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Thunderhawk Cockpit:

Time to resume the Thunderhawk; most of the exterior detail is finished so I'm beginning with the interior furnishings starting with the cockpit.

My cockpit will not be as extensive as the FW version as I didn't have images of the interior prior to building the hull so what will be represented is the area directly below the canopy



Hard to believe they pilot these things in full combat regalia

 The_Blackadder wrote:

 hk1x1 wrote:
I've probably said this before, but this is absolutely stunning work and the finished version looks beautiful .

Also well done for persevering and getting it finished, 6 years is a long time to work on any project,
I'm hoping it wont take me quite so long to finish some of mine, but you never know .

Well six years is a bit misleading for in that time I finished my Warhound, built and painted my Warlord, built Lucius pattern armour for two resin Reavers (not finished), built a Landkreuzer from scratch (again not finished), painted an entire Tyranid army, built and painted two Tyranid bio-titans, painted and partially assembled two Chaos Warhounds and a Lucius FW Warhound and dozens of other small 40K projects too numerous to mention individually. that and pursued all my other hobbies so six years isn't all that long considering I wasn't that motivated to begin with to build a Thunderhawk Ha!

Would you be so kind as to point me toward said Lucie Pattern Reaver armours?


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Ha, it auto corrected Lucius..... how apropo.

 mxwllmdr wrote:


Would you be so kind as to point me toward said Lucie Pattern Reaver armours?

Ha!, I had a devil of a time finding this log myself anyway here is the link to the last page where I left the project last April

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/270/542441.page

I was running out of ideas and since 90% of the work was done I figured I could take a break. The rest is just adding the gewgaws, bangles and beads.


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Damn This Auto Append!

Balled Up Turret:

Likewise my first attempt at making a viable set of ball turrets turned out to be a disaster.

What I was seeking is a rotating ball turret as seen below

http://i.imgur.com/KXnF7Eq.jpg


but with fully trainable guns and I believe the FW version doesn't have that capability.


http://i.imgur.com/jTxQqXe.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/vowHL34.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/Vm344XV.jpg



http://i.imgur.com/d0x5XIl.jpg



http://i.imgur.com/slMcDxJ.jpg

Oh yeah, the Thunderhawk. Really intrigued by the ball turrets - how about though something similar to the Marauder bombers nose turret?

The shape seems to fit in better with the Thunderhawk aesthetic?

Thanks for the suggestion but I got my heart set on ball turrets

This Time We're Serious:

Okay time to separate the men from the boys...... I've yet to find an easy way to replicate spheres but it seems I never learn to stop trying. This latest fiasco involved substituting a pingpong ball for nittygritty hard work and planning and as per usual it didn't work so back to square one. The saving grace of employing the P.P.ball is I did manage to get a viable scale for the ball turret which seems to be right for a vehicle of this size.

http://i.imgur.com/x0kMvQV.jpg


To recap, what I am attempting to do is make a fully operational (as far as movement potential; Egad!) turret with guns that depress and elevate as a real ball turret would do so using the p.p.ball as a size guide I figure a centimeter would be correct for the swiveling elevation/depression cycle and the standard rim will suffice for the rotation.

This will hopefully be made clearer in the subsequent posts......... or fail utter-ably whichever the case may be.

It's all new ground to me, this one.

Oh, and BTW the new cockpit seats are to the background right; just saying............

Never fear, we have complete faith in your ability to figure this out and make it work

Black, do you own a heat gun?

Yeah but I never have used it; why?

This is either going to be a practical piece of advice or the funniest punch line ever - I'm hoping for the latter

Flogging a Dead Horse:

I'm forging ahead with the original ball turrets in spite of designing a set after the FW version so some of my work is original at least.

http://i.imgur.com/2SfjlVB.jpg


I don't know if the FW turret guns are elevate-able but mine are so therein lies the difference in appearance.

In theory the FW version can rotate in all directions, it's just very annoying to keep it functioning. I ended up fixing the ones on my Fire Raptor.

 Shandara wrote:
In theory the FW version can rotate in all directions, it's just very annoying to keep it functioning. I ended up fixing the ones on my Fire Raptor.

http://i.imgur.com/KXnF7Eq.jpg


Thanks for the info and from what I can see in the above image, the guns can train as would be in virtually any ball turret but what I cannot figure out is how with that rectangular view port above the gun base. unless the upper movement is severely restricted.

Can anyone provide me with a parts breakdown of the components?


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Fuzzy Images

You wouldn't think I have a SOTArt Cannon digital SLR camera judging by these fuzzy images but I still prefer my 20 year old Kodak 290 for some reason.....

http://i.imgur.com/lxMF3kh.jpg


Anyway the ball turrets are proceeding apace shown here in different stages of completion.

http://i.imgur.com/b7Fgwg7.jpg


Any questions you have on what I am doing or how I am doing it I'll be glad to answer....

http://i.imgur.com/vrug9og.jpg


Hmmm, the above image doesn't bear close inspection; left gun sight is a bit cattywampus....

http://i.imgur.com/5FtnXci.jpg

What Am I Missing?

