Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I consider myself a pretty competent scratch builder but I cant seem to make ventilated gun barrels like in the picture below.


Any useful tips would be appreciated. Does anyone sell barrels pre-drilled? maybe an armor website?

The holes aren't in the barrel itself, but in the cooling shroud. To get a similar effect you might want to try picking up a couple of different diameters of plastic tube. Drill holes in the wider one and slip it over the narrower one. How tightly they fit together is up to you.

Flninty is dead on.

Look at this guy's exhaust for his backpack:



It's basically 2 plastic tubes fitting over each other, with holes drilled in the outer one. If you want it to oook regular, draw them out.. Eyeballing this is a lot harder then it looks

That's just it. It is very difficult to drill holes in weapon size tubes. Much harder to make them look regularly spaced. I was hoping someone might have a source for predrilled stock. I found a couple brass machine guns with perforated shrouds, but the scale is to small for a 40k weapon. I have some very thin plasticard and I think I will experiment with punching holes in it And wrapping it around a rod. I just have to make one and I can cast the rest.

buy some plasticard tubing (It's readily available at the shop I go to for mine, don't know for you) then take a ruler and run it straight down the side of the tube, marking with felt pen at regular intervals where you want your hole. Take drill, drill each one out. Then take drill, insert into hole and sight down tube to make sure the drill bit is fully bisecting the tube and touching the other side, then drill a matching hole this way. Do that for each previously drilled hole so you now have 2 sides of the tube finished. Then turn the tube 45 degrees, take your ruler again but when marking your drill points offset them from the first set (so you end up with a .`.`.`.`. sort of look) and repeat the process. Voila.