Blackadder Thunderhawk Project, A Work in Progress

    Just be prepared to sacrifice all contact with home and family when indulging your obsession.........


    This Time We're Serious:


    Okay time to separate the men from the boys...... I've yet to find an easy way to replicate spheres but it seems I never learn to stop trying. This latest fiasco involved substituting a pingpong ball for nittygritty hard work and planning and as per usual it didn't work so back to square one. The saving grace of employing the P.P.ball is I did manage to get a viable scale for the ball turret which seems to be right for a vehicle of this size.


    http://i.imgur.com/x0kMvQV.jpg


    To recap, what I am attempting to do is make a fully operational (as far as movement potential; Egad!) turret with guns that depress and elevate as a real ball turret would do so using the p.p.ball as a size guide I figure a centimeter would be correct for the swiveling elevation/depression cycle and the standard rim will suffice for the rotation.


    This will hopefully be made clearer in the subsequent posts......... or fail utter-ably whichever the case may be.


    It's all new ground to me, this one.


    Oh, and BTW the new cockpit seats are to the background right; just saying............

    "It is easier to deceive people than it is to convince them that they have been deceived."

    Zitat von Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf

    Man, if I ever have the time to acquire some skills of those you show us here, I'll definitely will try out a Thunderhawk. It looks awesome! The ball turrets are a very nice idea as this way they will be able to aim upwards, too. Would make a lot of sense as in some books they seriously dogfight with these beasts...


    My feeling is that the Thunderhawk is undergunned in defensive weapons, hence the ball turrets.

    "It is easier to deceive people than it is to convince them that they have been deceived."

    Thanks for the reply,


    Flogging a Dead Horse:


    I'm forging ahead with the original ball turrets in spite of designing a set after the FW version so some of my work is original at least.


    http://i.imgur.com/2SfjlVB.jpg


    I don't know if the FW turret guns are elevate-able but mine are so therein lies the difference in appearance.

    "It is easier to deceive people than it is to convince them that they have been deceived."

    Fuzzy Images


    You wouldn't think I have a SOTArt Cannon digital SLR camera judging by these fuzzy images but I still prefer my 20 year old Kodak 290 for some reason.....


    http://i.imgur.com/lxMF3kh.jpg


    Anyway the ball turrets are proceeding apace shown here in different stages of completion.


    http://i.imgur.com/b7Fgwg7.jpg


    Any questions you have on what I am doing or how I am doing it I'll be glad to answer....


    http://i.imgur.com/vrug9og.jpg


    Hmmm, the above image doesn't bear close inspection; left gun sight is a bit cattywampus....


    http://i.imgur.com/5FtnXci.jpg

    "It is easier to deceive people than it is to convince them that they have been deceived."

    What Am I Missing?


    For the life of me I cannot figure out how these guns can elevate. With the rectangular view port and mount plate it seems that the gun mount shield (Plate between the guns) when the guns are elevated will interfere with the viewport and vise versa. If the side hemispheres only rotate upward then the viewport is not looking where the guns aim plus the entry hatch miss aligns. Or alternately it's just another FW bollock-up in the design department and it just looks good and can't function.



    http://i.imgur.com/KXnF7Eq.jpg


    Anyway here's mine with out detail as yet but fully functional at least regarding movement.


    http://i.imgur.com/HayxArK.jpg


    Anyone who has this turret, can you post some images of what the turret looks like in the full elevated and full depressed configuration...


    Thx.

    "It is easier to deceive people than it is to convince them that they have been deceived."

    Deine Detailverliebtheit und Präzision ist wirklich grandios!
    Dafür spreche ich dir meinen größten Respekt aus!


    Ich verfolge regelmäßig deine Fortschritte und bin jedes mal wieder erstaunt, welche Geduld du besitzt.


    Manches ist vom Original kaum zu unterscheiden.


    Gruß Red


    My Englisch is :thumbdown:


    Your Work :love: :thumbsup: :love:


    Danke, Ich schätze Antworten in deutscher Sprache , da es hilft aufzubauen meine Fähigkeit, zu übersetzen und danken Ihnen für die Auszeichnungen

    "It is easier to deceive people than it is to convince them that they have been deceived."

    Great work, i really like these guns and the range of motion for them looks very fitting.


    Bin schon auf die nächsten Bilder gespannt ;)


    Gruß
    Helbrecht

    Kein Mitleid! Keine Gnade! Keine Furcht!


    ~Schlachtruf der Black Templars!~


    "Frieden ist ein vergeblicher Wunsch. Eines Tages mag unser Kreuzzug einen anderen Namen tragen, doch er wird niemals wirklich enden. In der fernen Zukunft wird es keinen Frieden geben."


    ~Sigismund zu Garviel Loken.~

    Final Bits of Fluff:


    Okay with these final bits of fluff the exterior of the T'hawk is just about done. I daresay there might just be a couple of negligible items such as Turbo laser strut cradles et cetera but nothing that would preclude my painting the exterior. This has been a good year for me as most of my long term projects have reached fruition.


    http://i.imgur.com/HGgpiBl.jpg


    I decided to keep the ping-pong ball turrets as they are and add the view port and paraphernalia to the elevation race plate. The upper end of the elevation is in need of restriction so the canard wings won't get shot off in the heat of battle.