For the life of me I cannot figure out how these guns can elevate. With the rectangular view port and mount plate it seems that the gun mount shield (Plate between the guns) when the guns are elevated will interfere with the viewport and vise versa. If the side hemispheres only rotate upward then the viewport is not looking where the guns aim plus the entry hatch miss aligns. Or alternately it's just another FW bollock-up in the design department and it just looks good and can't function.


http://i.imgur.com/KXnF7Eq.jpg


Anyway here's mine with out detail as yet but fully functional at least regarding movement.

http://i.imgur.com/HayxArK.jpg


Anyone who has this turret, can you post some images of what the turret looks like in the full elevated and full depressed configuration...

Thx.

Ouze has this image on his gallery showing the back of the turret and how it moves vertically - not sure if it helps...

Oh I see thanks, that's a big help; much obliged.

Happy to help and eager to see progress

Best I Can Do:

Try as I might this is the best range of elevation I can come up with using ping pong balls.

http://i.imgur.com/oHyIRWt.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/6LhhtNS.jpg


The front view is satisfactory so now for the detail:

http://i.imgur.com/VBchYxf.jpg

AAA

Final Bits of Fluff:

Okay with these final bits of fluff the exterior of the T'hawk is just about done. I daresay there might just be a couple of negligible items such as Turbo laser strut cradles et cetera but nothing that would preclude my painting the exterior. This has been a good year for me as most of my long term projects have reached fruition.

http://i.imgur.com/HGgpiBl.jpg


I decided to keep the ping-pong ball turrets as they are and add the view port and paraphernalia to the elevation race plate. The upper end of the elevation is in need of restriction so the canard wings won't get shot off in the heat of battle.

Now all needs be done is the interior of the cockpit and installing the interior of the forward cargo bay.

No I haven't decided whether to add the auto-fire dual bolters on either side of the nose abaft the front cargo door.

Never really been a fan of those dual bolted anyway....



Looked flimsy to me....

Irrevocable Painted Primer Grey:

Before the fatal black paint

http://i.imgur.com/ACrlxv4.jpg


with a rare rear view that will not be seen once installed.

Some Dumb Disney Movie:

A pair of Wall-E esque homemade twin bolters round out the forward armament slated for the Thunderhawk.

http://i.imgur.com/DryLZcN.jpg


Now whether I actually cut the holes in the fuselage to accommodate these hefty trainable beauties remains to be seen.

http://i.imgur.com/Ax66nBm.jpg


I was scrounging around in my bitz box and came up with enough material to make my own version of the FW T'hawk bolter armament.

http://i.imgur.com/fAJ32IM.jpg


The sighting unit above the bolter array reminded me of the cutesy robot in some dumb Disney movie

Are these to go under the front wings? Your T-hawk will be bristling with weaponry, but then that's the definition of 40k isn't it...

These'll go on either side of the front cargo door in the classic T'hawk position:



BTW I modeled My T'hawk based on this most excellent 3D drawing and it is almost a third longer than the FW version (Dare I say 'true scale?) so I can get away with such large bolter arrays.

meanwhile the cockpit interior continues apace............

http://i.imgur.com/LVfjOkG.jpg

You made that creation.

My jaw is in Australia.....

Thanks,

Servo Assist?

Having worked in the commercial aviation industry for a good portion of my adult life up to and including 747 jumbo jets I've yet to see control columns as robust as these on the Thunderhawk so my supposition is that the servo assists are actually in the control columns. Cumbersome but viable I suppose.

http://i.imgur.com/vDZeIvU.jpg


I was hoping that the cockpit paraphenalia would disguise the fact that the pilots had no legs (being actually Rhino machinegunners) but no such luck.

http://i.imgur.com/nrm8cS8.jpg


So I need a rational as to why they are lower extremity deficient.........

http://i.imgur.com/2PVM0zQ.jpg

Hardwired to the thawk? Like a weapons servitude in a warhound?


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Or, hey, just put a shroud around them at the waist like a roller coaster seat restraint only more "robust"....


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Thinking something like a dalek wheelchair...lol...

The Misery Compromise

After a futile attempt to garner a set of legs from my bitz box I settled on purchasing a landspeeder cockpit on ebay. What strikes me the most is the near miss I made regarding the scale of the cockpit accoutrements

http://i.imgur.com/PHXWcja.jpg


With very little adjustments at all it will be child's play to reassemble the cockpit with gen-u-wine FW artifacts; a source of great personal satisfaction to me.

http://i.imgur.com/UVyp8Hc.jpg


While I have the cockpit in pieces perhaps I'll indulge myself in a bit of pre-assembly painting....

http://i.imgur.com/BLflkqk.jpg


Whoops but first I'd better file down the sprue attachment residue :blush:

AAA bump

Loving all of it, as usual!

Department of Redundancy Department:

Enough Blackadder enough! Too many images of virtually the same thing but ahh; subtly not......

Micro variations that only I can perceive are happening and rather than a flurry of un recorded activity I'll bore you with incessant detailed updates.

http://i.imgur.com/DjW59Jh.jpg


The new cockpit revamped from the old fits much better under the canopy and the figures will be seen better duplicating the FW version....

http://i.imgur.com/hpu304M.jpg


The straight on shot reveals the fit of the landspeeder crew is a dead on duplicate of the resin original.

http://i.imgur.com/Fahfwsg.jpg