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So since I decided to move into playing Apoc I figured I should try and build a Thunderhawk(or 3) for my various marine armies. I have all the templates and stuff as a rough guide, but there's a couple of things I don't like with them and this is where I need your help dakkites.
Could someone who has the official thunderhawk help me with a few things.
1) A pic of the front heavy bolters, I'm thinking of making them using Land Raider sponson mounts and T/L Heavy Bolters from razorbacks and just wanted to double check they'd look at least similar.
2)Photos of the front and back of the engines and a rough length/diameter measurement, I know a lot of people recommend pod racer engines but they are fairly hard to find/expensive at the moment so I think I may have to resort to scratch building them unless there's another alternative out there.
3)Some rough measurements of the cannons, the templates I've seen for these seem to be oddly sized and I just wanted to check if they're right.
4)Any suggestions of bitz for the bombs/missles. Was thinking of maybe valk missles but not sure how many you get in a kit
5)Any thing else I should know before I dive into this?
Hopefully my tax rebate should clear by next week and I can get a decent digital camera, until then I'll try and get some shots with my naff webcam uploaded just to show how things are moving along.

Here are some photos of the Thunderhawk I built on commission:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/349852.page

Predator or land raider sponsons/turrets work just fine. I magnetized the mounts for easy access and so I didn't have to worry about gluing a moving bit in place.

I sculpted my own intakes and exhaust vents, so I can't help you there.

Build the top cannon last, and build it in a size that looks right. The one I built is about 6" long and made out of .5" polystyrene tube with a step down for the end of the barrel.

Use Valkyrie missiles and magnetize them. You get two in a box. Otherwise you can grab yourself some aircraft model accessory missiles from Tamiya or other model company.

Don't glue yourself to the model and you'll spend three times as long on the last 5% of the model doing the details than you will on the other 95% of the model. This is a good thing, the details make or break a scratch build.

Thanks a lot for the advice, and gotta say beautiful work on your model. My new plan for the front HB is to use a land raider sponson with 4 Predator HB, magnetising also sounds like a fairly good idea.
Managed to get a pod racer for this one, but think if I plan to build anymore I'm gonna have to design something from scratch.
Shame you only get 2 valk missiles in a kit, guess it's time for another bitz site visit, find it ironic that actual GW bits will only be a small part of this yet are adding up to be more than everything else at this rate.
Unfortunately gluing myself to it is probably an inevitability, seems I glue myself to everything else lol As for detail, my plan is to build the main thing out of thick plasticard for strength, and then use an extra layer of 0.5mm stuff with appropriate detailing on it.
Thanks for all the help, once my order actually turns up and I can do some work I'll try and post pics.

Looking forward to seeing your progress.