    Now all needs be done is the interior of the cockpit and installing the interior of the forward cargo bay.


    No I haven't decided whether to add the auto-fire dual bolters on either side of the nose abaft the front cargo door.

    "It is easier to deceive people than it is to convince them that they have been deceived."

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von Blackadderz ()

    Some Dumb Disney Movie:


    A pair of Wall-E esque homemade twin bolters round out the forward armament slated for the Thunderhawk.


    http://i.imgur.com/DryLZcN.jpg


    Now whether I actually cut the holes in the fuselage to accommodate these hefty trainable beauties remains to be seen.


    http://i.imgur.com/Ax66nBm.jpg


    I was scrounging around in my bitz box and came up with enough material to make my own version of the FW T'hawk bolter armament.


    http://i.imgur.com/fAJ32IM.jpg


    The sighting unit above the bolter array reminded me of the cutesy robot in some dumb Disney movie

    "It is easier to deceive people than it is to convince them that they have been deceived."

    Servo Assist?


    Having worked in the commercial aviation industry for a good portion of my adult life up to and including 747 jumbo jets I've yet to see control columns as robust as these on the Thunderhawk so my supposition is that the servo assists are actually in the control columns. Cumbersome but viable I suppose.


    http://i.imgur.com/vDZeIvU.jpg


    I was hoping that the cockpit paraphenalia would disguise the fact that the pilots had no legs (being actually Rhino machinegunners) but no such luck.


    http://i.imgur.com/nrm8cS8.jpg


    So I need a rational as to why they are lower extremity deficient.........


    http://i.imgur.com/2PVM0zQ.jpg

    "It is easier to deceive people than it is to convince them that they have been deceived."

    Hi Blackadderz first off all let me say that your work is really impressiv pleas go on. :up:
    Buuuut it see a problem in your turrent. In your solution the viewinglas moves with the guns but behind the Glas is the ring arround the ping pong ball an i thiks this ring symbolize metal right? So pls explain how i can look through metal to look through the glas ?(
    You know what I mean?
    In my oppinion the FW turrent works fine. The rotating point between the fix and movable Part is between this gully thing an the ball. Not between the center ring an the ball. in your picture from the FW thunderhawk left of the rivet at the gully.
    I think the viewinglas is inserted in a manhole where you could enter the turrent.


    I hope that you understand what i mean it is hard to explain that in german and harder english
    So much I love to see your work i think the FW version works and yours not. Think about it please

    Thank you for the long and thoughtful explanation of your concern and I understand and agree with you 100% regarding the view port position relative to the orbital race of the sphere. I have researched the Forgeworld solution and found it too weak for my application most people just gluing the turret in a fixed position instead of constantly repairing the structure of the mechanism. Your attempt to get your point across in spite of the language barrier was completely understood by me by the way.


    Being a guest on quite a few foreign 40K forums I am consistently amazed and ashamed at my limited ability to converse in the native tongue of the forum and the ability of the respondents to speak and converse in my native tongue; English. To date I have frequented; German, French, Argentinean, Danish, Swedish, Spanish and British 40K forums and all for the most part speak and understand English as well or better than many in my own native land. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for tolerating and indulging my lack of ability to converse in your language.


    As to the ability to see through the port (and the metal race for that matter) assume the port is actually a panorama lens giving a 180° view electronically and projecting that onto cockpit monitors inside the ball. The view port as such would be hopelessly restrictive in fighting an Aerial duel were that the only means of vision afforded the gunner.

    "It is easier to deceive people than it is to convince them that they have been deceived."

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von Blackadderz ()

    Zitat

    assume the port is actually a panorama lens giving a 180° view electronically and projecting that onto cockpit monitors inside the ball


    I understand but it dosn`t look like a lense it looks like an Viewingglas :huh:
    Btw. how can I enter the turrent in our solution? You forgot the enteringhole

    The Misery Compromise


    After a futile attempt to garner a set of legs from my bitz box I settled on purchasing a landspeeder cockpit on ebay. What strikes me the most is the near miss I made regarding the scale of the cockpit accoutrements


    http://i.imgur.com/PHXWcja.jpg


    With very little adjustments at all it will be child's play to reassemble the cockpit with gen-u-wine FW artifacts; a source of great personal satisfaction to me.


    http://i.imgur.com/UVyp8Hc.jpg


    While I have the cockpit in pieces perhaps I'll indulge myself in a bit of pre-assembly painting....


    http://i.imgur.com/BLflkqk.jpg


    Whoops but first I'd better file down the sprue attachment residue :blush:

    "It is easier to deceive people than it is to convince them that they have been deceived."

    Department of Redundancy Department:


    Enough Blackadder enough! Too many images of virtually the same thing but ahh; subtly not......


    Micro variations that only I can perceive are happening and rather than a flurry of un recorded activity I'll bore you with incessant detailed updates. :D


    http://i.imgur.com/DjW59Jh.jpg


    The new cockpit revamped from the old fits much better under the canopy and the figures will be seen better duplicating the FW version....


    http://i.imgur.com/hpu304M.jpg


    The straight on shot reveals the fit of the landspeeder crew is a dead on duplicate of the resin original.


    http://i.imgur.com/Fahfwsg.jpg

    "It is easier to deceive people than it is to convince them that they have been deceived."