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i could have easily done a stand like the normal ones , BUT actually after talking to the people here that got my first few thunderhawks last night , they want their bases like this , only more sleek .


their issue is that with the thunderhawk being a flyer i guess it has to move atleast a certain amount per turn , so having the base like this allows it more move options without displacing whole squades , or blocking whole squades , or limiting the move of the thunderhawk .

to balance 5 pounds of gun ship 12 inches off the table requires the base to be fairly large , and heavy , so its going to bump into stuff either way . using steel rod adds more weight going higher up so the base has to be even larger or heavier . it would have to cover well over 100 inches of surface area actually touching/covering/blocking the table

they want the legs to taper more so that it sits on 5 square inches as opposed to 100 + .

when maneuvering to a point where would touch a squade , theyfeel its easier to move a figure or 2 within the confines of the squade than have to stop short or take another route to meet the minimum move requirements , or slow the ship down some what from covering the distance on the table top to its intended landing spot where it will perform its intended role in their armies .

even without a minimum move requirement , it allows them to not be slowed down as a result of near by squads or most vehicles .

i know alot of you probably would rather see the regular base type , but this is about 18 inches long and nearly as wide at the wing tips . its alot of realestate to cover and block movement of regular troops and vehicles on both sides .

i have no problem with making a regular base , its not a question of not knowing how to , but rather a question of making something more benificial to the buyer/trader . if they want a regular type flight i would make them one , it would be alot easier that this type , but this type is going to be lighter and less invasive , which is what atleast some people locally want and charged me to come up with when i took this project on .

keep in mind guys this was the first attempt , so i am working on getting her shaped down to something equaly as usefull , but better looking .

I found this on another site and you might be interested - he says the flyer weighs 12 pounds and is stable at even a 45 degree angle -
http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?t=12796

Maybe chat him up to figure out how to do the same thing?

MasterSlowPoke wrote:I found this on another site and you might be interested - he says the flyer weighs 12 pounds and is stable at even a 45 degree angle -
http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?t=12796

Maybe chat him up to figure out how to do the same thing?

actually , first it would be cost prohibitive to me to follow his example since this isnt something i plan to keep .

and second , i already know how to do what he did . as i said earlier , in order to make the piece stable i would have to make a heavy base like he did . his base is a large slate tile with terrain added , with a hole drilled and a bolt in place for the stand . presuming that i went with a small tile of only 30X30 cm , it would still come down to 139 square inches in area .

and if you read on , he tried doing one with rounded corners which didnt work . you need additional tools to cut the slate , and it is still fragile and easy to screw up .

using slate may look nice when its all done with scenery on it , but is to heavy to deal with , and cutting it down further is more work and or added cost than it is worth .

if the people buying/trading for these want to go the added route of a regular base , i would , but my first orders were to people who want the higher design once its refined .

as it is , even though i am refining my current design , its still useful as a painting/drying stand to prop it up on to prime it , so even thiis first one is not a waste .

I think it's great, never tried to make one from wood.

Stunning, just stunning!

What if you cut it down the middle and hollowed it out and using dowels as pins, pin and glue it back together. That should cut out a lot of weight.

and dramaticaly add to the labor intensity of the project so that i would be chargeing the same as GW for those i let go ..............sounds like a bad idea .

besides , at present there is no need . some of you say it should be on a GW style flight stand , but the people who HAVE bought or traded for them DIDNT WANT THAT , so THEY had me come up with THIS style to fit THEIR wish . the second version is much slimmer , and takes up less than 5 square inches of table surface and weighs just over a pound.

if those that got them wanted a regular style stand , thats what they would get .

This is a very cool project, and the one you did all the bells and whistles on looks fantastic - consider me subscribed

Be careful about selling your thunderhawks so you don't infringe on FW's IP

There's isn't any way he can sell these without infringing on GW's IP. Getting caught is the question.

So the best solution is to sell them to friends and not via internet

Wow great work! Love to see a painted one!

call them Thunderbirds.

well i dont plan to do a whole bunch , one of my friends asked how many i could do if i had the tools i am trying to get , and i told him i could crank out 20 a week , but i doubt i would find 20 more people to trade these to , so CAN vs WOULD limits me more than anything else . and those i have sold , didnt go in my pocket , i used the money to buy more tools and blades and such .

there are 2 main reaosnins i am doing this , first and formeost , i like building game related stuff , especially if its something rareish or special , secondly , because it gets ame a bit of extra cash so i can buy more tools and materials so i can build ever increasingly cool stuff .

while i am sure FW would come chasing me down the street , if they knew i was doing this , in realiity , i am not really threatening their bottom line . i am not trying to mass produce these on some major scale far into the future , and the people i am selling/trading to are people who would not buy one from FW any way . they would either build one them self , or just use some other model to rep it .

in reality , i dont see more than 5 or 6 of the secunduus template being built once i get that far . but if it gets me more tools and supplies so i can build a few assault rams , and the thunderhawk transports , and all sorts of other cool stuff ............

while i dont play WH40K anymore , i do still feel a bit of pride when some one pulls out something i built for them , that their oppoinent was totally unprepared for , and couldnt build for them selves .








































plus some times i cant get the voices in my head to stop talking , so i dont get enough sleep as they are all going off on their own arguements , so i have plenty of time to work on this stuff in a little corner of my mind while they keep talking ..........................

planning on more??

ya , i'm redesigning the template so i can make a new batch ain 5 months or so if i can get the tools i need .

