Paper hammer research project

So I'm going to put together a series of videos about scratch building with the first section of the series talking about Paper crafting, or more commonly known as paper hammer in our circles. As a prep for the project I'm doing a bit of an exploratory project to build a paper-hammer baneblade, that way I can make the mistakes, and find the screw ups, make note of them and address them in the finished project. So here's my progress on the exploratory or as I call it "This is what I screwed up!" As a bit of fellow-40k blogger support, and credit where credit is due, I'll be pulling a lot of references from Virtual Stranger's blog "In The Grim Cheapness of the Future...". He completed a paper-craft build of a plague reaper based on the same plans I'm using for the BaneBlade. He chronicled much of his work and much like myself, he believes in showing people his screw ups so others can learn from them. So now I'm the one making the screw ups and you get to learn from my screw ups.

The Lascannons were actually the first parts I built for this project. I had a brain storm about how to go about building them. By rolling strips of cardstock that have been saturated with white glue around the body of a tooth pick and then rolling additional pieces to affect the extra details. Then affixing pieces of cardboard for the under barrel support and muzzle. This allowed me to build up details and get that more unique Lascannon shape and design. Overall, I am pleased with how the lascannons turned out.

The next part I worked on was the main body with the demolisher cannon. The cannon doesn't move sadly. Perhaps in the next version. This is an example of one of the things that the plans I'm working from leaves out. There are no plans for the demolisher cannon beyond the side mounts. The back of the mounts, the cannon, the barrel base, none of them are in the plans. So I have to design them myself.

I could see that the major join between the forward hull and the upper hull was going to be a critical point of connection. So in order to reinforce that added extra layers of cardboard to the connecting planes and added braces on the under side of the turret mount.

The mounting for the main turret was a bit of a challenge for a couple reasons. Firstly because there isn't any sort of mount in the plans. You just have the turret, and then you the upper hull. Nothing to really mate the two together. So another part I needed to design and build myself. What I did is I measured out a circle that would fit inside the space for the turret, it turned out to be about 5cm in diameter. Using a little geometry I cut a strip of cardboard that would roll up to be a tube with a diameter of 5cm. I rolled it up to form that tube, then glued a cap on one end of it. To help reinforce the tube I added cross bracing inside the tube. Then I put a lot of white glue into it and allowed that to dry for a couple days.

A nice trick I found for when you need to make something round you can cut a series of shallow cuts across the width of a piece of cardboard, you can more easily roll it into a tube. In this case each cut is 4mm after the previous.

I mounted a series of 4 sheets of cardboard in the bottom of the upper hill section all with the 5cm hole cut out to accept the mount for the upper turret. By layering the cardboard like this it greatly increases the strength of the part.

 

Always such a challenge finding ways to hold parts together while glue dries.

The finished upper hull and the main turret mount. Turned out really well if you don't mind my being a bit boastful.

The main cannon. This one I'm rather proud of. See it's built in layers. The first layer is a length of Cardboard 8cm long with 3mm shallow cuts made down the length to allow it to be rolled up. With that innermost portion built I then cam back and rolled lengths of Cardstock around the base of the barrel and the end of the barrel. I them added a second layer of cardstock, but shallower then the first, over top of the layer at the base. Then I added one more layer of cardstock over top of that. I came back and added some barrel bracing with thin strips of cardboard. I then designed the barrel vent piece for the front of the barrel. Was a royal pain to cut out the vents. I have to use only the sharpest and newest blades. I wound up using 4 blades to cut that one piece out.

Here's the main body with the demolisher cannon, twin-linked heavy bolter turret, and main turret. Somehow it looks like some sort of boat to me at this stage.

And then come the tread assemblies. This is a part that isn't 'in' the plans exactly but if you get creative you can get them from the plans. I then had to cut out all that circles. Was rather tedious.
Stranger actually pointed out how to build the treads from the plans for the Baneblade, even though there aren't any plans for parts to build the tread assemblies.

And... somehow I thought it was a good idea to make 64 links like this. Why?

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projects, big and... well big

It's so great to have friends to use as cheap labor. What cheap labor have I been using my friends for? Titan construction of course!

Bag-O-Titans!

Contained with in these bags are the cut out pieces for 2 titans based on the Paperhammer template floating around the internet. All in all it took the two of us about 8 hours or so to cut out all the parts. Next in construction. Basically each of us is going to construct 1 Warhound titan as we see fit. Should be a bit of an interesting experience to see what two different hobbyists come up when they start from the same point.

Another update: I added the Tusks to the Squiggoth

She's got some bite!

Next step will be to build up the musculature around the tusks with green stuff and texture it to match the skin.

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Trying something a little different

So I'm still more or less running on neutral for the Thunderbolt project, which also means the Thunderhawk project is on hold for the moment. In truth alot of my hobby stuff is kind of on hold or at least on slow-mo for the immediate time being. Money has become a bit more of a consern then I had anticipated so I need to curtail my hobby purchases for the immediate time. But, that doesn't mean I'm not doing stuff. It just means I'm doing different stuff. Here is one such example:

Yep a paper hammer drop pod! There isn't a particular reason I built this model, well not one beyond the fact that I had the template and didn't have anything better to do with my time that I was interested in. So a couple microwavable pizza boxes, about an hour in photoshop to color the template, 20 minutes to print out the 3 pages and like 3 hours to build it.
Over all I like the final product, there's just one little problem:

It is too small to carry a full 10 man squad of marines. You can see here how it would only 4 marines. Not a particularly huge deal I suppose, but it is a point of annoyance for me. I think I'll build 3 more and modify them to be Deathwinds though.

