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[DogmaRaider]

I've been doing some thinking about the overall design and version without making the tunnels for the side doors is possible and probably is easier in the long run.  Instead of making the inside a long continuous rectangle, you could think of it as an elongated widen Land Raider but with alcoves where the central external doors are.  It would be much easier and would cut the complexity and construction time.  I'll be giving this method a try when I move on to the Chaos Tzeentch Land Raider Exterminus.  For now I'll continue on with the tunneled version.

Here's a UPDATED ascii rendering... these are so awesome....

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[DogmaRaider]

Happy Thanksgiving!  Now its time for an update.  When I cutting the assault doors I must've been working on two hours sleep because I made the same error on both doors.  The cuts on both top and bottom doors, for some reason I made them short.  I found this out when I was mocking up the Exterminus.

For the bottom assault door, I added a piece of 2.0 mm x 4.0 mm plasticard.  If notice on the back of the bottom assault doors, There are indents for the teeth of the top assault door.  To preserve this, I cut out a 2.0 mm section of the 2.0 mm x 4.0 mm plasticard and replace it with a 1 mm thick plasticard piece.  With the plasticard in the middle, this brings the total width of the door to 65.0 mm not including the rods use to allow it to turn.  Actually I'm quite pleased with how it came out.

Assault Door - Bottom - Construction and Final


Moving back to the top assault door, the problem with using the Forgeworld door still remained.  To work in the Forgeworld door, I added plasticard extensions to existing plastic door.  Just as the bottom assault door, this top assault door is also 65.0 mm wide.

In retrospect I don't consider what I did to the bottom a failure.  In a way it helped me because what I didn't realize until now is that the teeth of the top assault Forgeworld doors and those indents on the backside of the bottom assault doors didn't line up.  To correct this problem, I cut a strip of plasticard and made my own teeth out of 2.0 mm x 2.0 mm.

Assault Door - Top - Final


Added the Forgeworld top and bottom assault doors to the mock up, its really starting to look like something.

Mock Up with Front Doors


The next challenge will be constructing a good looking front armor plate (where the assault cannon turret would sit) from all the pieces that I have lying around.  I've started to do some thinking and I want to try and combine the Prometheus kits.  There are some interesting bits and pieces on the front that I want to incorporate into the design.

Front Armor Panel - Ideas and Thoughts


One item in particular that I have in mind is using both headlight pieces.  Think those set on the sides with the turret sharing the middle with what I'll call the targeting optics on the Prometheus kit front would look pretty good.  What ideas do you guys have for the front of the Exterminus?

I'm definitely liking how this is coming together.  As always any questions and comments are always welcome!  Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

[DogmaRaider]

Moving right along, I started on the main front armor panel.  To start off, I did a thin cardboard mock-up of the front panel.  I just used part of a Quaker Oats Snack Bar box.

Mock Up – Front Armor Panel with Top Assault Door

http://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1387-3/mockup-frontarmorpanelwithtopassaultdoor-2008-11-30.png

In the picture above moving left to right the widths of the first plastic piece are 26.5 mm, the first cardboard piece is 11 mm, the next plastic piece is 26 mm and the final cardboard piece is 10.5 mm.  This configuration maintains the 74 mm total width of the engine piece that we manufacturer earlier and keeps the LRE square on all four corners.  This is very important as being off on any of the measurements means your LRE central core is going to be crooked causing more headaches than it already is!

You can use the configuration above to create your main front armor panel without any problems.  However as with any design, before I started cutting my first piece of plasticard, I changed my design.  One of the main considerations was having both optical hoods (for lack of a better name) on either side of the armor piece.  If you look at a regular Land Raider, the optical hood that I'm talking about if found on the left side of the main front armor panel.

