This topic will follow several scratch build projects for Imperial Navy aircraft. Up first is a scratch build project that I have taken on to build 2 Imperial Navy Thunderbolts with as much detail as possible in essentially 3 weeks. From right now, I have until May 20th to complete these. I selected the "Wayward" variant design and started cutting plasticard on Saturday night.

I spent last week ordering parts and obtaining plasticard. For those of you local to the Chicago area, E&T Plastics has sheet styrene that can be purchased in 4x8 sheets much cheaper than you can buy the small precut and packaged sheets from hobby suppliers. You just have to be willing to buy in bulk.

I picked up some .5mm (.020 inch) and 1.5mm (.060 inch) plasticard sheets. I also ordered some fan nozzles from Evil mushroom, and rivets to complete the detail (yeah, I've done them sratch before, and IMHO it's not worth the effort compared to styrene rivets such as can be obtained form the Tichy Train group. If those don't arrive in time I'm going to be scratching up fans and rivets at the 11th hour.

Without further ado a few photos of initial progress. My work station, and initial cuts:


I got bored last night cutting, and took a break to build out one of the wings:



Looks decent with nice detail, but I can already see a few things I need to vary on the next build to make it better. My plasticard choice was too thick for two layers to the wing, so I did one layer in 1.5mm and the second in .5 for 2mm wing plus detail panels. Details run to the edge. On the second build I plan to run the .5 panel only part way to the edge to give the detail panels a slant down to the front of the wing for a little nicer wing shape.

The tab where the wing will fit to the body is custom and will fit to a custom slot in the body. the tab will be drilled and fitted with magnets. The tab will fit into the slot in the body and the magnets will provide strength. The goal is to allow the wings to be removed for transport and storage.

Looking good! Those templates look better than the other ones I have. Did you have to scale them up at all? I don't suppose you have a direct link to them? I cannot seem to find them on the BWC page at all.

I would love to see how these turn out!

Very clean plasticard job, your client will be happy with a finish like that.

Please show us more progress pics.

LvK

Thanks very much for the comments. I actually printed the template to the exact scale they are in. Had to turn off fit to page since I was printing to 8.5x11 rather than A4.

Minor update. Most of the parts are cut now. I built out the side engine cowling and fit the wing to it. Encountered more issues with the design here probably mostly do to the thickness of card I am using. Given the size, I think I'm going to have to trim down the evil mushroom fan for the engine to get it to fit.

I decided to do a double layer internal with the 1.5mm for strength, with an outer skin in the .5mm. Seems to work, though it means more cuts and I'll likely have to do something similar for the body. Still once all the kinks are worked out, the second one will be a straight go. I'll take more photos on the other side so that you can see what am describing.

I'm not certain that I'm going to have time to magnetize the wings. I'll leave that until right before final assembly:



Thinking about building several more of these after the commision is done. Especially once the kinks are worked out.

Another updated. Based on my laid out schedule, I've got some catching up to do, so I'll be putting in extra hours this week, and the detail week will likely have some finish building going on as well. I've had to tweak the design quite a bit at this point, but it's all starting to come together. I suspect I'll be using some milliput or similar to fill in some of the corners and joints when it is done.

It is starting to look like a Thunderbolt. Finished some work on the main body. My goal is to complete the second wing and engine cowling tonight. If I can possibly get the tail section completed too, that would put me closer to on track. I'm cutting the second TB parts in my spare time as well and accommodating for some of the mods to the pieces that I had to do as I go so that I can build the second model faster.

And now for some photos. Bear in mind the 3 pieces (wing, cowling, and body) are still not actually attached to each other.

I am liking this so far. You got a lot farther with your's than I did! You should try and make changes to the original template since you had to modify it a fair bit. I hate the template that I found!

Keep up the good work mate!

It's coming along REALLY nicely.

You don't happen to have any templates to share? ^^

Those look pretty good so far.

I have some templates that look very similar. I just made two out of card stock and resin and for paper models they don't look half bad.

Keep up the good work, looking forward to seeing how these turn out.

Very minor update today. Wings for the second one are assembled as well. You can't see it but I modified the bottom to mount the two bottom panels flush to the model rather than leaving ridges. It's actually glued together now.

I may try to modify. The problem is that any modifications only work if I use the same plasticard size again. I've found that cutting down to fit the model as I go seems to work better, and allows for adjustment on the fly.

Lots of work due on this on the weekend. Work has been nuts this week, eating into my evening modelling time. Nine days left:

A better update this time. She's really coming together now. As you can see build one is nearly completed except for the details. I've got the tail, and about 10 more small panels to place, and finally the internal fasteners for the flying base to insert. After that it's just detail work including the cockpit, engines, remaining body and wing panels, rivets and final edge cleanup:




I'll post pics up of Thunderbolt II this evening. She's a little further behind, but the speed of work is increasing since I know longer have to figure out and troubleshoot the build while it is in progress. It's all just fit, trim, cleanup the edges and assemble. Going to be a marathon week...

here is my thanderbolt!

Wow, Nice! One of the few items in the 40K world that I think the word "cute" applies to. What kind of games do you use that for?

Second Thunderbolt makes an appearance. All goes according to plan I will finish out the build on the body of the second one tonight. Scale is slightly smaller. Don't ask. Suffice it to say... do not print your parts from two entirely different printers and locations...

After tonight, it is all about the details, which in my opinion is the best part.

