Gun Turret 7

It's been a while since I did a post regarding the Gun Turret design I was working on. The last post was basically putting the whole thing on hold with little chance of it being printed and cast as a physical finished model.

Well things change...in this case I was approached by a friendly chap who was looking for items to add to his product range for the store he was about to launch, he was most interested in the gun turret.

So where are we now?

I decided to start from scratch with the design, moving further away from the basic square design. I plumped for a six sided structure, with a entrance to the rear with the other five walls identical - thus cutting down on the number of prints required...

Pretty straight forward so far...

But I wanted something a bit more. My cunning plan was to make it a dual design that could either be a gun turret or a bunker. At first I thought a full bunker that could take a full 10 man squad, but that would of meant it being far too big. So instead we decided on a command bunker.

For this the top plate flips over...

On the other side of the top plate we have a comms unit which will have holes for brass rod to be added as aerials while at the front we have a radar dish.

Detail above shows the 'other side' of the top plate, while below shows the entrance better.

Now the radar dish isn't fixed in place. As you can see in the detail shot above of the top plate there is a hole in the radar mounting point. This is for a magnet to be fitted which can allow the radar to be swapped out for a searchlight...

So that brings you up to date on what is happening with the Gun Turret.

At the moment various printing and production methods are being investigated but hopefully it won't be too long before the above goes on offer to people.

As for the friendly chap who approached me and who will be selling this he goes by the name of Col Gravis and you can see his Blog here while his store can be found here.

Scatter Terrain 9 & Gun Turret 6

Scatter Terrain 9

Well my latest batch of prints arrived and they are a mixed bunch.

First off we have the Dragons Tooth. I split this into two parts, the body which was printed in WSF givings the rough concrete like texture and a plate printed in White Detail which dropped into a recess into the top of the toof.

Next up the pallets, overall happy how they turned out.

Top panels look good, treadplate nicely shows up and the skull hole works nicely.

In general the bases turned out well except for the ID plates on the side which were completely messed up.

The ID plates...

So I cut and sanded the ends down and attacked the areas with GS.

Just (literally) given them another coat of grey:

Next up we have the stores themselves. These look to be a write off to be honest. The surface texture on all of them is very rough and on the one barrel I have a 'sunken' area. Same thing happend with the first base pieces which Shapeways replaced. An email has been sent so hopefully a replacement set will turn out better.

You can't see it in the pic below but the crates were so rough they had actually started to split in places.

Gun Turret 6

So, where does this leave me regarding 3D printing and the Gun Turret? Well frankly it means I am not going to get it printed. The quality just isn't good enough unless I spend a small fortune getting it printed at a much better resolution.

This is a shame as the 3D model was shaping up nicely:

It still isn't finished but for now it is being put on hold.

Gun Turrets 5

So, I've not had any time to build the Mk. II Gun Turret, however while working on the new modified gun mounting plate for the gun emplacement I got thinking about using 3D modelling/printing to make the new gun turret.

This had led me to a crossroads as there are two ways I could take it...

1. Scratchbuild the basic shape then add detail pieces (such as rear door area, turret ring etc) which have been 3D printed.

2. Do the entire thing as a single 3D print.

The former will be a deal cheaper, while the second will allow more detail and be less hassle.

I am tempted to go with the second option but it really depends on how many casts I am likely to sell to people as that would make the initial expenditure worthwhile.

So to help me work out costs and to gauge interest I did a 3D mock up.

Now this is just a mock up, the basic size and shape is there but the details were just slapped on, the final design would be more developed.

To mount the turret there is a recess for a magnet and a 2mm hole  as an alternative means.

So what do people think? Is there enough interest out there for me to go down the one piece print?

Recalcitrant Daze - ZM Pillars and Gun Turrets 4

Moulds for Pillars on the way...

When I originally did the pillars to try out Zone Mortalis I had a few people ask me if they could have some to do the same thing. The original master was a very quick build and was destroyed during the moulding process (i.e. I had to break it up to get it out of the mould) which left me with a single mould. There was no way I was going to cast pillars for people as it would of taken weeks to knock enough out.

However I was recently asked again for pillars so I decided to make a new master, one I could use to do multiple moulds. I still won't be casting pillars for people, however I will sell the moulds themselves allowing people to cast as many pillars as they like in plaster.

So here is the new master.

The new design is the same as the first in principal - namely two outer grooves (1.5mm wide) for card walls to be slotted into and a central groove (3.5mm) for a door to be slotted in.

However the new design will use less rubber for the mould and less plaster in the casting. It should also provide a much easier casting experience as the original mould is very awkward and results in lots of air bubbles due to the thin walls which make the grooves for the card to slot into.