I purposely glued the door panels open mainly to be fair to my opponents but also because I just really can't stand seeing a closed drop pod sitting on the table. It's kind of like with the Storm Raven model if you add the hurricane bolters. How the *bleep* do the marines get out of the thing? I know I know, it's representational not functional. But you know? It's my model! If those points bug me, that's my problem! :P

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Project Thunderhawk continues... kind of

Okay so I'm continuing work on my Project Thunderhawk. And now I'm actually working with a Plasticard!

But I'm not building a Thunderhawk. Not yet anyway. Just as I did with the Shadowsword, I am making a divergent case study project for this next step of the project. This time I'm building a Thunderbolt Imperial Heavy Fighter!

Thunderbolt Heavy Fighter

About a year ago I found Eli Patoroch's library of Paper hammer templates and I was taken by the template for the Thunderbolt. Just looking at the template it's clear that the thunderbolt is a revertible Pit Bull of an aircraft. Stocky and solid, armed to the teeth. It's the Imperial Navy's answer to anything they want to kill. So I built that thunderbolt based on the template, with a couple modifications:

The Rad Dragon Thunderbolt

 Obviously the biggest modification I made is the position of the wings. This particular model is the fourth paper hammer Thunderbolt I've built. When I built the original one I put the wings on wrong and didn't realise it right away. Later on I looked at the model picture on Forge world and noticed the fubar. But I like the higher mounted wings with the downward angeling to them.

I also added the pylons for 2 missiles, donated from a Valkryie kit. If you read the Datasheet for the Thunderbolt in the Appoc book, there's a mention of a Red Thunderbolt. That is where this paint scheme came from.

So now I'm embarking on a project to build one of these in plasticard. And I had to restart it cause the first model fell apart. And again because the second model wasn't strong enough to stand up to being handled. And for a third time because plasticard doesn't bend and flex the way paper and cardboard do.

So finally I'm on the fourth version of the Plasticard Thunderbolt!

The body of the thundebolt!

In this version I used 2mm thick sheet plasticard for the two large sections of the sides, and I built an internal frame out of the same 2mm thick plasticard. Then to enforce the structural integrity of it I fill the lower section with resin after setting in a piece of 1/2" pvc piping to act as a mounting point for one of Dragon Forge's Flight Stands.

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Paper hammer questions

I've had a few questions asking for guidance on working with the templates and putting them on cardstock. So I've included a step by step explanation of preparing the templates as I've been doing it.

Here is a list of supplies you will need:

1) the Template.

2) A pair of scissors

3) a supply of cardboard (cereal boxes the like work well for this)

4) a supply of white glue

5) an exacto blade or box cutter.

6) A series of wax paper sheets

7) one or two big and heavy books.

8) someplace that is flat, and out of the way.

9) Some sort of flat roller. I used a length of electrical conducting.

10) a good place to cut on like a cutting mat or cutting board.

11) a small sponge or similar item.

Got everything? Good. So, we want to glue the template down to the cardboard. Simple right? Well, no. There are a couple challenges we have to contend with. First, the template I'm using was made on an A4 sized sheet which is sized as 8.25" x 11". Now I have yet to find any cereal boxes that are 8.25" by 11". So I can't just attach the templates to the cardboard. So, you will need to cut the pieces of the template off the page so you can arrange the parts on the cardboard.  

So, here is what we do. First we take the cardboard boxes and flatten then. No I don't mean stand on the box. I mean separate the seam so the box will come unfolded. If you look at a cereal box you will find 2 places where the cardboard is glued together, assuming it's an empty cereal box of course. First is along the long side. Second is along the bottom. You just need to cut both of those places to separate the seams. Once you do that you will be able to unfold the cereal box and get 4 plains of cardboard, 2 large, and 2 narrow strips plus the flaps that form the top and bottom of the cereal box.

Once you have the cereal box flattened, you can go back to the template. Now how has I mentioned the template I'm using is based on a printable size somewhat larger than the largest panel in the cereal box. So what do I need to do? Well I have to cut up the template. Basically starting with the largest part on the template I cut out each piece of the template so that I have a pile of parts. I can then rearrange the parts to make maximum use of the space available on the cardboard. 

So, now that I have the parts cut out, and have figured out how to position them on the cardboard I am ready to put down a layer of glue. I dribble it around the area inside of the cardboard and then use the sponge to smooth it out into a thin layer. Then I place the parts onto the glue. Now because of the properties of glue drying come into effect, the parts will have a tendency to curl and bubble up. This is where I use the length of electrical conduit as a roller and flatten out the template parts. I will get glue on the roller but that's of little concern. 

With the parts put down, I now put the piece of cardboard on a shelf and place a layer of wax paper over top of it and then put a sufficient  weight on top to keep it pressed in place. This is where that big heavy book comes in. I use the 2006 Games Workshop Catalogue for this.  Great now that the parts are under pressure, I leave it for an absolute minimum of 12 hours and more often 1-2 days to allow the glue time to dry.

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