Hello all, sorry for the delay in posting this but I’ve only just got access to the internet. Currently on a family holiday in Austria, I never thought it’d be this difficult to get online.
I’m actually typing this on my wife’s netbook in the hotel room, then I shall transfer it to my iPhone and plug that into a connected computer and then finally ‘copy and paste’ it onto the forum. A few years ago that would seem fine but not having access to a full wireless system just seems alien to me now
Anyway, to tell you what you want to know;
ComponentsGames Workshop Defiler kit
Extra Defiler leg sprue
2x old GW ‘bolt shell’ paint pots (the ones that dried up before you even opened them)
Conflix/Urban Mammoth ‘Chemical Works’ boiler sprue
Tiny bit of thin plasticard
Dressmaker’s pins
Disney Atlantis toy projector thing bubble
Tank hatch and rungs
ToolsScalpel
Razor Saw
Pinvice with .08mm drill bit
MethodReally simple one this, first cut all the spikes off the Defiler legs and carefully carve the Chaos stars off the knee joints. You can use clippers to remove the stars but I found it was quicker and easier to use a fresh scalpel blade. Just don’t take a chunk out of your thumb
. Then glue the legs together. Glue the Defiler body halves together and throw the rest of the kit aside. You need six legs for the build but only get 4 in the kit, however I’ve had a quick look and there are people selling the leg sprue separately. You get 4 legs to a sprue though which is part of the reason I got enough bits to make two of them
.
Throw the lids from the paint pots aside and using a razor saw cut the thread end of the pots off. Now cut down the first pot using the embossed writing as a guide, you want to just skim the edge of the text and stop cutting at the bottom of the text. This needs to be fairly precise so I did it as three separate cuts, two vertically down the text and one horizontally across the bottom of the text. This will leave you with a pot with a rectangle cut out of the side. The second one is easier and the first can probably be turned into this one if you cut too far, hence doing the other first. For the second pot you again want to use the sides of the text as a guide but this time rather than stopping at the bottom of the text, just cut all the way down the pot so that the side is totally missing. Scrape the text on the bottom of the second pot away and remove the little tab thing from the bottom of both pots. Glue the pots together ‘top to top’.
On the front of the defiler body are two squares that stick out, they got in the way of both versions weapons so I cut them off to make the front a flush line between the forward leg joints. Place the pots on top of the body so that the first pot sits snug against the front. As it’s not cut all the way through it still has a complete hexagon at the front which overhangs slightly. The pots won’t sit very well but you’ll now be able to clearly see which knobbly bits on the defiler body need cutting so that the pots sit over it correctly.
Now you have a choice with regards to the engine block, on the first version I kept the engine and cut some more of the second pots bottom away so that it sat over the end. On the second version I wanted a boiler so I cut most of the engine block away so that it would fit. I used two of the small circular boiler tops from the chemical works kit. They aren’t designed to fit together but by rotating one very slightly the riveted parts alternate fine and they can be glued. One side will need the pipe connecter cut off so that it fits snug against the bottom of the paint pot, the other side can of course have a pipe added. I also added small disks of plasticard to cover the other connector holes which will be painted as gauges. If you go with the boiler method then you will most probably cut through the upper defiler body when removing the engine block. The resulting hole into the hollow can be covered by a small square of thin plasticard.
Once decisions have been made and the pots fit correctly, glue them down
After the glue has set I’d recommend adding any rivets to the body now. I didn’t and struggled
. For my rivets I used the pinvice to drill shallow holes which I then inserted cut down pins into so their rounded heads sat flush on the body.
Now glue the legs into place, the front legs will be a little loose until the glue sets so make sure it’s done somewhere where it won’t get knocked.
Now add the tank hatch and rungs to climb up. I used some from an old Leman Russ kit as the size is a good fit.
The dome on the front is the bit where people are likely to have trouble. Not with fitting it, it’s almost perfect and just needs squeezing in slightly and gluing. The problem will be in sourcing it. There was a Disney Atlantis toy of the big submarine that was a projector. The submarine wobbled about while the base made noises and projected an image of the robot leviathan on the wall. I’ve seen it used in a few conversions but the gem for me was the ‘observation bubble’ on the front. It’s made of soft plastic but it takes primer fine. I removed the bubble and cut it in half which gave me the two domes for the walkers.
Then add weapon of choice beneath the front dome. Prime and paint. Play with new toy.
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May 23, 2024, 10:17:15 AM
