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What I find amazing, truly, is the windshield wipers.

Thanks for the waltz down memory lane!

Man that thing is ridiculous

Good fortunes and for the love of feth dont drop it. you might crack the foundation

Have you thrown that thing on a scale yet to see how much it weighs? Also, good jerb!

I can only imagine how much that thing weighs. I remember when GW first starting selling those things. They were billed as strictly collector's pieces and implied heavily that they weren't meant to be used in games.

As far as Citadel Journal was concerned, here in the States at least, it wasn't pushed. It was barely available in official GW retail outlets, and never really explained. Only crazy diehards like myself ever even bought the thing. It was mostly obscure rules for out of print GW games back then.

Looking more at the rockets it looks like they are a piece specifically for the Thunderhawk. The Whirlwind launcher is obviously the basis, but the ones for the Thunderhawk are twice as long.

 Briancj wrote:
What I find amazing, truly, is the windshield wipers.

How else do you get 'Nid bug splatters off the windows?

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Briancj wrote:
What I find amazing, truly, is the windshield wipers.

How else do you get 'Nid bug splatters off the windows?

I like to imagine somewhere in the Imperium is a minor Forgeworld devoted to the veneration of the STC template and the manufacturing of all the Imperium's windshield wipers. They are given the highest level of strategic solely because of the sheer volume of war machines that use this necessary and most important component. The Omnissiah be praised for the gift of clear sight!

 aka_mythos wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Briancj wrote:
What I find amazing, truly, is the windshield wipers.

How else do you get 'Nid bug splatters off the windows?

I like to imagine somewhere in the Imperium is a minor Forgeworld devoted to the veneration of the STC template and the manufacturing of all the Imperium's windshield wipers. They are given the highest level of strategic solely because of the sheer volume of war machines that use this necessary and most important component. The Omnissiah be praised for the gift of clear sight!

I'd bet it's near the one that makes the turn signals.

 Zuul wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Briancj wrote:
What I find amazing, truly, is the windshield wipers.

How else do you get 'Nid bug splatters off the windows?

I like to imagine somewhere in the Imperium is a minor Forgeworld devoted to the veneration of the STC template and the manufacturing of all the Imperium's windshield wipers. They are given the highest level of strategic solely because of the sheer volume of war machines that use this necessary and most important component. The Omnissiah be praised for the gift of clear sight!

I'd bet it's near the one that makes the turn signals.

They're still looking for the STC for the hydraulics bounce systems

Thanks Gitsplitta, almost there!

That must have been the case then Mythos, which means if there were any updated rules they would have been only for that special event/ scenario.

Hehe, thanks Briancj, what great wonders humanity developed before the onset of Old Night!

Hehe, very true Desubot, I'd be afraid to drop it on my foot or something!

@Razor_Wølf: I'll definitely do that once it is all done! There was another fellow's blog who did just that, but I can't seem to find it right now! I'll keep looking! Thanks!

@Warboss_Waaazag: Yup, and I scoured for awhile looking for any possible rules, but it's quite clear that GW had no intention of making the T-hawk an everyday vehicle at that time. My FLGS did carry Citadel Journal, but I don't recall seeing it all that often at other such stores.

@Dreadclaw69: Hehe, that's because it's actually two of them glued together, it came with four of them so I assumed that was the original intention of the person who had it before me and it's what Fred Reed did!



Hehe, glad everyone's having fun discussing the necessity of windshield wipers in the grim-dark war zones of the 41st millennium!

So, even closer to being done! In fact I could probably finish it tonight, but I want to relish the final moments and not rush it! For today, I pinned and glued the cannon assembly in place, and with that was able to position the six top hull rivet strips. As I noticed on the Games Day models, the two that are placed along the edge of the T-hawk's canopy are bent at the top so as to connect with the strips placed on the top hull!





As you can see, I actually drilled out the cannon's barrel, it was a real pain, but I'd go crazy if it weren't! I also went ahead and glued on the landing vent things. This kit has the option to keep them open so you can see the wires and crap. I opted to just glue them shut. In my mind, that kind of "detail" is just a liability.



So, all that's left is the tail and the secondary wings, and yes, I added lascannons, but that is another story...

Drilling out the gun barrels is a sign of a true hobbyist.

My my this thing is coming along nicely. I have really been enjoying watching all this progress! Any plans for adding a few more details to the kit or are you leaving it as is?

Hehe, thanks Gitsplitta, I can certainly agree with that sentiment! I didn't always drill out my barrels, but one day I saw the light and had a large back-log of barrels to drill, but not today!

And thanks for following along all this time Commander Cain! I'll say one thing for this kit, it does not skimp on the detail for a metal model made in the mid-90s. I'm not sure what else I could add other than the lascannons and missile launchers. Possibly some Iron Hands icons, but I'm happy using decals on this guy. Due to the historical nature of this model I'm happy to maintain it's original look an appeal.

