Chaos Marines DIY - Wælheim Pattern Autocannon for Havocs

[Warsmith Aznable]

Wælheim Pattern Autocannon

I wanted to have some Autocannon Havocs for my Chaos Space Marine warband, but I don't like buying metal figures. I'm also currently skint, so that was also a factor. I decided to make some with plastic parts already on hand, and I think the result was good enough to share with the B&C as a tutorial. Without further ado:

-What you need-

1. The Reaper Autocannons from the Defiler kit. (Your Defilers should be loaded up with extra DCCWs anyway)
2. The Heavy Bolter from the basic Chaos Space Marines boxed set

To start:
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/ac-tutorial-reapercutting.jpg
Cut the barrels of the Reaper off just behind the reinforcement rings on the receiver.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/ac-tutorial-barrelshaping.jpg
Cut and file the excess so that it's just the barrels and reinforcement rings. It's better to file the back flat while it's still got the barrels attached to it.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/ac-tutorial-thebarrelpieces.jpg
This is how you cut the barrel up. I leave two ventilation holes on the barrel part I want to use. Toss the middle part and flatten and smooth the pieces with a file.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/ac-tutorial-heavyboltercuts.jpg
This is how you cut up the Heavy Bolter. Slice off the ammo belt and the barrel parts, then file smooth. It's important that you file it nice and flat, and make sure that everything is at right angles before you glue it. You don't want your barrels to be going off at an angle.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/ac-tutorial-filingtheammodrumarea.jpg
This is what it looks like once you attach the shortened Reaper barrels to the Heavy Bolter receiver. A little dab of glue (I use Loctite gel for this) and you've got the basic cannon. Cut off the brass deflector on the ejection port and filed that area smooth, because that's where the ammo drum is going.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/ac-tutorial-cuttingtheammodrum.jpg
This is .25" plastic tubing. I've cut a section about 8mm long.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/ac-tutorial-affixingtheammodrum.jpg
Glue this section of tubing to the side of the autocannon where you smoothed the ejection port a bit.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/ac-tutorial-tracingthedrumends.jpg
Trace the ends of the tubing on some flat plasticard. I don't have the package this came in anymore, but I can tell you it's not terribly thick, maybe 1mm.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/ac-tutorial-ammodrumends.jpg
File the flat drum ends as round and smooth as you can, but don't go crazy. The pieces should be bigger than the diameter of the drum by about 1.5mm.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/ac-tutorial-cuttingoutthewhatnots.jpg
Take some solid round bar plastic of about 1/16th of an inch or so and cut some little rivet sized pieces off. I make several, because I invariably cut some sideways and there's just no way to file these flat. Just eyeball that sucker and use the best two.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/ac-tutorial-ammo-whatnots.jpg
Glue the flat round bits to the end of the tubing section. It's going to stick out because it's larger than the tubing, so bias it to stick out a little bit on the top, but be basically even. You could be fancy and file one side flat to snug it up, but I don't think it's necessary so long as the round pieces are more or less round. A dab of glue and the "rivet" pieces go in the middle of the ammo drum ends.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/ac-tutorial-topthingcopy.jpg
Some solid square bar 1.5mm x 1.5mm. Measure it against the gap. It's going to fit into that area on top, snug between the lips you left when you biased it to stick out more on top.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/ac-tutorial-assembled.jpg
It can be fiddly to get it in there straight. You put in too much glue and it runs. You don't put in enough and it sticks quickly and probably at an angle. This top piece is just to add texture and to distract the eye from the fact the end pieces won't be perfectly round or matched to the tubing.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/ac-tutorial-complete.jpg
Give it to one of your Chaos Space Marines and paint that mother! He's totally ready to rock-n-roll now!

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/5thsquad-wip-001.jpg
And they're easy to make, so you can have a squad of Havocs in no time!

I hope somebody finds this useful or interesting!

[Brother Nihm]

Very useful, thanks!

 

Is there any chance that you could submit this to the Librarium as a hobby-modelling article?

[Warsmith Aznable]

Very useful, thanks!

 

Is there any chance that you could submit this to the Librarium as a hobby-modelling article?

 

I would be happy to. I'm not sure how to do that at the moment, but I'll figure it out when I'm done with school today.

[Brother Nihm]

If you need help try getting a hold of one of the Librarium staff, or failing that, I'll give it a go.

[Argon]

I tried doing a similar conversion, but I couldn't get it to look the way I wanted. Thank you, sir. I will be most certainly be using this.

[Warsmith Aznable]

The submit new article function didn't work for me, so I emailed a codicier based on the Librarium read-me. We'll see what they think.

[Brother Nihm]

Hey Max,

Just a heads up, here's why it doesn't work at the moment:

 

Real life has interfered with our plans, though we hope to have the new and improved Librarium ready for business soon. No promises on when, though, as there's too much going on.

[Warsmith Aznable]

Well it's good to know it wasn't just me! :D

[Brother Nihm]

Indeed! ;)

[Loken86]

I thank you brother this tut is great im about to build sum for my night lords ^_^ welldone

[Warsmith Aznable]

I thank you brother this tut is great im about to build sum for my night lords :whistling: welldone

 

Awesome, thank you!

[Iron Fang Thunderwolf]

Sweet conversion man, I like it

[Paulochromis]

As an alternative to the plasticard drum, consider a meltabomb (with the handle removed).