How to build an all-plastic Land Raider Crusader

[Kalamadea]

I posted a picture of this in my deathwing thread, and due to the number of requests for a tutorial I thought I'd make a seperate thread. I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of the various steps, so I'll try and do as complete a step-by-step description as I can. Note that there are larger, more detailed pictures here, just click on "original" for size.

 

http://i.pbase.com/o4/21/423121/1/59781435.WIP004.JPG

http://i.pbase.com/g4/21/423121/3/59781433.WIP002.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/g4/21/423121/3/59781434.WIP003.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/g4/21/423121/3/59781449.WIP017.jpg

 

Basic parts list of the plastic LRC:

--A land raider (duh)

--6 unassembled storm bolters off the space marine vehicle sprue

--4 dreadnought assault cannons,

--1 plastic MM off a land speeder

--the grip off the plastic Cadian/Catachan heavy weapons team

--a bit of plastic rod and sprue

--Plastic Cement. MUCH better for this than super glue. I personally suggest Plastruct Bondene, although I hear good things about Tanarax as well.

 

First, assemble the LRC as normal, but leave the sponsons and heavy bolter housing seperate.

 

For the hurrican bolters:

--Clip and clean all the bits for the sponson and the 6 storm bolters, but don't assemble them.

--take the center post that the lascannons attach too. Carve away everything but the central post. You could use some plastic rod instead, but the original post, even carved down, has some extra detail that'll look nice when painted up. Either way, you want the central post to be square, or at least have square sections to glue the storm bolters onto.

--At this point you should fully assemble the sponson housing (the back plate, lower and upper plate and central post). Whether you leave the post free turning or glued in place is completely up to you. The reason you should assemble the sponson housing and post first is becuase there's barely enough room for 3 storm bolters in the sponson, and if you glue the bolters to the central post before assembling the sponson housing you may not have enough room.

--The stormbolter halves have holes on the inside that need to be filled with putty. Also, clip off the sights and any other bits to make the right and left halves of each bolter as uniform as possible.

--glue 3 of the same storm bolter halves one on top of the other, with the contact point being the bottom of the ammo clip attaching to the top of the bolter casing. Make sure they're straight at this point before they dry. Do this 4 times so you have two sets of right storm bolter halves and 2 sets of left stom bolter halves.

--glue the sets of storm bolters to the center post, a right and left set on either side. There's nothing to really align the two sets so you'll just have to eyeball it to get everything to line up.

 

For the Assault Cannons (how I did it):

Note: great care must be taken at each step to make sure you're cuts are square, even and flat. Otherwise everything will be off a little bit and won't look right.

--glue the 4 assault cannon arms together and cut off the assault cannons themselves. Typically, the lower brace of the assault cannons breaks, so I clip the whole lower brace off to be replaced by plastic rod (see pics)

--with a sharp X-acto knife, cut the back ends of all 4 assault cannons so that 2 will fit back-end to back-end and glue them that way. You should now have two seperate double length assault cannons with "fronts" facing both ways. (my joints here were pretty messy, hence the white putty in the middle of my assault cannons).

--cut one end off each assault cannon, taking care to keep bth the same length.

--cut off the front half of each heavy bolter, just after the interlocking joint. Glue the back ends together onto the weapon housing. Should look like the regular heavy bolters with no front halves and no cover plate at this point

--Glue the barrels of the assault cannons in place of the heavy bolters you chopped in half.

--If the lower brace broke off, replace it with a length of plastic rod. Also glue the top plate onto the weapon at this point.

 

For the Assault Cannons (if I were to do it again):

--make the heavy bolter housing as above, clipping off the front ends.

--take some hexagonal plastic rod and cut two equal sections the length you want the assault cannon to be

--cut 12 lengths of round plastic rod the same length as the hexagonal plastic rod

--glue a piece of round plastic rod to each side of the hexagonal plastic rod. Should look like an assault cannon now.

--glue the assault cannons to the heavy bolter housing

--if you want you could add some more detail by adding a new lower brace out of styrene rod and a new main barrel out of styrene rod. You could also take some styrene strips and wrap the front end of the assault cannon to look like a brace.

 

The Multi-melta: (this ones easy)

You could simply glue the plastic multi-melta to the normal pintle-mount cupola, but it's not terribly strong. Instead, this is what I did.