It is still plain and simple and I am not going to town making it perfect - it is still intended as a quick, cheap and modular way to try out Zone Mortalis or similar games set inside buildings/tunner sytems/space craft etc.

Like the Mk. I version the pillars are 70mm tall.

Some walls and a door slotted in place.

Gun Turrets.

Recently I asked if people would be interested in buying gun turrets if I built a new one. Well I think I had enough interested via the blog and forums to go ahead and at least do a new master.

So I got out the original master and it's current state is now...

I needed the lego to act as the internal structure of the new model. However it will be slightly smaller (the original was a touch too big) for easier set up. I was not happy with many aspects of the original design so this will be a good opportuniy to do a much better model.

While I would like to get the gun turret done ASAP I have a lot on my plate at the moment (some of which will come out in the near future) so I think it will be a slow build over the next few weeks.

Gun Turrets 3 - Is there interest out there for these?

Way back when this blog was young I showed a Gun Turret I had built and cast so I could use up some of the many spare Russ and Chimera turrets I had knocking around.

After selling a number of the gun emplacement sets I got thinking if people would be interested in gun turrets.

If there was enough interest I would do a new master for casting, similar design to the original one I built but better detailed.

For a recap this is what the first gun turret looked like:

The original master.

One of the cast turrets after the post cast details were added along with battle damage and basing:

The rear is an area which would see a big improvement.

Scale shot and an example of a turret in place

To see more of the original turret click here.

So what are peoples thoughts? Is it worth doing a new gun turret and is there enough demand to warrant doing it?

Gun Turrets 2

Will be having a go at casting the Glyphs shortly but in the meantime here is the follow up post for the Gun Turrets.

Now that the main piece is out of the way we can move onto the killy part...

As I said in in the first post one of the reasons I wanted to make the gun turrets was because I had so many Russ and Chimera turrets spare. This is due to a number of my tanks using Forge World turrets, or being converted in some way.

The finished turrets:

x3 Battlecannon Turrets

x1 Vanquisher Cannon Turret

x1 Exterminator Turret

x1 Executioner Turret

x1 Multimelta Turret

x1 Twin Linked Heavy Bolter Turret

x1 Inferno Cannon Turret.

Example of the magnets in place.

 The easiest turrets were of course the Battlecannon ones, these were simply built straight with no alterations other than modifying the bottom of each one to accept the magnet. For the Vanquisher I simply extended the barrel. Personally I much prefer the FW Vanq turrets but the gun turret rules do not include a co-axial heavy stubber (shame), so I went with the simple option instead. The Exterminator turret was the much seen 'stick two autocannon into the hole' conversion.



Exterminator and Battlecannon turrets.

Vanquisher and Multi Melta turrets.

The Multimelta turret was a bit more involved. It is a Chimera which I added styrene to the bottom of to make it deeper. A spare end to a Marine Multi Melta was used (i think, it is possible it might of been the multi melta from the new HH kit) and a storm bolter (again, I think) for the weapon itself. Additional armour 'plates' were added around the turret.

Inferno Cannon and TL Heavy Bolter Turrets

These two were pretty straight forward. The Heavy Bolters come from a Baneblade/Shadowsword kit and were perfect for the job. A spare HH Inferno Gun piece along with some styrene tube became the weapon for the final Chimera turret. Both were deepened and detailed as per the first Chimera turret above.

The Executioner was the only turret that required any real work. The gun itself comes from the new Russ kit, but the old style Russ turret is nowhere near wide enough to take it, hence the styrene additions you can see above.

The turrets had searchlights added (they come with them as standard), though I didn't have enough for all of them so some just get the bracket added, with damage modelled on to show where the searchlight had been removed due to damage or blown off. Some skulls showing their CRM allegiance were added as well. Not many though as these aren't front line units so there won't be so many corpses to hack up for decoration.

The Executioner Turret in place.

The four gun turrets undercoated grey, you can make out the bits of stowage, skulls etc added to each one. I also added aerials which can be removed for ease of storage. The aerials come from the Baneblade kit.

That is basically it.

For now...after casting these four (along with another 20 or so for other people) I had an idea...

 I knocked up an insert which fits inside the gun turret mould thusly:

This allows me to cast 'hollow' gun turrets:

A hollow gun turret.

Which when introduced to a hammer gives you this...

So the plan is to make four destroyed gun turrets to swap when turrets get destroyed. Rubble would be added as well as wrecked turrets and so on. Level of damage would vary but it will always be obvious what they represent.

They are on the to do list - which is frighteningly long, so don't expect them too soon.