It is ordance for BFG. Now I work on Lighting and Marauder.

It is resin copy of 3d printed in wax model.

These look awesome. Looking forward to seeing them finished.

[nerd mode]Actually, Imperial Navy uses Fury Interceptors in larger engagements, which are over twice the size of thunderhawks with an average crew of 4. Thunderbolts and lightnings, while apparently capable of space flight, are very limited in this respect and not their main role.[/nerd mode]

Anyway, nice models, cool project, etc.

After another 24 hours this is where things now stand. I have been able to stay on goal now for the past 2 nights. I am figuring that I have roughly 2-3 more nights of work to complete these. Tail and Wings are being pinned to the body using plasticard extention, brass rod or brass tube depending on the thickness needed. The mid wing section is also pinned on one of the pieces because the single cross piece on the front snapped:



You can see the slight scale difference in these shots using the cutting board as a reference. Each square is roughly an inch:



Goals for this evening's session includes the following for both models:
- Complete, pin and attach all tail sections
- Complete placement of flying stand attachment in fuselage
- Complete and attach cockpit canopies (per discussion with the client these will be solid one piece)
- Complete attachment of all outstanding detail panels to wings and fuselage
- Complete main engine components
- Complete assembly of main engine components

I am extremely impressed!
Keep it up!

Thanks! Well, I got about 50% of what I wanted to get done completed last night. The cockpit and panelling took longer than anticipated, and I dumped some of my nicely organized cut pieces behind the cabinet they were on top of and didn't realize why I couldn't find them.

Where things stand now:


- Complete, pin and attach all tail sections (tail sections completed, 1 model attached and done)
- Complete placement of flying stand attachment in fuselage (done for both models)
- Complete and attach cockpit canopies (1 of 2 done, second at 40%)
- Complete attachment of all outstanding detail panels to wings and fuselage (1 of 2 models done, second at 20%)
- Complete main engine components (Nope)
- Complete assembly of main engine components (Nope)

Some more shots on flying base rod. Flying base rod is small threaded rod. I'll :


Been up too late, all week. 2 more sessions I think.

wow, simply: wow!

Aces High. Need I say more?

Minor update. Core Thunderbolts are completed. Now to detail the engines and weapons. Outstanding detail items include bottom panels and rivets if I have time. I had the bottom panels cut, but found out first hand what happens if you knock over a bottle of the fast drying plastic cement. More bits to cut if I need them. I'm just glad the Thunderbolts weren't in it's path. Ironically I turned around and knocked over my mostly full cup of coffee too. One of those you have to be kidding me moments...

If I do not have time, then rivets, and bottom panels will be left undone so that essentials such as engines and weapons are not missed. The agreement with the client given the short time frame was that I would provide as much detail as possible within the time limitations. Hopefully I can get to it all.

I also still have to finish the flying bases themselves for which I am going to use a flat 3 prong base configuration for greater stability than a disk without as large a footprint:



You'll notice the Lascannon on one model. I found 4 lascannon bits in my box. Normally I would scratch up the cannons too, but the weapons would take an evening by themselves if I did that so I am using bits instead (and extra zoid parts for autocannons, you'll see).

Home stretch.

Cheers,

Successfully completed. Two Thunderbolts in 3 weeks. There are places where i did not have time to do further detail or panels, or where a little additional fill could have been used, such as the underside. Frankly, with unlimited time, I probably would have just continued to detail far beyond what would have been a good stopping point, and these look good as they are. You can't see the rivet details too well except in a few shots. I ended up going with inverse rivets which is what the actual model has except for in a few places. Basically just shallow drilled holes. with more time I would have rivited the actual engines. Didn't have that time to spare. Overall, they aren't too bad and will look awesome painted up and fielded in any army.

Discovered after the fact that my phone takes better shots thank my camera. They're packed and gone, so apologies for the bit of blur here and there.

A few shots of both flyers on mounts:


Thunderbolt I from the top:


Thunderbolt I engines and armament. Engine parts are a marker cap, evil mushroom fans, trimmed down (30mm), and bendy straws. Guns are 40k lascannon bits, and zoids autocannon parts:


Thunderbolt II (slightly smaller scale .5 inch shorter wingspan) engines and armament. You'll notice the second autocannon is different. I ran out of the Zoids cannon part that I was using and had to quickly scratch up a replacement. I'm sure i'll probably find the extra pieces tomorrow. I like the look, it makes it look like there are 2 different caliber of autocannons:


From the bottom:



Side view (you can actually see the rivets):


The bases. I would add a couple of small cork, or rubber pads (the kind you put under furniture) under each prong, and right in the middle of each base to add stability. Going to test an actual tripod next time for even more stability. Added extra lengths of rod and a connector, so the client can make, 6, 12, 18, or 24 inch height stands. There is enough extra for up to 1 24" and 1 18" at the same time. but I only sent 1 connector (would have like to send 2, but did not have time to hit home depot for the second one):



Let me know what you think. More scratchbuilds to follow soon.
Cheers.

Jon

The first thing I thought when I saw this thread was: "Thunderbolt and Lightning, very very frightening! Mama mia! Mama mia! Mama mia let me gooooOOooOOoooo."

nice clean work. and meph that exact same thing popped in my head.

Where did you get the pattern from as i always wanted to scratch a marauder bomber

Wow!
Really great build.
The templates seemed to have worked out.
Excellent execution - a big thumbsup!
Cheers
Klaus