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Hi there! I searched here for examples of meltagun guardsmen made by alternative methods, because in Australia buying a pack of special weapon cadians is like $20, for two crappy metal models. And you only get one meltagunner in the pack, and one plasma gunner. If I wanted 5 meltagunners, i'd have to spend AU$100!

Buying meltaguns from GW's website is $18 AU, for the pack of 5. they are space marine meltas too. That's without shipping - but can order from a local GW and pickup from there for free i believe.

So, I made my own meltagunners. I used metal multi-melta sponsons from my old Leman Russ Demolisher kit, and wirecutters to cut off and seperate the two melta barrels.

I then cut the front barrel off the lasgun of a voxcaster guy (vox are now useless in 5th, so I dont use the vox models.. way to waste 10 men!) and superglued the melta tip on the end. Then I snipped off all the antenna etc from the vox pack, so it didnt look as much like a communications pack, and more like a 'power pack'.

Using old headphone cord/wire, I connected the underside (glued into a small hole i drilled out) of the vox pack to the underside of the lasgun/meltagun by cutting a recess/slot in the lasgun magazine. The cord acts as a power cable to the gun, obviously!

Here are some pics:





This last pic is the guys without the power cables attached yet, just to see the look of the tips - see the copper tube tip?
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I still have multimelta bits from another battle tank, and a hellhound kit i will probably use to make another 6 meltagunners. Also, you will see in the pics a guy with a copper tube tip, instead of a melta tip. That is an experiment, which is still in progress where I buy the copper tube stock and cut to length, and just paint on the 'markings' of a meltagun tip. (the vent slits). So far, because I didn't have the correct tool for cutting the tube, it squashed a bit, and deformed, causing a less-than-desirable outcome. With proper cutting, and possibly a smaller diameter plastic insert in order to make the barrel less wide, it would look alot better. I'm thinking of those ear bud sticks, or similar, glued in and protruding just a little bit to give a more correct melta-gun tip look.

Comments?!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
People may also wish to buy 'thermic guns' from this online store here:
http://bitspudlo.com/products/thermic-guns-3

run by some of the community here on Dakka (theres a thread about turrets etc from this site as well)

I have bought 2 x three pack of thermic guns. Gonna see how they turn out! This would bring my total amount of meltagunners to 16

Has anyone done similar to this? Or a better way to do it? Maybe better power cables?

Anyone know if regular lemanruss battle tank kits come with plastic multimelta sponsons in them? Metal from the old kits is annoying.

the exhaust pipes from plastic ork warbikes make good melta barrels (the 2nd/3rd edition models anyway, I see that a new warbike kit has been released)

The middle one looks wack, the normal conversions are pretty good though. Consider putting the barrels on flamer guns.

i used spare SM melta, flamer and Cadian flamer bits.

Haha is that a melta tip, with a melta bomb as a 'magazine' ??

Lose the lasgun magazines.

kyranzor wrote:Haha is that a melta tip, with a melta bomb as a 'magazine' ??

No, it's the canister from a SM flamer.

There are little 'exhaust' type bits on many of the CoD ruins parts. These make good melta barrels, too.

It's what I've done for my guard meltas.

okay, interesting idea there chromedog.

As for the lasgun magazines, i have already cut them in half vertically, to make a wedge for the cable to insert/glue into. So, they are not really recognisable as magazines anymore.

It was a real bugger to try and glue the cables in, and I really did need the half of a magazine there to act as more glue-able surface. I'll see how it turns out after painting them a bit more.