Print

[.mace]

New Updated version of this guide!
- more pics, detailed step by step instructions, all in a handy pdf format!



This Tutorial is for creating modular hammerheads and devilfishes from the base chassis, adding on weapons/etc as needed.

There are several other HH/DF related hints&tips posted in this thread, which really deserve a mention:
Graphical Continuation of this guide - using magnets inside the front nose turret (I haven't covered this part properly..)
Ion Cannon Mod - Who said only necrons could have clear plastic rods on their guns?
An innovative way to allow you to add gun drones as an upgrade to your hammerhead! (it is a legal upgrade btw, just no room for it.. until now )
Magnets on the Main Turret - this guide continued
Thanks to Catsy and theVoiD for the above linked posts

Anyway, on to the main stuff:
[Inspired by The Tau Modelling tips page on 40konline]

I've started a new thread to discuss HH2DF conversions instead of going off topic in that magnets on crisis suits thread
so here it is, the basics on doing this...

What you need:
1x Hammerhead Kit
And a combination of the following:
- blu-tac
- magnets
- greenstuff

What to do:
1) Construct the hull (the main parts, don't glue on drones, engines, or the top crew hatch) - for extra detail etc, hinge the side hatches. The rear hatch is designed to be hinged, so don't glue that on.
2) Construct the engines, railgun, ion cannon, weapons drone (without any weapons), burst cannons, missile pods, and the top crew hatch (hinge it probably) and its firewarrior crew guy. <-- do not glue these parts to anything else!


# Whats left over:
- the 'C' piece and dome of the front turret, the turret ring, the targeting array, seeker missile, sensor spine like thingy.
3) You can put the engines on now if you want, just don't glue them, it allows them to swivel etc.

now, the two key pieces:

^ The piece that holds the front turret together.

^ The piece that holds the big guns to the main turret.

From here on, you have a few options on what you want to do:
[Main turret]
- Mould a extra main turret mounting piece out of greenstuff, attach the original and the new one to each gun, and just pressure fit these into the main turret ring (pressure fit works with the original, without any paint.
- Use blu-tac and put a blob ontop of the mounting piece
- put a magnet inside the top of the mounting piece, glue/stick a metal rod into the gun section so that its held to the mounting piece, and probably glue the mounting piece into the turret ring

[Forward turret]
- use blu tac on the back of the T piece to stick it to the hull - this works fine most of the time, apart from blu-tac drying and getting messy
- get some really small magnets, put it into the T piece so its flush, and put on in the corresponding hull area so its also flush..
NB: I've only tried the blu-tac options and don't really know how the other options will turn out.. but im planning on making one of the mounting pieces and using magnets for the front turret.

What about the weapons?
The main turret should be pretty obvious, but what about the front one and the drones?
- Drones - with a little bit of pulling etc, you can swap the guns the drones have between the smart missile system and burst cannons, just be careful not to snap the mounts!
- Front turret - as long as you didn't glue the 'C' piece and the dome together, this can all be held together in place without glue etc once the 'T' piece is in place.
- The targeting array - attach this to the front turret using blu-tac, or glue on some spare 'T' shaped sprue or something to hold it in place.

And it all goes together...
[Devilfish]
- Take the hull, fit the crew hatch to the top
- Place a burst cannon in the front dome, place the 'C' piece over it, and use the 'T' piece to hold it to the hull using whatever method you decided to go with.
- Finish it off with Gun drones/Attach the sensor spine thing with blu-tac etc..

[Hammerhead]
- Place the turret ring on top, put the crew hatch in this
- Attach main weapon of choice to this turret ring
- Use blu-tac or something to attach the front targeting array to the turret, mount the front turret to the hull Updated, See below
- put weapons on the weapon drones, put them in their slots
- attach accessories - seeker missiles, sensor spines etc.

Click for larger pics:

^ my HH and its components

^ Completed HH

^ Completed Devilfish

More Pictures (After applying some gloss varnish):

^ IonHead

^ All the components

Front Turret - Mounting the Targeting array
I got around to working on the front turret, with the 'no magnets' method for having the targeting array and burst cannon swappable.

I did this by adding a 'T' piece of sprue, that has a small lip cut into it so that it can glue cleanly with the targeting array. When finished, it more or less allows it to be held in place easily between the turret and the 'C' piece, whilst being easily removable (my prev. tests ended up putting a lot of strain on the sprue and making it unfeasable as an option). Its approx 3mm between the piece and the cross part of the sprue, and the top of the 'T' is around 9mm long.

^ The targeting array peice, with the sprue glued to it.

^ The piece held in place by the turret parts

Basically, when its mounted it can't move up or down, due to the chasis of the tank and the piece that holds the front turret in place. The only thing is stopping it from falling out of the front turret. So I cut a piece of sprue, glued it on, so that the sprue can fit within the mounting pieces of the front turret, as seen in the second pic above, whilst leaving room for the turret to be able to turn.

