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Hey all!

Well this weekend has been insane, I spent most of Saturday answering PMs and Emails, and between us we worked on 6 commissions! Ed's been beavering away like a daemon on his Necron inspired bases, going from picking up a pen on Friday night to the awesome designs on our other thread, as well as frantically working on our website.

Over the weekend we had a few inquiries about whether we would be making the Valkyrie kit available to buy, and yes, we defiinitely will! I've been modelling it specifically to be machined and cast up, so they'll be on our website and ebay as soon as they're ready, which will be a while yet as it's a pretty big project. The Valkyrie's been taking a bit of a back seat while we work on getting our bases launched and developing our ranges, but with the renewed interest we thought it worth spending a bit of time on it, so today I started machining the first master for the rotors. This is the first of four masters, 2 each for the left and the right rotor. Today we finished the roughing pass on one of them, next up is the finishing pass with the 0.5mm tool to get the really nice finish and all the detail, then only 3 more to go!

I've also done a bit of work on the turret, remodelling the main section to give a more rugged look and a bit more detail. I've been re-learning Rhino doing this project, as I hadn't used it in 3 years before starting it, so I've been reworking parts as I've improved. I also need to model some more guns to go in the turret.

Here's some pics, thanks for the support. We've being posting some new work on our other thread http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/358792.page , including a commission from SilverMK2 that is going to look incredible!

Cheers all
Harry - Warmill

Is that chin turret for Valkyries? If so that's awesome! I've been planning on doing a Vietnam-esque gunship for a while now. It might have to wait until I get my hands on your kits!

It is, and will be fully rotatable with a movable gun

Hi all!

Well after 2 day of cutting the first master for the Valkyrie right wing is almost done! The finishing pass has been going for 2 days with a 0.5mm bit, cutting paths 0.01mm apart! By the time it's finsihed the tool will have travelled 39064 inches, or to put it in perspective, 8 metres short of a kilometre! Numbers like this are why the kit is a big project, as this is for just 1 of 4 masters to be cut, followed by the turret and wings. Then there's moulding and casting... and I thought this would be a nice little project to knock out in my spare time

Ed's been putting in extra hours at work but still found time to knock out some awesome Necron-inspired stuff on the other thread, with some awesome coloured acrylic bits. We're planning a painting session on Friday so we should have some nice glamour pics to post shortly after.

Cheers all

Harry - Warmill

Very nice indeed - also like the mention of my magic bases

Regarding which I am just sending you an email about

The valk kit is looking pretty cool - had no idea it took that long to tool the masters

Valkyrie conversion looks very nice. Looks sort of like avatar gunships but not. Like the turret. How will you handle the wing mounted missles/rocket pods and will there be a Vendetta option with the 3twin linked las cannons?

^ What he said! +1

Hey guys!

Thanks for the kind comments! It's motivated us to get this kit ready for production, so hopefully we'll be able to post a finished model in a month or 2!

@Avariel

The wings on the skids have weapon hangers on them to use the standard rockets that come with the Valkyrie kit. Maybe we'll produce our own rocket pod in the future once the turret and a couple of weapon options have been made. I think it would be a shame to go to all this work and not make a vendetta kit

We will be trading kits for money ;P

Cheers all
Harry - warmill

Wow, nice job on the valk engins,I knew that you did bases but vical parts as well this has deffently made my friday.Lol!

Glad you like them this has been a bit of a pet project for months and it's so good seeing it come together! We still need to mill the other wing after this one but hopefully we'll have some resin to show before too long

Harry

Hi all

The second master for the wing finished cutting on Saturday, so we only have 2 more to cut before we can start casting some up Hopefully we can get this done in the next week or so to get them up for sale within the next month. Now I just have to finish modelling the turret and tweak the skids ready for splitting up. This kit will be entirely self-produced by me and Ed from data to machining to production, and I have to say it's been a mission to get this far but it's worth it! Once this is out the way we can start on our next project, which will be slightly smaller I think

Cheers all
Harry

Joshh wrote:

What he said warmill.

