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It's been more than two years since the last time I built a Thunderbolt, but I've had templates for two of them glued to some sheet cardboard all this time, ready for me to cut them out and assemble them. Two years, a move to another state, and a new IG codex later, and I'm starting to build them again. I've gotten inspired by a recent family story, watching "The Pacific", and getting bored with my SM army, so I'm going back to work on a Guard army again. A few years ago, I'd hit on some inspiration to do an ANZAC-themed IG army but I never actually got working on it other than picking up some West Wind British steel helmets. For now, that's the direction I'm wanting to go with the army - we'll see how long it lasts.

One of my thoughts, though, that got me back to work on the Thunderbolts was using them to proxy Valkyries. So, while I won't be modeling them with side-mounted heavy bolters, I do plan on building two of them carrying missile pods with a multilaser, and one with trip-lascannons.

I've got the first one of the two that have been sitting cut out and the main bodywork assembled. Now, I need to go into my files and see if I can find the template I made for the armor. I've also used all the sprinkler parts I'd originally intended for use on these models on other terrain and vehicle projects, so I'll have to go back to Lowes or Home Depot and see if I can find replacement pieces or something that might work even better. It looks like I can get Valk missile pods for pretty cheap. I wonder how much Valk engines would run me?

Here's the WIP Thunderbolt with the main bodywork done.



One of the things I did this time that I hadn't last was to seal the edges of the cardboard with clear packing tape prior to assembling everything, although for some parts (such as the nose) it's more difficult than others. I went into my old files and found my old image file with my armor templates for skinning the plane, but for a variety of reasons, it quickly became apparent that using the old files weren't going to be as easy as I had hoped. However, I went back to BWC archives on a whim and found that someone had posted up a new set of Thunderbolt templates including templates for armor. I printed them out and it almost seemed like that armor was custom-made for my model. Perfect fit. I also looked into Valkyrie engines - ~$10 a pair on ebay. Not what I want to spend. Back to Lowe's/Home Depot. I am considering getting a set of Drop Pod fans for my jet intakes, however as they only run a couple bucks for a set of 5.

I cut out and affixed 95% of the armor plates on the body - I need a new hole punch to finish off the last couple pieces. From here out, it's mostly downhill. I've got 3 out of 4 autocannons already made from aluminum/brass tubing. I just need to get those attached, add the engines and bendy-straw hoses, and this new Thunderbolt will be ready for priming.



Frankly, it's not as pretty as the last couple I did back in 2008, but then, I'm a little out of practice. I figure the next one will look better.

Beautiful Man, its amazing how things like a few boxes of cereal and some straws can be put to good and amazing use. How is that your going to get those stored as being paper and cardboard would make it seem fragile.

petty3 wrote:Beautiful Man, its amazing how things like a few boxes of cereal and some straws can be put to good and amazing use. How is that your going to get those stored as being paper and cardboard would make it seem fragile.

They're actually not that fragile - at least no more so, really, than a plastic model. The corrugated cardboard I use for the main body makes it pretty tough, but it also gives it a more flexibility than a plastic model, so it's more likely to bend rather than break under less-than-critical pressures.

I picked up some Drop Pod directional fans to use as my jet intakes, but I still need to work out something for the thrusters. I've got an idea for some vector louvers using some plastic tubing, but I haven't sat down with it to try to make it work yet.

nice stuff.

Time for a long-overdue update. I picked up a Valkyrie flying stand about a month ago and with that, got to use my Thunderbolt in a game a few weeks ago as a Vendetta proxy. For a long time now, I've been waiting for the final missing piece to complete my scratchbuild. I had puzzled over what to do about the front intakes on the jet engines for ages, not being satisfied with what I'd used on my previous Thunderbolts. I was lurking about over on WIP and found a fellow named Penguin of Death was scratchbuilding a twin-tailed version of a Thunderbolt much in the style of the old US WWII P-38 Lightnings. You can see his work here: http://z11.invisionfree.com/Work_In_Progress/index.php?showtopic=11903&st=0. Along the way in his designs, Penguin of Death posted up a link to a company that sells 30mm resin fan intakes - Evil Mushroom Games.

These were exactly what I was looking for. So I ordered up a batch of 3 sets of two before Christmas. I was away over the holidays and when I came back, the fans had not arrived (or possibly they had, but had been stolen off our doorstep). I waited awhile longer and then contacted the folks at Evil Mushroom Games, letting them know that I hadn't received the package. They were kind enough to offer to ship out another set. I was excited to open my mailbox yesterday to find the fans had arrived.

I glued those fans on as quick as I could, made a few repairs to some armor plates and I am thrilled to say that the Thunderbolt is ready for paint now.






Now the big question - what color scheme to paint it?

After looking around on CMON at a variety of Thunderbolts as well as a number of pages with illustrations of WWII airplane color schemes, I decided to stick with a fairly simple dual grey-tone scheme - light grey on the bottom, a darker gray on the top. I gave it a good black primer, then masked off the guns, engines, and canopy, then taking a number from Mike at Santa Cruz Warhammer's Valkyrie (http://santacruzwarhammer.blogspot.com/2009/11/bishkek-2nd-valkyrie-part-2-camo.html) I sprayed the bottom light grey, the top dark grey and then inspired by Mike's stencil-work (http://santacruzwarhammer.blogspot.com/2009/11/bishkek-2nd-valkyrie-part-3-freaking.html), I decided to try some of my own.