This approach takes the least effort and the least modification of parts, whilst keeping the burst cannon moveable when mounted in the front turret.

- [maCe]

[MalVeauX]

Very useful guide!

Can't wait to hear how the magnents work out for you.  I magnet all my stuff, and this is a project I've yet to tackle myself.  Suits took the priority for a while, but now I'm thinking of the Hammerheads since they're only a bit more than devilfish as it is, and having the ability to quickly shift to devilfish or vise versa is a good plan.

[Aunny]

Nicely Done!!!! I found this a very useful guide!  I suggest this should be stickied!

[joeboy77]

That is awesome !!

If I can give you karma, I will

[.mace]

More pics!

Hammerhead with Ion cannon and SMS




And an overview of all the components..


BTW: its gloss varnish over chaos black there .. my [literally] shiny new hammerhead

[Gorcyca]

that is a sexy paint scheme! very very nice

[.mace]

blue lining, chaos black main coat, and lots of gloss

the gloss makes it a bit hard to get some good pics though :\

[Catsy]

Between the guide on 40k and this one, I decided to give this a shot. I'd like to share some of the things I learned in the process; hopefully they'll be of use to someone, since I ran into a few challenges and did a few things differently.

First of all, I didn't have any nails thin enough for me to clip or saw through. It would've been easy to go get one, but I thought, why not work with what I have? And what I have is a surplus of sprue and rare earth magnets.

I carefully drilled a 1/8" hole in the back of the Burst Cannon (BC), and pushed one of my 1/8" RE magnets (#48 on wondermagnets.com) into the back. It fit so snugly that no glue was necessary; I tapped it deeper in and tested it against my strongest magnets to make sure the fit was secure.



I then started cutting into the turret and BC. Right away I saw that just cutting the ammo feed off the top of the BC was not going to be sufficient to allow an easy in-out swap of the BC for the Targeting Array (TA)--the feed projects out horizontally as wide as the BC's "axle" tabs, which meant it was in the way. I ended up having to file it down before it would clear the sides of the turret.



Once I had that taken care of, I carefully whittled out the notches for the BC's axle tabs, using a combination of a hobby knife and needle files.



For the magnet in the back of the turret, I used a 1/4" RE magnet. I didn't want to just jam it in a big wad of green stuff, though, I wanted to try something different. I cut out a piece of plasticard and fitted it in the back, keeping the BC in place with the 1/4" magnet stuck to it so that I had a visual guide to how big the bulkhead needed to be.



Once I'd cut and filed it to the proper size, I glued the magnet to it, and glued it in place. The plasticard by itself wasn't strong enough to resist the pull of the magnet, though, so I ended up using some green stuff after all--just not nearly as much. I used it to fill out the space behind the bulkhead and caulk up the cracks a little, and all was well.



Now that the magnet was in place, it was time to work on the Targeting Array. The 40k guide recommends cutting down a length of nail to attach to the magnet in the back. I didn't have any nails, though, so I was a bit at a loss for what to do. The solution: sprue!

I cut off a length of sprue and measured the length it would need to be (about 9/16"), then filed the ends flat. I very carefully drilled a 1/16" hole in one end (you don't have much room for error on most GW sprues, so make sure it's centered), and glued one of my 1/16" RE magnets in the recess. Upon dry-fitting the sprue to the TA, I found that the wide edges were a little too wide, so I carefully scraped them down a few hairs with the edge of my knife. I then snapped the magnetized sprue to the turret magnet, centered it so that it was sticking out, and did a dry-fit to the backside of the TA. Once the sprue was in the place it would have to be to attach to the magnet, I put a drop of glue on the other end of the sprue, and attached the TA to it.



Here's how they look, completed and attached:



I haven't tackled the HH's main weapons yet. I don't feel comfortable enough with GS to sculpt a replacement for the attachment piece, and weapon droop is unacceptable, so I will probably be working out an alternative--most likely involving RE magnets. Me loves the magnets. :>

[Aunny]

Catsy! You're putting everyone to shame! Nicely done...can't wait to see the main turrents!

[Catsy]

Thanks. I'm thinking that I'm going to embed one of my 1/8" magnets in the mounting bit, and mate it to 1/4" magnets in the guns. Will probably need a bulkhead and/or putty work to position properly, but not difficult.

Unfortunately, I have another problem to overcome. Two of the sprues in my HH kit were bent slightly, so in addition to some distortion in the main hull that I'm going to have to fix, my railgun curves upwards. I'm thinking the best solution is to pick up some brass rods from the hobby store, and build them into the inside of the railgun to force it to straighten. I'll have to counterweight it a bit, but I was planning on doing some minor detail scratchbuilding on the railgun barrel anyway, so not a /huge/ problem.