Now I have two different types of these optical hoods.  The first type is the standard one found on the front of the Land Raider now.  The second one is the more detailed one that exists on the front armor panel of the Prometheus Land Raider Kit from Forgeworld.  I love the extra detail on things and have decided to put two of these optical hoods on my LRE.  Each optical hood will flank the main front armor panel on either side with the turret cut-out offset to the right (when looking at the panel from the front) and perhaps one other small piece of detail to the left of the turret cut-out.  This modification required me to change the widths of the plasticard fill-in pieces to 8 mm and 13.5 mm respectively with the larger of the pieces being placed to the right.

This configuration will cause some problems with the hinge positions so I'll have to cut out and move those as need but it shouldn't be too much extra work.  To start off, I cut out and replaced the hinge cover closest to the turret cut-out with plasticard.  I preserved the hinge cover as I'll be using it later.

Right Front Armor Panel – Hinge Cover Cut Out

http://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1397-3/rightfrontarmorpanel-hingecovercutout-2008-11-30.png

Moving right along, the next step was to add the right most plasticard piece to supplement the width of the armor.  Initially this piece was supposed to be 10.5 mm wide however with the added optical hood detail item I had to increase the width to 13.5 mm.  I started off by gluing small plasticard straps which work as backing pieces to support the plasticard front.

After measuring the thickness of the plastic front armor plate provided by GW, I found that its not precisely 1.0 mm wide but instead around 1.25 mm.  As 1.25 mm plasticard is virtually non-existent from what I found, I instead added an addition 0.25 x 2.00 mm plasticard strip to the backing straps which boost the armor level flush with the GW plastic.

Right Front Armor Panel – Build Up

http://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1396-3/rightfrontarmorpanel-buildup-2008-11-30.png

Now the picture above shows that the front hinge is still present.  Unfortunately during the gluing process I glued the assembly I was building to the wrong front armor plate.  You'll remember I have two of them as I'm building the LRE with two LR kits.  After taking the picture and realizing my error, I gently ripped the piece off and glued it to the correct one.  I have to learn to keep these extraneous parts out of the way while I'm working.

Put the right piece of the main front armor panel to allow the glue to dry, I then moved on to the left side piece.  Now here we have to first cut out the front optical hood detail item.  As I want to look like the one on the Prometheus front panel, I need to make some minor additions and modifications in plasticard for both to look the same.

Left Front Armor Panel – Optical Hood Removal and New Panel Backing

https://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1386-3/leftfrontarmorpanel-opticalhoodremovalandnewpanelbacking-2008-11-30.png

To cut the optical hood out of that piece, I carefully measured, marked and then gently scored and cut the piece out with a combination of Xacto and razor saw work.  The end result was a very clean polished cut with minimal damage to both pieces.  After removing the optical hood, I went right back to work again putting in backing straps and 0.25 mm spacers for the eventual addition of a plasticard front piece to fill the gap.

Tomorrow I'll go into detail as to creating the remaining pieces for the front main armor panel, creating a Prometheus-style optical hood (btw if any one has a better name for whatever that is, please let me know... it kinda sounds funny), and setting up the locations for the hinges for the top front assault door.

As always questions and comments are welcome!

[DogmaRaider]

Time to go into detail... literally.  Most of the major structures are complete except for the top panel and the tunnels.  I'll be tackling those this weekend; my last opportunity.

But first a little back tracking.  The magnets that I glued in to hold the sponsons seemed adequate however Falk on Warseer advised me that I should make something more substantial.  After I was able to take one of the magnets off quite easily with a pair of pliers I was convinced as well.  To build a bracket, I first built a template from plasticard.  This isn't a waste of time in my case as I'll be making at least 4 more of the Exterminuses.

Magnet Holder Bracket

http://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1452-3/magnetholderbracket-2008-12-08.png

After cutting a piece of 2.0 mm x 9.5 mm x 20 mm plasticard and drilling the holes, I put the magnets in sealed one end with a plasticard strip.  Placing the piece back in the same locations as the original magnets and we're back in business.  Thanks Falk!

Now I'm going to concentrate on some of the minor detail pieces that we've overlooked.  First we'll go back to the inside.  In a normal Land Raider, two of these bays are reserved for the hatch doors and GW provides you a detail piece and a set of doors.  If you remember I have four bays in the inside where you would normally mount the computer or utility detail pieces.

