Imperial Knights, Part X

Okay, so... when I left off I’d finished all the cannon elements, but it struck me I hadn’t shown off the assembled cannon.

The battle cannon barrel glued into place with no problem.  I’d though about adding an internal brace, but with the detail wraps, it had a solid ring for the glue to grab.  Also, the top edge of the barrel can glue to the underside of the hood, which means it’s held from two directions.

The heavy stubber was the same.  The detail pieces gave it enough surface area for the glue to adhere, and the top edge could press up against the base of the battle cannon.  Again, held in two directions.  It was very, very solid.

Helpful Hint—I glued each barrel so the seam where it came together would be against the seam from the other barrel.  If you look close, you can see the edges between them.  This only takes a little work but makes everything look much cleaner.

For the reaper chainsword, I had a sudden realization.  There are four layers of “teeth” on the template.  However, as I’ve noted a few times now, this template is designed off the idea that it’s being built just with paper. Did I really need all four layers if I was building with card?

In a bold move for me, I decided to test-fit some elements.

There are three components I’ll call the sides (2) and the housing.  I assembled all three, let them dry, and then set just placed them together without any glue.  Turns out the two sides fill the housing pretty solidly, so more than one layer of teeth would probably be too much.

So I cut out one set of teeth.  Because of the curves, this is very slow-going, and I highly recommend going slow—no matter how comfortable and confident you are with a hobby knife.  This is a weapon, so it’s going to be a high-attention area.  Everything here needs to be sharp and slick.

 

Once the teeth were done, I assembled them with the sides, and then put that piece into the housing.  I also added a pair of 1/4” discs from my hole punch for a little bit of extra detail.  This all fit together so well that I just needed to hold it for a minute or two and then it was done.

Now I needed to assemble the back half of the reaper chainsword.  The other big part —we’ll call it the motor—is just a box.  It goes together in a very straightforward way.  No real problems there.  But it does get a lot of detail...

There’s a disc that matches the one on the cannon (we could call it the elbow) and also another one on the back.  I added a 1/4” disc to that, too, to layer the detail a bit more.  And then there’s a large piece that wraps around half of the motor—I’m not sure if it’s a blocky manifold or an oversized head block.  Either way, it adds to the look of the motor.

           

Once that was dry I glued the chainsword blade in place.  There’s a tiny gap at the back—right between the housing and the motor—and it kind of gnaws at me.  So I think I’ll need to cut another small piece of card to cover that up.  If I layer it right, it should blend right in.

 

So... I have the body, the legs, and weapons for both arms.  Next time--the eleventh chapter in this ongoing saga (only one more than the Baneblade/ Plaguereaper)—final assembly and a last few detail bits.