Captain MAGpie's Conversion Corner: RYNO

Captain MAGpie's "RYNO (Rip You a New One)" Rhino Artillery Conversion

A Games Workshop Rhino Conversion

See that army over there?
No.
Ok, well, they are there. Make them go away.
Okey.

After I saw Jurriaan Nitters‎ take on Space Marine Artillery over at the 40K Converters Facebook page, converting a Hunter Anti-aircraft missile platform into an artillery piece, I knew I had to make a version of my own. The basic conversion was simple, which was the beauty of it, but it needed something to set it apart.

So I plotted.

Mmmm.... what to make for dinner?

And, like Games Workshop, I took inspiration from equipment used in the first and second world wars, where oversized stabilisers, outriggers and recoil spades were still very much part of the design due to the massif recoil generated by the munitions. Of course, even modern artillery has these pieces of equipment, they are just a lot less apparent and designed and sized appropriately. This is just not how things are done on Mars, though, now is it?

Denel G6 Outriggers. Subtle and hidden when moving. I did not want subtle or hidden. Mars agreed.

The basic idea started with the Rhino roof-door-dozer-blade I made for my Damocles Command Rhino. Essentially, I just took the two spare roof-door bits, cut the hinges off, files the inner sides at an angle, filled the holes, and glued them together. Done. Dozer-blade.
I wanted to use that same template as the rear spade for the system.

From there is was just a simple process of closing the rear door off with a flat piece of card, and building hydraulics for the blade. The trick was to place the hydraulics in such a way that they could actually perform what I envisioned. Easier said than don, but in the end came out alright.

Back door shut. Permanently. Hinge points attached.

Swivel point attached.

I originally wanted to attached the hydraulic pistons to the upper portion of that vertical plate I placed either side, but that left too little room to complete the full action I wanted from the spade. I relocated them to between the two plates. Worked fine and gave me a lot of room to play.

Test-Turret... but spade done

With the spade done, was time to move to the Out-riggers. As said above, the spade itself is made from two Rhino Roof-doors that I simply stuck together at and angle and filled up the holes.

Spade down! Spade down!

Outriggers were simple. Just bars and tubes that slide into each other. The foot-plate was the most time consuming, but came out well.

Outriggers.... Out.

Outriggers in travel position.

So there we were... A rhino Arty chassis... but no hat to wear. Time to go to designs.

I was asked how my design process goes from concept to product. So I put down a tutorial for that which you can find here.

The tutorial

1) What you will need for: the template

The Template (below)
Cardboard
Printer (Or a ruler and a lot of time)
Fine-Point marker

I recommend printing the template on cardboard, scaling it so that the yellow reference block is 25mm (1 inch) when printed out, then cutting the shapes out with a pair of scissors and transferring the shapes to your plasticard with a fine-point marker.

To make life easier, cut all the green sections from 0.5mm Plasticard. The blue sections are 1mm to add structural strength to the top and bottom plates.

Additionally, print and cut a test turret from paper first, and make a paper-craft version just to test for scaling. There is a lot of cutting in this build, so making a fitting or printer scaling mistake will be frustrating. Also, you may "scale" it to your liking at this point, making it either bigger or smaller.

What you will need for: "RYNO" Turret

1 x Rhino kit from Games Workshop
0.5mm flat Styrene Plasticard Sheet
1mm flat Styrene plasticard sheet
3.2mm x 6.3mm Styrene Strip
8mm Styrene Tube (Optional)
Putty such as Green Stuff or Milliput (Optional, but I advise using this. So much easier to hide bloopers)
A VERY sharp hobby knife
A fine-point marker
Metal Ruler
Glue (I'll level with you. Use an extra thin solvent type glue here. It just makes life so much simpler. I use Tamiya Extra Thin, and believe me, you will have a hard time convincing me to use anything else. I almost feel that I should be wearing welding goggles when I use this stuff with ABS/Styrene.)
Sharp Cutters
Files and sanding paper (Fine)
Patience and a first aid kit

Step 1 - Template

Print the template onto cardboard and cut it out with scissors or a knife.

Step 2 - Transfer and cut

Transfer the shapes to your plasticard using a fine-point marker, and cut them out using a knife. This is probably the hardest part of this build and requires the most attention.

Important! Remember to gut the green parts from 0.5mm sheet and the blue parts from 1mm or thicker.

The build, once cut, is fairly simple. So once everything is cut, the hard part is over!

Hard part done!

But Magpie, how do you cut those holes?

The holes? Well... yeah, simple but hand cramping work really. So what you so it "toilet-paper" it. Basically, punch holes all along the mark, and then just "pop" it out.

Take breaks... this is... wrist breaking.

And punch out.

Step 3 - Bottom-plate

The whole build is pretty simple. It really is just a matter of getting everything in the right place. Where to start, is with the base plate, and front angled plate. Once they are in place, you have a guide for the rest.

Front and Centre!

Now just glue the plates in plates in place one at a time using the centre one.

With the angled floor plate, I added a this 0.5mm rod to add structural strength to the overall design.

Glue angled floor plate.

Measure and cut (its optional btw)

Just to add strength. But it does work well.

Step 4 - Finish bottom and test-fit roof

Just follow onward with the plates until the turret is done. If your cuts were on target, it should be fairly close to perfect. I have yet to achieve that... But, thats why I have putty.

Turret basically done...

And roof fits well. Well, well enough.

Step 5 - Gun mantle

For this part, cut the two round shapes. Here, precision is key, as the closer the circular plates are to each other, the easier this piece will be to make.

Once they are cut, and the square plate is cut, bend it so that it will conform to the shape you need to make.

Bend the plate and try and make the circles as close to perfect as possible.

Now, once they are shaped, glue them and use tape to make sure they stay glued until the glue is fully cured.

2 drums and a cymbal walks off a cliff - doef doef dish.

Step 6 - Mounting Ring

Basically, the ring is made of 2 strips of Plasticard, cut and sized inside the mounting bracket (Roof of the predator with the hole in it) This is fairly simple, but takes a bit of time as the glue needs to be perfectly cured.
Once cured, just remove from the roof (Please be careful not to glue it to the roof part) sand it smooth on both sides and glue to the turret. I usually add a vertical bar as well, for magnetizing.

Please note that the hole in the turret bottom section is purposefully smaller on the template than
needed, to make sure you have room to play. You don't have to even cut it out.

Careful! Don't glue it to the roof!

Step 7 - Gun

Here, follow what you feel you want to do. I wanted a big, long rang gun and wanted to add a hydraulic-recoil absorbed as well. That forced me into adding another small section on the roof as you will see in the final pictures.

RYNO HORN!

Scribed some roof panels in just for aesthetic.

Step 7 - Accessorise

Pretty much done with the turret. Now just cut those armour plates to taste and accessorise the turret. I did not do too much to this turret as I am in the middle of moving house, so my stuff is just all over the place.