I NEEd this for my gaurd

I need valk engins for my thunderhawk WIP engins plese.

Hey all

Well the Valkyrie has been on the backburner while we got our website and base ranges up for sale, as well as doing a few commissions, but at long last I've found both time and a big enough chunk of chemiwood to start machining the other rotor master, so fingers crossed we might actually have something to start moulding in a week or two! (Probably two )

I also did a bit more work on the turret, I just need to model a new cannon for it and refine the skids and wings ready to be cut. Exciting!

Cheers all, here's to a week of the CNC going "NRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR whirrrrrr NRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR..."

harry

Pretty sweet looking turret.

That turret looks awesome, I would use it for my tanks as well.

I've tried to design it so that with one different piece it would be a good light tank / AFV turret. It'll probably be a bit small for a battle tank but there will be a bigger meaner version for the big guns

I was just thinking it would make a great light turret for a razorback or a sentry/emplacement turret

Any idea what they would retail at? Or do you need to wait until it is done so you know how much material/etc they require before you can price them up?

Nice!

I'm super excited for when the Valkyrie conversions are up for sale! Looks really good guys!

WarMill wrote:I've tried to design it so that with one different piece it would be a good light tank / AFV turret. It'll probably be a bit small for a battle tank but there will be a bigger meaner version for the big guns

Well, now you have me looking forward to yet another no-doubt awesome kit.

Hi all

The CNC is buzzing away happily now we've got a few chunks of chemiwood big enough, so the next 2 masters should be done in a week or so. Been working on new and improved heavy skids as well, the previous ones were just too weedy!

Cheers all

Harry

Hi all

Well the stoopid double - sided tape didn't hold the block of chemiwood in the CNC properly so a day of machining and a pice of chemiwood was wasted when it popped off the bed. I've restarted it now, hopefully it'll hold

I've finished modelling the new skids, now it's just a matter of breaking up the model into kit form and set it up for cutting. This satge is both fun and incredibly annoying, so I think it can wait for a day or two

Harry

Interesting, I'd definitely buy a conversion kit for a valkyrie and I might be wrong, but I'd bet there a plenty other people who would do the same.

Hey all

After a few false starts another master is done! Only one more master to do then we can start moulding and casting rotors. Once we have the landing gear and wings finished we can get them on the website, with the turret to follow once I've modelled up some guns. It'll be nice to see something come of this project, it's been going on and off for almost a year now in dribs and drabs!

With CNCing the masters, it takes longer to model as you have to really consider how you model them and break them up into kit form over 3D printing where you can be much more careless with undercuts etc, and it takes quite a while to machine bigger parts (especially if you're a noob like me ) but you get a much nicer finish straight off the machine than 3D printing, which saves a LOT of post-machine clean up time preparing for moulding, as well as being cheaper (if you have a CNC sat in your dining room). While there is a bit of stepping in places, which can be avoided if you have a small enough ball-nose end mill, the material takes seconds to sand smooth.

Harry

Hey all

Just a quick update to say I'm going to start machining the last master for the valkyrie rotors tomorrow morning so fingers crossed by the end of the weekend they'll all be ready for a quick spot of tidying up and moulding. It's taken almost a year of spare time but soon ther'll be something to show for all the headaches.

I've finished breaking the skids up for kit form and machining purposes, and have taken a bunch of renders for assembly instructions which I'll be posting tomorrow. Once the skids are machined we'll be able to start casting up and getting the kit on the website

Harry

yay! Any estimate on when the kits will be up for sale? I know I'll be getting one for sure!

this is sooo cool!

I don't know what to say!

Just keep it up and may the force be with u! ^^,

Joshh wrote:yay! Any estimate on when the kits will be up for sale? I know I'll be getting one for sure!

Cheers mate! Well hopefully (fingers very crossed) there won't be any problems with the casting and we'll have them up on the website before August. I've left the connecting parts of the sprue off the masters so we can lay them down in something like sculpey that we could just peel off and rearrange if the sprue doesn't cast well.

Here's the assembly instructions for the landing gear and wings. This should be pretty straightforward to machine.