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Hey I was just wondering if anyone had made their regular tactical marine squad into a sterngaurd vetern squad and if so how they went about doing it.. any help would be appreciated!

1)Replace the bolter magazine with a storm bolter one
2)Add a scope from a third party supplier
3)Add purity seals
4)Reposition legs to have a more dynamic pose
5)Use terminator honours shoulder pads
6)Paint them in veteran colours I.e white helmets for Ultramarines

People do it all the time google has some great images of other people's attempts.....

Model-wise, Sternguard and tactical marines are identical. You can have a box magazine for the bolter to represent the different types of extra ammunition Sternguard get, but it's not required.

Basically you just need to show that the model is a veteran instead of a normal marine. Take Ultramarines, for example. An Ultramarine tactical marine would be all blue with the trim on the edge of his shoulder pads a different color for whatever company he's from. Gold for the 2nd Co. is the most popular and what GW likes to display.

An Ultramarine tactical marine model painted with the white helmet that veterans wear and white edges on his shoulder pads to represent the 1st Co. veterans meets all the qualifications to be a Sternguard model.

Use bare heads with beards to suggest them being 'old timers' - look at some of the fantasy models to source great heads.

Giving them a loincloth and a a magazine from the stormbolter on the bolter will have a good way into a finished conversion.

My sternguard are just tactical marines with the following alterations:

1 Mk VI power armour
2 Studded left shoulder pad - white
3 Plenty of purity seals, terminator honours
4 a couple of older pattern bolters (2nd edition)
5 White trim on right shoulder pad
6 White helmets with painted laurels (various designs, blue for sternguard, red for sergeant)
7) Tabard/ loincloth for sergeant

A simple color change on the helmet always works. Easy to identify on the table top.

As far as the combi-weapons options I grabbed up some BA bits online, the Sanguinary Guard pistols I think. Melta pistols and hand flamers (why only BA kept hand flamers is a mystery) but they were small enough to fit in the bolters pretty good and they are nice and uniform. Which was much better than my original attempt, just trying different parts.

Flyinpoo has a really nice tutroial on what he did here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/408559.page

I did two heavy flamer conversions with different parts and multimeltas as the base weapon.

As far as scheme, my marines are yellow with bone helmets and pads, with blue trim. My veterans have white helmets which actually came out far less subtle and works well on the table.Ultras have white helmets too. DA have the first company veterans in a completely different armor color scheme, so it is up to you what you want to do.

Have fun!