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Hola Dakka, I'm building a Tau Orca from Forge World and I have the entire vehicle put together for the most part and it is time to decide how to make a flying base for this beast. Firstly, I have seen the Tau Orca shown on MiniWargaming's blog and while the suspension design that was used is likely the easiest way to do a flying base for the Orca, I am not a fan of how it looks and the fact that it places all of the weight of the vehicle on several potential weakpoints in the model and the base itself.

With that said, I'm strugglying to find a way to make a more traditional flying base for the Orca. The main issue stems from the fact that the Orca is entirely hollow and full of gorgeous interior detail; gluing the top of the fuselage on and using it to make a conventional flying base is a no-go. My current idea to get around this is to drill a hole on the underside of the nose piece and have a metal dowel supporting the front of the Orca (the nose piece provides a permanent, sculpted ceiling that can be used to rest the Orca on a dowel). The rear support is the tricky part as drilling a hole and using a dowel is not an option as it ruins the interior detail and is not stable because the top of the fuselage is not glued down. My only idea so far is to have a slightly shorter metal dowel with a rectangular clear plastic plane on the end that will fit between the landing gear and the Orca can rest on. While this would work, the rear support is not ideal as it does not penetrate the model and anchor it in place. One option is to drill a small hole and run a piece of clear acrylic rod from the plastic plane up through the bottom of the Orca and have a detachable Heavy Gun Drone on it as somewhat of a guard for the rear door. This would look nice but is still less stable than a simple one piece metal dowel running up through the model.

I'm a bit torn about what to do. I have been unable to find anyone who has built a flying base for the Forge World Orca aside from the MiniWargaming blog but I am hoping that someone here on Dakka has or that someone with super-heavy-flyer experience can suggest a better idea. Help DakkaDakka, you're my only hope!

You are the first person I've come across bold enough to spend the money and an Orca, I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

However, I think your observations are all sound, but without seeing the actual undercarriage of the model, and feeling the weight distribution its hard to give useful feedback...

If the bottom design would allow for integration of it, I would consider a steel plate with some sort of attachment point or recess for a rod or something similar.

I am guessing the beast is quite heavy. If a single point does not work, do to balance issues and center of gravity concerns, how about three or four small holes on the bottom where a frame of sorts mounts, then that frame is on a strong (1/2") acrylic rod of some kind.

Best of luck, and keep us posted!

whats the weight of the model? im tempted to ask you to draw an image and represent where the weight ratios are going to, and maybe snap a picture of its underside, I'm having a hard tim visualising the problems and solutions to this.

I want to suggest pinning the model together as you assemble it , but I suspect this may not be possible. Another option might be to emulate the shape of its underbelly, with a clear plastic cradle for it, and attach the cradle to clear plastic rods. It's ugly but it does it.... Im not sure about what you think of putting magnets on your flying base to help secure the model to the stand. If you are good, you could disguise them in clouds of exhaust, (flying base forms an X with the mount points in 5 locations, vertex and at each engine) but, not sure how stable the VTOL thrusters are on the model. It could be a way of adding stability to its mounting on the flying base without actually interfering with the model.

Would it be possible to use the engines as your primary mounting points? Lets say you positioned the engines so it looked like the orca was landing/taking off, then rods from the engines to the base. By disguising the rods to look like smoke/heat/etc, you might be able to pull it off. The only downside is that now the engines can't move.
Does the orca have landing gear? If it does, wherever the landing gear is could be strong enough to support the model, as its supposed to hold it off the ground anyway....

I dunno...good luck

Thanks for the responses everyone. I'm afraid that running the dowels into the engines and disguising them in smoke (while totally cool) still has the same issue as the one on MiniWargaming as it applies all of the weight to the axles holding the engines to the body. A plastic tray would work but it would be very unstable as there is nothing actually holding the model in place, anchoring it to the flying base.

A friend suggested running a threaded dowel and bolt combination to screw the Orca to the flying base. This seems like it could be the most stable and simplest answer but I'm not certain on the durability of Forge World resin to be tightly sandwiched between dowel and bolt. Has anyone done a similar mount for their flying base?

