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I have no idea where this should go here in Dakka Dakka and maybe it dose not belong at all If it doesn't belong I apologize in advance as I said in other posts here I lost most of my Ork Army in a house fire a few years back and with 8th addition out it has peeked my Mek blood again the first pic is of my workroom with Armor Cast Grate Gargant, and a second arm for it, 2 of my 6 Epicast Stopmas 4 Dreads. An old Land raider conversion WIP. A scratch built Bone Crusha and a scratch built Battle wagon the battle wagon was relocated to a glass cabinet and I still have it.

The Game shop I played at is Gauntlet Games in Lincoln NE USA. When word got out Armor Cast was losing the rights to make the Grate Gargants 6 of the Ork players there each bought one so we had 6 Armor Cast Grate Gargants in one shop (soo cool) I want one again I know it won’t be an Armor Cast one the cost is way too prohibitive these days if you can even find one.

Marty let me barrow his and I'm blue printing it out to sculpt it out of Plastic Card or at least I'm going to give it a try and to make it as close to what mine looked like I would like to post updates on its progress here but if it's not allowed please remove this thread.

Added some progress pics note the Armor Cast Resin Gargant did not have bottoms to their tiers, mines not resin. . this is going to take awhile

Love this so much. I’m planning on building one one day too so will watch this closely.

Good luck matey.

TY Andykp

The Foam core is strudy enough but I don't think it's going to work too well with the way I want the end product to look. Before I get much further I think I'll try another route at the same time. And abandon one a little later in the build. My original intent was to try my hand at vacume forming the body, but I would have to still make a blank. (wood or clay) I don't have the whole thing blue printed yet I wanted to see how hard it was going to be with the base first.So that's all I'm working on at the moment. I'm sort of winging it on the fly here as it were.

I have been thinking about using blocks of insulation foam, on foam core and sculpting the body, then cladding it in plastic cardd? All at the ideas stage for me.

Definitely look into 3mm sintra for internal ribbing. Strong foamed PVC...like foamcore but much more robust/strong. Not as easy to cut into curved shapes though.

Thanks Elbows I'm not familiar with sintra, I will look in to it. and I figured out I'm going to have to make a blank after all the bends are going to be more complex than I thought I could get away with. It will have to be out of wood or air dried clay. I have to be able to heat up the plastic card with my hot air gun to form it around the blank so I don't think insulation foam will work.

Cool, idea. Ventilate or you could do yourself a mischief mate! If I ever get started on mine I might pick your brains for some measurements. Like the scale of the Armor cast one and don’t want to do too much maths.

BAD KITTY!!! Don't turn your back on your cat. Now I have to re-draw them, sigh...

Bottom tier Blank about ready for forming Pastic Card

Pics, need pics???

Up dated Pics 11/03/2019 8:25 AM CST. My Blank in comparison to an Armorcasts Gargant and with Me, Bull Gunta Grimm Smakk standing on the Blank.

and

Here is the first try at forming my Pastic Card on my blank. It didn't turn out as good as I hoped but better than I expected. it should work ok once trimed up.


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maybe I need to use a different thickness of Plastic Card this was .020" I have one sheet of .010" but I think it's too flimsy. but it may form better.


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Trimmed the first piece of molded Plastic Card and attached it to the Foam Core armature.

Good work. Keep it up. If it’s too flimsy could reinforce the inside with filler or expanding foam or such like?

Definitely not flimsy (but very light) and standing on it's own foot (only one almost done, still working on both feet.) other side is being supported by a little foam core stacked up, at the moment to even it out. Base of tier is only 3/4 inch (bout 2 cm, I think that's right) off the table top. I have to do the rivets before I can attach the foot to the body the way I do rivets take a long time but they help to bond things together better, and they don't just pop off they have to be pulled out .

Well I figured up my cost for this build so far, and ouch! I don’t even have the bottom tier done yet. And I have used right at $80 in poly, foam core, glues, and epoxy. I have spent just over $140 in materials so far. I have not had as much waist as I thought I would, that’s a good thing. I'm having so much fun building this I don't care.