Well, it is done! Nothing left to do except paint it, and everyone knows my track record for that. Overall, I'm quite proud of the fact that it doesn't look as if it will be falling apart under its own weight anytime soon! I'm bit saddened it's done. For all the hard work, it was pretty fun (more fun than building a Storm Eagle for sure) and I always considered it the last present from my father before he passed away. So, here are some final pics!

A wonderful tribute to his memory. A great accomplishment for you as well. Beautifully done. You need to make the effort and paint it.

Such a great project. I am loyal follower of your PM blog and this is definitely accomplishment which stands above everything else you did so far especially that it holds emotional bond.
You can be proud of yourself this model seems very hard to build (probably still easier then new FW stuff ) and I was wondering since first time I saw it in White Dwarf how much does it weight (in kilos if you could please not those confusing imperial units ).

Thanks Gitsplitta! Hehe,my Dad was more into real-world aircraft, but I think he would have appreciated the work that went into puttng the T-hawk together! Yeah, at the moment it's not completely for lack of effort, just space. I'm a pretty messy painter, so I need a wide space lest I accidently ruin my surroundings!

Great, thanks dubovac for being a loyal follower and for so long, hehe! Yes, I'll definately weight it once I have it in the vacinity of a scale. Right now it's in my office, so I have to figure out how I'll transport it to my flat!

Brilliant piece & a worthy piece for the memory of your dad! the model itself is epic! what a wonderful piece! Cant wait to see what you do with the paintjob..... but first... am looking forward to hearing hoe you get it home!

I see the metal Mayhem continues! Good work so far on a antique miniature

Can you get an actual WEIGHT of that beast?

I raise a glass to your departed Father.

Well done on the completion of assembly, it's looking very fuzzy and nostalgic now, it would almost ruin it if you painted it lol! But yeah, you gotta get it painted up.... At some point anyway.

It was a real treat following this build. Congratulations!

Delicous-heavier-than-your-obese-cat-Thunderhawk build! It was a wonderful project to watch and the fact it has family behind it increases the signifigance.

Learned some dandy tricks from watching you. I need to pick up some small brass tubing now. Great work Heliodore.

Thunderhawk... HO!!!

That's a beauty

Hehe, glad you like it! Yeah, I ended up carrying it home, about a 2 km walk! My hands were a bit shaky by the end! Sadly I don't have a scale there, so I won't be able to weight it till I take it to my new place, which is much further away!

Many thanks shasolenzabi!

Cheers Briancj! I promise I'll get the weight once I have my T-hawk in the same place as a working scale!

Much appreciated Calibanite Lion! Hehe, too bad I don't play Silver Skulls!

Thanks again for following along all this time Zeke 169!

Thanks Stormwall, glad you could benefit from my posts. I kind of wish I had taken better pics of all the pinning I did, but when you get to the point where you've been drilling for hours, dry fitting, and sanding, you just want to get the glue flowing and not stop to take some pictures, hehe! Anyways, here is a shot of the 4 sizes of brass rod I used. The thickest is what I used on the wings and engines. The middle two were for heaving pinning, like the cannon and structural supports, and the thinnest was for all the basic pinning, for panels and what not!



Thanks as well Ruglud!

For aka_mythos, the metal T-hawk next to a Storm Raven:

Interesting comparison, I always felt that the T-Hawk should be much much bigger, that comparison makes it look just a bit longer and the wings wider.

Thank you very much for the shots btw.

Yeah Knightly, hehe, I agree, it is on the small side, but I think big enough considering the material it's made of. The FW resin kit is definitely a bigger model, but weights far less! It's amazing how far GW has come in 20 years!
My pleasure, I'm happy to do requests with any of the models I have on hand!

Take a look at a marine from the era of that T-hawk next to a marine of today. It will explain everything about the size discrepancy.

Yeah Gitsplitta, that's definitely true! Although, even then I think the metal T-hawk was scaled down a smidgen anyways. The kit came with two SM pilots, the same two that came with the 2nd edition metal land speeder, and they look incredibly cramped sitting next to each other in the open cockpit (more so than on the land speeder), which is why I opted not to include them in my build. I'm not completely sure, but I believe that even in 2nd edition fluff (40k and whatever Epic was called at that time) the T-hawk was said to be able to transport dreadnoughts, and looking at the size of the nose and assault ramp, a 2nd edition dreadnought could probably not fit inside, let alone embark or disembark.

Wow, I guess this explains why the thunderhawk from that old battle of terra diorama looked so small.

I look at the completed T-Hawk next to the newer plastic Storm Raven, and realize GW has always been a company that simply used representational models, not accurately scaled.

In fact, I wonder if they ever would bother making accurate scale minis