In order to get the coverage I want, I'm going to have to skin and rebuild some of the detail of these inside pieces.  This presents a unique issue in that the detail is on two sides of the same bit. 

Inner Panel Detail Skinning - Cutting

http://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1451-3/innerpaneldetailskinning-cutting-2008-12-08.png

Now I started this process just as I did with the optical hood however there is a snag with this one.  The winch detail on the one side is recessed so much that the placement of the saw on the first piece I cut went through into the detail.  It also went through the wrench and jack hammer detail section as well although not as bad.

Inner Panel Detail Skinning - After Cutting and Cleaning

http://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1450-3/innerpaneldetailskinning-aftercuttingandcleaning-2008-12-08.png

Above you can see that immediately after the cut, you can see that some of the backing material in the wrench and winch detail sections.  Using a new sharp Xacto blade and knife, I cut the remain backing around the detail.  You can see the results in the final picture above.

For the second piece, I directly cut the detail off the face side.  Even when doing this I still ended up cutting into the detail on the winch side although it wasn't nearly as bad.  This time I only had to remove the background of the winch detail.

Inner Panel - Final

http://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1449-3/innerpanel-final-2008-12-08.png

After both pieces were clean, I cut some 0.5 mm plasticard backing and glued them in place.  For the detail that I cut off, gluing on piece of plasticard solved that problem.  The final picture shows all of the pieces in place in the interior pieces of the Exterminus.

Tomorrow I'll be decorating the Christmas Tree but I should have something possible on Wednesday or Thursday night.  Until then, questions and comments are always welcome!

[DogmaRaider]

Oh man where does the time go.  The holidays really cleaned my clock along with moving of my web hosting so I had to take a bit of time off from the Exterminus.  But now we're back and with a vengeance.  Hopefully there should be no more interruptions as I move forward.

Starting off, we went right back to work with the engines.  I've already completed the outside engine minus now we have to look back inside to complete it.  Looking at the engine parts we have, some minor cutting and patching will be needed.

Internal Engine Construction

http://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1632-3/internalengineconstruction-2008-12-17.png

The challenge here is to place the cut such that it looks sensible as an engine but fits the width of the interior.  After some study, I started cutting one of the engine pieces vertically 22 mm from the left and 4 mm from the right hand side.  These cuts combined provide the best of both worlds but leaves two small sections open.  Two small pieces of plasticard seal up these holes nicely.  This gives the internal portion of the engine an overall width of 71 mm on the bottom edge.

Moving on, in the normal Land Raider kit you get xx set of pressure doors to put on the inside.  Now as we have four different possible interior openings that we need to provide doors for, I'll have to manufacturer two sets of doors.  Luckily we can easily just "borrow" the design and measurements from the existing ones, rinse and then repeat.

Internal Toothed Door Construction - Work in Progress

http://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1631-3/internaltootheddoorconstruction-workinprogress-2009-01-18.png

Now I've put off making the tunnels that span the interior and exterior doors.  To start off with, we'll take the easy route and make the ceiling.  I don't subscribe to the methodology that just because something won't been seen often that we can skimp on the design or the implementation.  As I've never the ceiling of an assault door tunnel, I'll just have to wing it from here.

To start off I cut a piece of 1 mm thick plasticard into a rectangle of 24 mm by 21 mm.  I then took 1 mm mm square rod and give the rectangle a border.  This setup provides an internal width of the tunnel ceiling.  The internal area of the ceiling is 22 mm x 19 mm.  Now I'll put some detail on it.

Tunnel Construction - Ceiling Tile with Light Fixture Detail

http://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1631-3/internaltootheddoorconstruction-workinprogress-2009-01-18.png

I started off in the center with a tiled piece of plasticard which looked a lot like lights.  For those interested it was Plastruct PS-42 (.180 square tile) and the width of the piece was 5 mm.