--cut a length of sprue, about 1"~1.5" long.

--cut one end at roughly a 45

[Solid]

Great Job, And a awsome post to anyone who has attempted to put a crusader togeather.

 

 

*thumbs Up*

[Penitent Dreadnought]

*looks at join between side armor and top* I had trouble there myself...

 

So what are you doing to represent the frag assault launchers?

[Master Chaplain Astador]

Looks good, but as already asked, what about the frag assault launchers?

I might just do this since I don't have the money to buy a Crusader and two more Terminator squads for my Black Templar Deathwing.

[Captain Arakis]

Thats amazing. I daresay its better than the metal version! You might want the metal frag launchers though.

[rabid bunny 666]

Liar

 

there's resin on that there Land Raider

 

:D

 

i like it, though the hurricane bolters do look a bit weedy for my tastes

[Freakiq]

i like it, though the hurricane bolters do look a bit weedy for my tastes

 

If you'd try to assemble the metal hurricane bolters and ended up with your entire body covered in superglue and metal parts you'll think differently. :D ;)

 

Damn I hate that model, this plastic version is just what we needed. :)

 

 

 

500th post! B) (This is the second time I get 500 posts :) )

[Ahmato]

Splendid LRC, 'tis a great idea :)

 

Unfortuanately, I don't have a lot of these bits, so it would be much cheaper to just buy the LRC, and hope I learnt something from building it last time ;)

[Tiberious]

Looks great. I would like larger mags on the bolters though.

 

If you'd try to assemble the metal hurricane bolters and ended up with your entire body covered in superglue and metal parts you'll think differently. :) ;)

 

 

Luckily I've never had that problem. Both Crusaders I have built have went togather well.

[Freakiq]

Well the one I built for a friend had all bent parts and a lot of flash.

 

(now i'll stop hijacking this thread :P )

[Callas]

Excellent - many thanks for this; my Chappie's personal tracks just got one stage closer....

[Kalamadea]

Luckily I've never had that problem. Both Crusaders I have built have went togather well.

 

Okay, now I hate you :D

 

Seriously though, I've put together two of the metal ones and they're a pain in the arse. If you don't pin each piece they fall apart, and I don't know about the rest of you but I hate pinning. Either way, the sponsons are so heavy and lopsided that they clunk around when you move the model unless you glue them in place. Not impossible to assemble and it's not as bad as some of the Rackham and privateer press figures, but in general it's just a pain in the butt. Hence the plastic (and resin) version.

[rabid bunny 666]

i like it, though the hurricane bolters do look a bit weedy for my tastes

 

If you'd try to assemble the metal hurricane bolters and ended up with your entire body covered in superglue and metal parts you'll think differently. :D :(

 

Damn I hate that model, this plastic version is just what we needed. :(

 

 

 

i've never had the joy of assembing an LRC, so i suppose i'm lucky :P

[madscuzzy]

Now this be interesting. Do your side sponsons fire at 90+ degrees like a LRC or 180+ like a normal LR? How many degs can a LRC fire in the first place? :)

[LeeMXT]

well i gotta say - fantastic post!!!!!

 

this is such a cool conversion - and i think people forgot to mention the money saved as opposed to the 40 quid crusader kit!!!! just need a fat bitz box...

[Ahmato]

this is such a cool conversion - and i think people forgot to mention the money saved as opposed to the 40 quid crusader kit!!!! just need a fat bitz box...

 

I thought it was

[Kalamadea]

Actually, it's considerably more expensive than a rgular LRC unless you already have the parts laying around in your bitz box. I thought about doing another one for my space wolves (and this time taking step by step photos), but the sprue that the stormbolter is on is $9.00 USD. I have so many terminator arms left over from my DW that I'm looking into using them, we'll see.

 

Now this be interesting. Do your side sponsons fire at 90+ degrees like a LRC or 180+ like a normal LR? How many degs can a LRC fire in the first place?

That's an interesting question, I always assumed the LRC had a full 180

[Pleasuredome]

I would have gone with tactical bolters instead of the storm bolters on the sponson weapons

Else , great work . Clean conversions , nice AC .

[Exhumed]

This is of course assuming at some point you've already bought 4 plastic dreadnoughts and other such kits, and not used those most useful of weapons :tu: But still, looks fien to me. What could you use for the multi melta shield plate thing?