I've had pretty poor success with my stenciling efforts in the past, but I saw someone recently give the tip to give the model a number of very light passes with the sprayer with time to dry in between to prevent leakage under the mask. I wasn't completely successful this time, either, but it was a good enough job that I didn't feel compelled to just respray over the whole wing. My masking tape also took off some paint here and there, so it's not like I'm not going to have to do other touchups anyway. The trickiest bit is going to be matching the Tamiya German Grey spray I used with GW paints.

It's not the most amazing model in the world, but considering the price of FW Thunderbolts and the fact that this model cost me a few bucks in lascannons and metal tubing, plus splurging for the flight stand and the resin fan intakes (a total of what, say $16?) , I can't complain too much. Once I get the base coat touched up, I'll move on to painting the details next.

Very nice for a card model I think. But what I never understand is if some one can build a card model to that standard why dont they use plasticard. It dont cost much and is much stronger. Im sure you have the skills to do the same thing with it from the looks of this?

I tried building one of the early ones out of card and it was pretty much a complete failure - so much so that I didn't even finish the fuselage. The biggest issue I had with plasticard over cardboard is with bending the plasticard. I haven't figured out the technique for bending plasticard without it breaking - I tried scoring the bend in different ways, but without success. Alternately, I could just glue each individual panel together without doing any bending but that would take so much longer and as opposed to folks like Klaus (http://fischers-design-shop.blogspot.com/) or Dave Taylor (http://www.davetaylorminiatures.blogspot.com/), I just don't have the patience for that level of detail.

Barrow the wife's hair dryer use a piece of wood cut to the angle you want then warm the plastic till it settles on the form forge world had problems with the plates on the thunder hawk when they built the master for the mold the plate shown here not the stabilizer on the side has a crack where the original broke during construction. I filled it before painting.

Wow... very nice. I am working up the courage to do my own scratch build. I think I may want to use plasticard though. What has your experience been like so far with the card stock? Do you have the tools to work with sheets of styrene?

@sonofruss - I may have to give the hair dryer technique a try. I think, in general, I need to work on developing my plasticard construction skills.

@Rabid Ferret - Thanks, RF! Frankly, working with cardboard and card stock is easy. I mean, most of us have been building things out of cardboard, tape, and glue since we were kids. Working with card stock isn't much different.

As far as working with sheet styrene, I only have the very basics - exacto, straight edge, cutting mat, dremel and bits, etc. I'm not even sure what tools I'd need to get the really nice level of detail like Dave Taylor and Klaus or Foda Bett use. I know that Dave's got a friend with a laser cutter that helps with some of his stuff, but that's a $20,000 piece of machinery.

And in general, this is the problem that I'm coming to with this model (and that I came to with my previous Thunderbolt scratchbuilds). I get to the point where I've primed the model, and it looks decent enough, but then I start looking at FW's Thunderbolts or GW's Valks and the difference between my level of detail and theirs just doesn't even compare. And so I start to count up how many hours it takes me to build one - when I built 4 in a row, I had it down to 8 hours a plane, although now it's more than that again. If I translated that to additional hours I could work at my job, the amount of money I'd make would pretty well cover the cost of a Thunderbolt. But then I go back and look at folks like Dave Taylor or Klaus and know that, yeah, I'm sure they could afford to buy models for the amount of time they put into a scratchbuild, but it's part of the joy of the hobby, right? Argh.

http://www.starshipmodeler.com/tech/cj_scribe.htm

Check out some of the info available for Sheet Styrene. I think that you can use the tools you have and you will have more luck. You clearly have the skill to do this. I will bet you will have better results with the styrene. Keep at it!

I've completed a trade for a FW Thunderbolt and it is on it's way to me from Vancouver, B.C. I look forward to getting it in to be able to compare to my model and try to modify future builds per the actual FW model.

And along those lines, I received a surprise in the mail - the original resin engine fans that I had ordered from Evil Mushroom games back in December (and shipped December 15 per the postmark) arrived on Friday! So, now I've got enough fans to outfit another 5 scratchbuilt Thunderbolts. Alternately, if I get the FW Thunderbolt and decide that I just can't make another scratchbuild that would even compare such that I'd want my own models on the same table as the FW Thunderbolt, I'm considering the possibility of scratchbuilding a Marauder Destroyer and the resin fans would come in handy for that.

I'm excited to say that I got my FW Thunderbolt in the mail today. I'll try to get some pics of it, but it's got a nice paintjob (nice enough that I'm not opposed to keeping it that way, but not amazing enough to keep me from considering stripping it and repainting.) I'll try to get some comparison pics of it side-by-side with my own Thunderbolt next to it. And it really is a great model. It has a nice heft to it without it feeling heavy.

What I was very pleasantly shocked to find was how well my own Thunderbolt matched the FW model. Size-wise, they are almost identical. What pleased me most, though, was seeing that my armor plates were a pretty close match to the FW model - particularly on the wings and the tailfins. Even the cockpit wasn't a bad match. With a few small plasticard additions, I could make it even more of a match.

Where my model fails to deliver compared to the FW model is the engine and nose. The ribbing on the engine pipes is much smaller on the FW model and the cowling around those pieces is beefier. I could definitely build up the cowling on mine to match. There's quite a bit of grill/sensor/ammo drum detailing on the front that I don't have on mine. It's all fiddly stuff, but I could make a run at it.

I was really afraid that I was going to get the FW model and find that my scale was completely off and that my armor plates just didn't look right and that the models just wouldn't look right sitting next to each other. But I'm pretty happy to say that they match up pretty well. And I think if I were to scratchbuild some more Thunderbolts out of plasticard, now that I have the original model to compare to, I could make them look like some solid matches. I'm definitely pleased.