15 July 2011

Conversions Commander! - Gothic Thunder Hammers

Standard Thunder Hammers look alright but not great. This had occurred to me before but when I finally got around to having a good look at my soon-to-be Deathwing on their sprues I decided to do something about it. I'm going for a fairly dark and gothic vibe with my Dark Angels so I found some suitable bits and went to work.



Step One.
Take your Thunder Hammer and chop off the two hammer ends, cutting as close to the central rod as possible without messing up the little icon. Be sure to score all the way around with your hobby knife before you get to the actual chopping otherwise you'll end up getting a crooked cut because the plastic is so thick. I didn't do this with my first few and believe me, it really makes a difference.


Step Two.
At this point you can throw the front hammer bit with the silly little lightning bolt on it back into your bits box as you won't be needing it for this conversion. Next, use your pinning drill and drill a hole right through the middle of the shaft. Also drill a hole into the back hammer bit where you chopped it off.


Step Three.
Now what we're doing is essentially putting the back of the hammer on the front and replacing the back with a giant spike. I chose a spike from one of the Chaos Vehicle Accessory sprue's many spikey bits. I think it's a dozer blade but I'm not entirely sure. You're going to want to drill a small hole into the bottom of the spike as well and then pin the whole thing together.


Step Four.
Now to add the finishing touches with the most common type of spike found on the Chaos Vehicle Accessory sprue. Just clip it off and make sure the bottom is nice and flat. Glue it to the top of the shaft and you're done.


Click for larger size.

This conversion is dead simple to do and all you really need is a few spikey bits and some patience when doing the initial chopping. And there you have it, some nice gothic looking Thunder Hammers to help make my Deathwing look as moody as they feel.

Stay tuned for more.

 - Dugatron

9 comments:

  1. Very nice, great how such a relatively simple conversion gives a weapon an entirely different feel!

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  2. I likes the spiky bitz haha
    Great work.

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  3. Very nice, a simple trick that gives them a completely different feel.

    Ron, From the Warp

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  4. Thanks for the kind comments everyone. I'm glad you like it.

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  5. I really like the tip about scoring all around the part before you cut. I'm going to have to start trying that when I'm cutting up bits!

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  6. That is a very nice easy conversion thanks for sharing should look good on my Templars

    Cupboard of Nurgle

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  7. That is *very* DA. Like it a lot. I might try it with the spikes from the CoD sets, slightly more gothic, less chaos feel (and I have a million).

    Great idea.

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  8. The Inner Geek: Something I learned the hard way but it makes a huge difference and you can even do a couple of passes to make things even easier.

    O'Shashar: No worries, send me a link to your Templars when you do it :)

    annakata: Good idea. I think the Cities of Death spikes could work just as well.

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  9. That's cool! I'm glad Ron mentioned this on his blog

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