Of course, that's not half as ambitious as what I have planned for the passenger compartment... We'll see how much of that makes it to production, so to speak, and how much gets left on the cutting room floor.

[joeboy77]

That was beautiful Catsy !!

Gr8 job !!

 

For the main barrell, I used a piece of metal glued on the underside of the gun and a RE magnet on the base. (My guns then always point upward due to the magnet and metal attraction) I'm excited to see what you get up to in this conversion !

Cheers !

[Catsy]

I've started on the main guns now. Now before I start, this may be straying into territory for which I should start my own thread, since this isn't strictly about a Hammerfish conversion anymore, but if you'll indulge a general discussion about some unique Hammerhead conversion foo here, I'll stay in this thread.

I decided to tackle the Ion Cannon first, because I had a major attack of the clevers whilst browsing at my local hobby supply store. Namely... why should Necrons have all the fun with cool translucent colored bits?

I buckled, and for $5 picked up a pack of blue translucent Plastruct rods. Two of them, actually, of two different sizes, 1/16" and 3/32". The 1/16" are for a different project, but the 3/32" are because that is what I measured the smallest "struts" on the Ion Cannon to be. When I look at these things, I don't imagine them being simple metal, I imagine them crackling with energy. And since blues are a major theme in my color scheme, I chose these.



First thing's first, I cut off the struts with a razor saw. This was relatively painless, aside from a moment of panic when I cinched my clamp a little too tight. I cut off the front cap first, since the inner cuts would weaken the structure and expose the plastic to stress breaks. Then the "cuff", and then the inner struts.



Then, I drilled out all the parts with a 3/32" pin vise bit, making sure to drill into the back of the IC a few eighths of an inch or so. Unfortunately, I ruined the cuff part, as it was too tiny for me to grip firmly with any of my tools, and thus twisted off-center while I was drilling it. Salvation was at hand, however--behold, the power of sprue! It just so happens that the circular "posts" on the Hammerhead sprues are only slightly larger in diameter than the original cuff. I cut off a large chunk of sprue (to give me something to hang on to), filed it flat on the bottom so that it could lay flat on my cutting board, and drilled out the post. I then cut the drilled cylinder to size, and filed until I was happy with it. Actually, I'll probably sand it a little more before I finish it. Finally, I cut off a length of blue rod about an inch long.



The cap in the front was too rounded for my tweezers to get a grip, so I set it down with the side I needed to glue up, touched the end of the blue rod to a tiny drop of super glue, and carefully glued the cap to the end. I then threaded the rod through the jury-rigged cuff, and then all the way through the IC. It's not glued in place right now, but it will be once I've primed and painted everything.



I like it. I think it'll look cool once everything's painted. I'm going to try something similar with the Fire Warriors' Pulse Rifles using the 1/16" rods--they'll end up looking kind of like Rail Rifles.

Thoughts?

[.mace]

That looks pretty cool

First of all, back on the topic of HH2DF - I still haven't found magnets for mine, but what i plan on doing is finding a spare bit of sprue, to attach to the targetting array that goes in the front turret, so that its held in place by means other then blu-tac.. and also, for the main turret, just to put some pieces of metal inside the ion cannon and railgun, and then mount a rare earth magnet into the mounting piece..

Anyway, back on to other HH conversions.. I wanted to do the LED conversions I saw on starship modeller - giving the HH some headlights etc.. Seeing what you just did.. I'm wondering if putting LEDs near the end of the rods you put in will give them a glowing effect

[Catsy]

for the main turret, just to put some pieces of metal inside the ion cannon and railgun, and then mount a rare earth magnet into the mounting piece.

I'm going for RE magents on both ends. They're cheap, and I need the strength to keep the Railgun straight--particularly since the conversion work I'm doing on it is going to make it even more front-heavy than normal. The sprue was bent, so I had to straighten the Railgun with brass rods, and I'm also adding some detail to the barrel.

The mounting bit is a little small for a 1/4" magnet, so I'm going to put a pair of 1/8" magnets in the top of the bit, and a 1/4" inside both the RG and IC.

[Dra'Tuisich-Novae]

This guide is a big help for people going for an accurate conversion, so this is by no means an attempt to steal the limelight.  If you're willing to sacrifice the option of landing gear mounting for the Hammerhead, the accuracy of the look, and a single gun drone, the conversion can be done with only a spare Devilfish to mount the turret on and a drone.

1) Cut out and file down the center section (engine slits forward to the front) of the drone till it's flat and the hole for the flight stand is showing.
2) Insert a landing gear as far as possible inside the ion cannon (only the flat bottom should show) and glue the two halves together.
3) glue the landing gear to the flattend gun drone - it should fit almost perfectly into the cupola hole.

By the way, the transparent Ion Cannon tubes look great