I have started an Article on Thunderhawks, I never got to complete it before being "deployed" I will however finish it when i get back...(My wife very usefully deleted all the pictures off my memory card on Xmas day to make way for pics of my familiy!!??"!!!

Its under the Painting and Modelling articles.

Further to this I that we (all the modellers building T-hawks) should start an Article or "Thunderhawk Blog" where we all discuss and display how we made them and help others out? What do you think?

i have seen some specialized blogs for say gargants and such , but the problem with that is that if its an independant blog , it doesnt get much viewing except by people who have already built one , and there are thousands of people who have made their own blogs that cover a variety of their own stuff that will get seen by only a small % of the people who could really use the info . the problem is that its just sech a big web , and there are to many users .

i think it would be helpful if sites like dakka had a series of locked stickies that each had a listing of the related articles for some of the most common tutorials , so for instance if there was a sticky for thunderhawks , it would list all the tutorials that had thunderhawks as their subject . another could cover tutorials on building titans , another could contain tutorials about nonmetalic metalic painting methods , another about how to strip paint off minis , etc .........

Here is my article, its about 40% complete at the moment It will be finished by Aug 11 for APOC season.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Building_a_Thunderhawk

Okay, your point taken but i think my idea has merit. When you have got a mature Blog (like this one) you can easily make an Article by cutting and pasting and changing the root of the Pictures (its really easy). My aim has always been to inspire others, I never thought I could make one and definitely couldn't afford a FW one. I saw a tutorial and I thought i need to do this to prove to my fellow dakkanauts that if i can do it, they certainly can too. Plus I want to challenge myself and it would be a nice centrepiece and for APOC!

We could then make a sub-Article set of Space Marine Super Heavy Vehicle modelling and all our Articles on how we achieved similiar results using different materials and methods.

i did not deny that your idea has merit , only that even if it got a thousand people to look at it , there would be thousands more that would never find it because its a single grain of sand lost in a beach full of all those other grains of sand .

thtas why i would like to see a sticky of such articles so that anyone wanting to find a tutorial on thunder hawks has all the thunder hawk tutorials to read , compare , and make decision from . there are alot of good ideas out there , but i am working on a bunch of different projects , several of which are for my favorite game : dust-tactics . before i start doing a peice or woring on hose rules , i can sit infront of my computer for hours a day for several days , looking at pics and reading articles , and there are still way to many articles and pictures to go over , several of which conradict each other . for an example , look up POW camps of WW2 , there are no set plans , you come across over a million hits .

i decided to build a thunderhawk based off of the plans of a guy here on dakka who did one . before looking up the home made thunderhawks i had never heard of dakka , but of the numerous sites i have seen , dakka seems to be one of the larger ones . with their galleries and articles , they are a good resource to have . so pasties here are a better option since people who come here for all manner of other things would be likly to see them , and when they are ready to make their own , they know where to come back to .

Well funny thing is I think we agree, but are heading on different tangents. The reason I wrote an article is because a Thread like this will rapidly be lost in the sea of inane mundane and silly threads we generate. The Articles section allows us to contribute and put something back, plus when people Google it, it will come out somewhere near the top. I actually think that if 500 people see it and enjoy it, well I will feel good about it. The power in this and the internet is people co-operating and working together to produce something comprehensive and brilliant. I didn't write this Article "off the cuff" i did a good 4-5 hours research, I found many sites with good articles but I craved a more comprehensive and detail account of how they achieved the result. I have hosted those Thunderhawk Templates in my Gallery for a few months and I feel like I am contributing something positive and helping DAKKA stay healthy by not stagnating. I would encourage everyone to produce Articles or Army Profiles on Dakka as it brings such a huge amount of talent and ideas to a truly huge audience of people who share our passion.

Its a beautiful Thunderhawk by the way..

very nice, how about painting it

Wow, that's very cool.

It's like papercraft to the nth degree

add me to the list of people willing to buy one.

I'm wondering how expensive it would be to substitute balsa for the wood you're using. It would certainly cut down the weight. Panelling it with plasticard would make it 'dentproof'...

Strictly speaking from a novelty point of view your Thunderhawks are frikkin' awesome. Screw paint, just sand them down with a nice cherrywood stain and ...yeah. Awesome.

Maxim C. Gatling wrote:I'm wondering how expensive it would be to substitute balsa for the wood you're using. It would certainly cut down the weight. Panelling it with plasticard would make it 'dentproof'...

Strictly speaking from a novelty point of view your Thunderhawks are frikkin' awesome. Screw paint, just sand them down with a nice cherrywood stain and ...yeah. Awesome.

it would add alot more cost :

first i would have to do the entire model in balsa because the body would not support the weight if the wings ar anything else .

then i would have to do all the work of covering the entire thing in plasticard which adds alot of cost in plasticard and labor covering it all .

then the added cost of switching out the panels i do in wood with plasticard .

i dont have a cheap enough source of small enough platicard , or the tools to cut it down small enough to use if i bought large sheets from a supplier

it could easily add $200.00 to switch to the balsa and platicard when labor is added in .

Woodhammer!Great job.

well , while things are still in fulx , i MAY be on the verge of getting started on the secundis template and cranking some out for those interested .