial "round-peg-into-square-hole" scenario. His mounting peg on his body was nice and sqaure, but his socket on his armpiece was...roundish...sort of, I'm guessing it was another case of a mold mishap, but for peats sake did it make actually gluing the darn thing an annoyance....


So I finish with a question to anyone who's actually fiddled with this chap...have any of you had the same issues as I have or am I just an unlucky spanker who just got a particularly bad casting? I'd like to hear your thoughts and advice on this matter!

Oof! Sounds like a real mission. Maybe that's the price you pay for getting models early these days? It's all part of the plan...

lets hope you juist got a realy bad case of bad casting cose I ordert 2 of dem

Is all the effort worth it for the rules?

Sounds like the usual metal quality. As of late it seems like the attention has been going to the plastics, while metals get steadily worse.

my little brother bought one but i had to put it together. i had the exact same problem except i got lazy and told him fix it

they make a plastic crusader and now we have to put this thing together ....

what a vulgar article. brought a smile to my to see that it had not yet encountered theattentions of any of ... Our Benefactors...

keep trying though, i'd like to see it done ^^

That sucks, man. I was already leaning toward not getting it (and converting it into something nice and orky), but if this is what I can expect, there is now way. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of players have the same problem.

Tacobake wrote:they make a plastic crusader and now we have to put this thing together ....

Aye that was literally the first thing that sprung to mind when I encountered difficulties with this monstrosity..(along with a healthy dose of cursing)

Me: Gorram this frakken thing just won't fit!

TFC: Hahah! That's what she said!

Hurricane Bolters in pieces inside my LRC inside my Carrybag: HAHAH! YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE FREE OF ME FOREVER LONESTAR! BUT YOU WERE WRONG! I'VE BEEN BUSY! I'VE BEEN MAKING BABIES!!! BAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH *CRUNCH-THUNK* AH GORRAM IT, I BROKE APART!!....AGAIN!!

TFC: You make me proud daddy!

Me: Quiet you!

TFC: I'll be good...nope...

Me: Dammit...

Dremel: Please sir....let me be...you've burned almost 3 bits already trying to sand this thing down...my motor is overheating...

*Looks mournfully at the Sternguards, Vanguards and Special Characters still remaining to built...all in metal....*

Me: I'm going to bed....

You should get a large flat file, along with a drill with large bits. They could be very helpful in correcting things...

But anyhow, thanks for the info - I think I'm going to plan to scratchbuild mine.

Aren't the first runs of metals usually much worse than successive runs?

The same problems with mine, plus there is a lovely gap on the 2 halves of the barrel...
Mick

Iorek wrote:Aren't the first runs of metals usually much worse than successive runs?

Honestly I have no idea, but someone really dropped the ball on this one. I can't imagine how something could be so miscast that would require this level of prep-work just to assemble as instructed.

What was more surprising was that there wasn't that many mold sprues to clip off like there normally are with metal models so I initially thought this would be a solid casting. Ah well, hopefully I should have the bugger done tonight and move on to the veterans and the ICs that came with the spearhead...I'll be glad to be done with this train-wreck of a model....

I don't know for sure but it looks like you need to rotate the "casing cluster of the 4 shells loaded into the gun" counter clockwise by 90 degrees. The "shell" on the left looks like it has a flat side that would match with the flat side of the bottom of the recess.

ChaosDave wrote:I don't know for sure but it looks like you need to rotate the "casing cluster of the 4 shells loaded into the gun" counter clockwise by 90 degrees. The "shell" on the left looks like it has a flat side that would match with the flat side of the bottom of the recess.

Hehe, that flat side actually is the remnant of the "cable hook" part of the case cluster that's actually meant to go at the very bottom of the the socket for it. No idea how they intended to make that fit because it sure as heck would not fit without copious amounts of clipping and sanding. Even then it STILL didn't fit.

Gragh...

Hmm lots of filling and grinding , pieces not fitting. are you sure it wasn't made by forge world?

this is usually the problem I had with them.

Twister, you're wearing a mask when you're sanding resin, I hope?

Nasty stuff, that.

TwisterMcpeak wrote:Hmm lots of filling and grinding , pieces not fitting. are you sure it wasn't made by forge world?

this is usually the problem I had with them.

Hah! Aye, I haven't ordered anything yet from forgeworld, but I admit just hearing about the troubles people have with them was certainly evocative of this hunk of junk...

I hate any big models made of metal parts.

Two hours dremeling? You're not using some battery powered cordless pos are you? The first dremel I got I went battery, because I figured it would be more convinent. I quickly learned just how fast I could kill that battery trying to work on anything metal. I got a corded one and everything's done in a breeze.

meh, not a scratch on FW
ill dig out the pics of my squiggoth i returned, had 3 legs, the 4th was F&$%ed to the point it was a stump about 3cm long 0_o

Aduro wrote:Two hours dremeling? You're not using some battery powered cordless pos are you? The first dremel I got I went battery, because I figured it would be more convinent. I quickly learned just how fast I could kill that battery trying to work on anything metal. I got a corded one and everything's done in a breeze.

Aye guilty as charged...

I have a batterey powered Black and Decker dealie that worked just fine for plastic, but boy oh boy did I tax it on this chap...

So pretty much anything corded will do the job?

Looks like the standard GW, uh, standard of metallurgy. Compared to their stuff, building a Privateer warjack is a walk in the park (my Mariner has 12 pins inside it, but all the parts fit together excellently well). The last GW metals I had to put together were Necromunda enforcers, and those guys had some pretty annoying arm-hand joins.

I'd really like a Peninent Engine, but my faith isn't strong enough...

Forgeworld is seldom perfect, either, but at least you can sand and saw resin easily (dust notwithstanding).

I don't know if Anything corded will do the job, but I know the one I happened to get works wonders for me. Going from a battery to a cord does wonders. I'll take the leash over the convenience of a cordless any day now.

http://www.dremel.com/en-us/Tools/Pages/ToolDetail.aspx?pid=Variable+Speed+MultiPro

p.s. 1000th post!

I'd get some masonry bits; should help with the metal.

Welp finally finished the bastard, got an extra strong grit dremel bit and sanded out the rest of the base and the motor mount. Once that was done it all assembled relatively easily. Unfortunatley the tracks came out kinda tilted, but I guess it works to represent the sheer mass of the gun.

I also had to editorialize my thoughts on the whole thing...




Ah well...on to the others....

Wait... You have more than one of these?!?

JohnHwangDD wrote:Wait... You have more than one of these?!?

Ah woops hehe, I meant to say the other models in my spearhead. Figure I'll assemble the Sternguard and Vanguard Vets Next.

Nice work! For most dremel type tools there a specific bit to use on metal, sorta looks like a really short drill bit with no actual cutting edge on the tip. It's called a tungsten carbide cutter (just checked the site).

This thing will chew metal up w/o a problem on a corded dremel, I've never used a battery operated one, but it's got to do better than using the sanding ends. Sanding would be great when you are very close to done and want that tight fit. Oh, and use eyewear if you get one...metal shaving chunks everywhere.