I don't know the durability of the Orca model, but I know for a fact that BlueTablePainting regularly builds titans which can be screwed off because of said threaded dowell. They use "JB weld" to keep everything together, including their ultra heavy-duty magnets. No idea what JB weld is, but I just remembered this.

My suggestion of the magnet is not necesarily what keeps it anchored, but a stabilisation point for wherever else the anchor it. I'm not sure I am succeeding in what I mean. Anyway, best of luck.

JB weld is similar to epoxy resin, only it is mainly used in the automotive field to patch metal where welding can't be done or as a quick fix. It is insanely strong stuff. It can also be sanded iirc.

Have you seen these?

http://www.back2base-ix.com/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=66

I'm not familiar with the Orca, but if it's a decent sized model, these could be handy, and they allow for some flexibilty.

scipio.au wrote:Have you seen these?

http://www.back2base-ix.com/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=66

I'm not familiar with the Orca, but if it's a decent sized model, these could be handy, and they allow for some flexibilty.

That seems like a pretty good option. Depending on the size, 1 or 2 seems like it would work.

scipio.au wrote:Have you seen these?

http://www.back2base-ix.com/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=66

I'm not familiar with the Orca, but if it's a decent sized model, these could be handy, and they allow for some flexibilty.

That looks awesome but I don't think it would support the Orca. The model in the image on their site is a Devilfish and an Orca is several pounds of resin and at least as long as 2 and a half Devilfish while almost twice as wide. I will consider it for the skimmer base (I want a flying base and a skimming base) but for a flying base I don't think it will work.

Without seeing the bottom of the actual model, I am not certain how feasible this is but;

I would go with a collar or sleeve on the bottom with a large rod mounting in it, with a magnet for stability.

The main support would be the rod (clear acrylic, say 1/2") into a metal tube (the collar) with a strong 1/2" magnet to keep it in place.
Get some copper tubing (from a hardware store) with an inside diameter of 1/2", and some acrylic rod (from a plastic supply place) and 1/2" magnets from K&J magnets.

I use a scaled down version of this (1/4" rods and magnets) for my skimmers and it works great.

best of luck!

Dragonforge Designs.

They make a flight stand kit that will snap in with one of their resin bases. I use them on my Eldar Vampires, which I'm sure are far heavier and more akward than the Orca. Just get a large base for it, use epoxy to connect the rod to the base, and pin the connecting joint to the model. Stable, sturdy, and looks AWESOME.

piperider361 wrote:Dragonforge Designs.

They make a flight stand kit that will snap in with one of their resin bases. I use them on my Eldar Vampires, which I'm sure are far heavier and more akward than the Orca. Just get a large base for it, use epoxy to connect the rod to the base, and pin the connecting joint to the model. Stable, sturdy, and looks AWESOME.

I totally forgot about Dragonforge flying bases. While your Vampires are certainly much larger and heavier, the Orca is essentially a front-heavy resin box so a base design like Dragonforge will mount on the underside with the model balancing on top of the dowel. With your Vampires, the down-slopped wings and cockpit offer a more favorable balance for such a design; do you think the Dragonforge design will still be sturdy on a less favorable aircraft?

Only you (or anything with an Orca physically available) can decide that. I'm imagine if the rid as put in at or just behind the area o the front set of engines, it would balance fine. But that's just based on looking at the model. Remember, you can choose where the rod goes into. It's a matter of does a good center of balance also equal an aesthetically pleasing point to be attached.

you could always make the flying base into a piece of scenery: a curved set of ruins or something could provide point contact all over 3 quarters of the model if placed right...
I use a single rare-earth magnet and a washer to hold the torso of my reaver titan to the legs. It is pretty back heavy, but the arrangement seems to work. I know its not as heavy as your orca, but maybe the same principle applies? make a rock formation with a couple of inset magnets, and then the corresponding washers/magnets on the model?

Need measurements and a rough location of the centre of gravity to give you a sensible and stable design. From what you're describing, some sort of tripod or cradle arrangment is needed.