On the sides of the "lights" that I build up two pieces of U-shaped channel plasticard whose width was 1.5 mm and a length of 22 mm (Evergreen StripStyrene Item No.261).  To finish it off the horizontal ceiling sandwich, I added two pieces of 5.5 mm x 22 mm Plastruct 91681 HO Scale Tread Plate to the sides.

If we add up all of the widths of material, you'll see that it comes out to 19 mm exactly so no wasted space or gaps.  The overall look I think is pretty good for my first try.  Maybe when I do my Grey Knight ones I'll give a bit more thought but I think this is sufficient for now.  The next post or two, I'll cover the remainder of the tunnel sections and their assembly.

On a final note, during the Christmas season, given how many future projects I hope to take on, I purchased a new camera.  After some review, I choose the Nikon D90.  I'm still learning all the features but I think that and a new photographic setup are going to go a long way in making better pictures for the threads.  Any photographic advice is appreciated!

Nikon D90 Camera

http://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1633-5/nikond90camera-2009-01-18.png

Thanks for hanging in there!  Staying on track is tough with a full time job, looking for a house and other activities!  I actually am much further ahead but have to catch up on the posts.  Hopefully I'll have one mid-week sometime.

[DogmaRaider]

Alrighty with the Super Bowl playing in the background let us continue!  We left off last week with the building the ceiling of the tunnel.  Today we move on to the frame and the sides of the tunnel.

To start off, we need to start making the actual tunnel.  After some thought, instead of attaching the component parts directly to the inside of the interior of the Land Raider track assembly, I've decided to spend the time and build a frame for it to mount in.  This makes it easier to handle, takes all the guesswork out of alignment.

Tunnel Construction - Individual Frame

http://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1668-3/tunnelconstruction-frame-individual-2008-12-17.png

I've scanned my blueprints ahead of time which you can use as a pattern.  The entire frame is made out of 1 mm and 2 mm square rod.  In looking at them, I've designed them to be as minimalist as possible as everything still has to fit within the body of the Exterminus.

Scanned Blueprints for Frame

Using the measurements from the ceiling tile, built a floor tile in a similar fashion except I used a single solid rectangle of diamond plate plasticard.  Let's face it; its the floor.  Its not going to be exciting.... LOL.  You can also see that I've attached it to the frame as well.  Put a second frame on the other end and for the first time you can see the basic shape of the connecting tunnel.  Now we're starting to get somewhere!

Tunnel Construction - Top and Bottom - Panel in Frame

http://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1683-3/tunnelconstruction-topandbottompanelinframe-2009-02-01.png

Moving on we can see below that I've gone ahead and started the side panels.  Just as with the ceiling I created a 1 mm border lined panel except the dimensions in this case are 26 mm by 35 mm.  Now the next part I'm not so sure of; I have to fill them with some sort of detail.

Unfortunately I'm torn the detail pieces that I came up with.  As I only have the two kits to work with, I don't really have any other detail pieces that I can use from other sections of the Land Raider kits.  If I had my choice, I'd rip apart a Drop Pod kit and use some of those bits and panels to make interior panel.  As I don't have that option or the time, I've cobbled together some minor pieces that my friend can use to provide additional detail if he wants to.  Again this section of the model most probably won't be seen that often as its designed to be a "working" model and not a show piece.

Tunnel Construction - Side Panel Construction

http://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1673-3/tunnelconstruction-sidepanelconstruction-2009-02-01.png

Here are some more pictures of the tunnel as it stands.

Tunnel Construction - Side Panel in Frame

http://images.dogmaraiderville.net/d/1678-3/tunnelconstruction-sidepanelinframe-2009-02-01.png

Alrighty the Steelers have won; I guess that's good?!  I more of a hockey fan myself; go Rangers!  We still have some more pre-Christmas content to put up.  Hopefully we'll be able to get that posted next time then we'll move on to some assembly and finally design and development of the top.  I might revisit the fron too; I don't know if I'm satisfied with it.  Later!