I have found that making the armature/framework out of foam core changed some of the sizes the Belly Gun for instance will be a bit smaller and I really like the way Krooza did his on his Armorcast Great Gargant , first posted in “The Waaagh”a few years back. I may try something on that order too. I was going to hold off modifying this build till after the basic Grate Gargant model was complete but the temptation is too great, to do it as I go….


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So I'm starting on the Belly Gun to get the size right before I finish the boiler plate.

Here is an update on how this build is going so far. With tips.

Most, (well all) my previous builds have not used curved pieces, so I have learned some things about plastic card (Poly Styrene) for this build .

(1) When heating up the poly to bend over the blank make sure you have a piece bigger than what you want your end product to be. The edges have a tendency to curl.
(2) You have to wear gloves cause it gets close to 300 degrees F, before the ploy will bend, and you have to be fast it cools fast and you have to press it onto the blank, if you’re not vacuum forming. Gloves should be smooth leather with very little to no texture; any texture could transfer to the hot poly.
(3) .020 or .040 poly works best for the initial covering but .060 works good for the boiler plate.

My build is light weight so PVC tubing is too heavy for the Belly Gunn parts. So I had to bend sheet poly into tubes. You’re better off buying poly/plastic tube the right size if you can find it.

(4) .010 works best for making ½ in. or bigger tubes but when you go to glue the edges down you really need a jig, pieces of poly with a holes the size you want your tube to be to hold your tube together. Don’t glue your jig to your tube.
(5) When gluing your tube seam together Cyanoacrylate (super glue, zap-a-gap et.) turns the poly real brittle (I think) and with the pressure of the bend .010 will have a tendency to just split so I recommend a plastic weld type solvent. I use Plastruct’s Plastic Weld. Takes longer to cure though.
(6) It helps to have round pieces of poly cut to fit inside your tube after it is formed to help maintain the round shape.
(7) Put the seam of your tube where it won’t be seen it looks terrible and you may want to green-stuff the seam and file/sand it smooth (remember .010 poly is very thin).

Have more to do to it but not sure if I like it yet or not.

It’s beginning to look awesome!! Looks like a gargant. A really big one. Good work.


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It’s beginning to look awesome!! Looks like a gargant. A really big one. Good work.

This...is...awwwweeeesomeeee!

Definitely see it through to completion!

Belly Gunn done enough. Time to move on to the last of the boiler plate. I wasn't sure if I liked the way this Belly Gunn turned out so I made it removable in case I want to put one on that looks like the one on the resin modle.

11/24/2019 here is this weeks update. I have the bottom tier roughed in and working on detail now. At this stage I have taken some liberties and started to alter the detail from the original risen model some I have left out like the gun above the belly gunn added some detail (most of witch won't be seen) inside where the belly gunn is. I have a lot of ideas for really changing the outside appearance but keeping the basic shape and dimensions of the original Epic style Armorcast 40k Great Gargant.

11/29/2019 This is as far as I'm going to go with the bottom tier for now time to move to the next tier up. So this is the end of "The remaking of my Great Gargant Part 1". I will start posting again for the next tier up in "The remaking of my Great Gargant Part 2". from what I understand I'm only allowed 30 Pics per thread and I was getting pretty close to that in this thread. I will really get into conversions after the whole thing is done or mostly done so I can get all the conversions to match up a little easier. I will post progress pics, clear to the end of the build. BUT the next post may be a couple of weeks we are going on vacation and the wife said I have to clean up my office before we go. I really trashed it out with this build LOL.

On to Part 2. Here is a Size comparison with Bull Gunta Grimm Smakk. I will check this thread for comments and questions I will answer what I can. Please check out Part 2

Wow. Amazing mate. Love the belly gun. Not ssure if you are going to inspire me or put me off cos mine will never look that good???

Pics of KrOoZa's build 2006, Andykp Thanks but we're Orks and they don't have to look great just as long as your happy with what you come up with. I can't take all the credit for my belly gunn I based it off a build by KrOoZa from around 2006 he used the resin gunn and modified it I'll post a picture of his work below so you can see where I got my idea.

Hoping to resurrect this, been away from dakka for a bit and want to see more.

Be nice to see how its progressed

Ah yes, the classic 'belly' gun. My goodness, that has to be those phallic object in warhammer history. It's looking great though, what clan colors are you planning to paint it with?