Hammerhead Conversion - Mangozac Railgun

[Wolfs16]

With mangozac's railgun in my possession, I absolutely had to do something with it. , I figured I could copy some of his ideas and add my own techniques (and by "techniques," I mean "figuring it out as I go along").

This is the body I plan on using for the Hammerhead, but I still need to do a lot of gap filing. The Railgun is held on simply by sticky tac, but I think it gets the point across.






I like where it is going, but I am hesitant to attach it in the same way Agentarrow did. It's not that I thought his way was bad, but I just wanted to try something different. I thought about attaching the bottom of the gun to the turret itself like you see in the picture. But it is definitely lacking something there. Any thoughts on how to attach it to the main hull?

There is still gap filling to do, but as you can see, I attached the heat sink from the original Railgun and I even cut some square pieces from it to even out the back of the new Railgun (like a hunter, I use every piece of what I kill). The cylinders at the top are not the ones that I will be using. The one I'm using is drying after some superglue, so I used this backup one for the picture.



As for other things on the Hammerhead, I'm sure you'll notice the side panels/circles. These came with the kit and have yet to be cleaned up, but I was thinking about using them as new types of side armor. I'm not married to the idea, but I want to figure out a way to make the Hammerhead's armor look stronger. Anyone got any ideas for that? (I'm still waiting for those darn Koto sprues to arrive! )

And here is my SMS idea!


I have a bunch of these from my Broadsides, so I thought I'd use them as a beefier SMS system. The Drone half will definitely be spruced up a bit, but this will do for now. I plan on magnetizing the SMS so I can swap it out for the mangozac's Burst Cannon's (not pictured).

So what is the general consensus? Do you guys like the direction this is going in? What needs to be changed? Comments and criticisms always welcome!

[mangozac]

Okay now we're talking!

My first reaction, especially after seeing some better pics of AA's attempt is that the body of the railgun is too short. The design I made was intended to look such that the bulk of the body was inside the rotator and thus not visible. So I would like to see the rear end of the railgun body extended by at least 10mm and then have the heatsink box on the end of that. with all of that weight of the barrel hanging out forwards it would make sense that part of the railgun actually hangs off over the back of the chassis.

I would contemplate cutting off the little sensor tube piece on the bottom of the railgun. I think it adds just a bit too much height

For mounting I was thinking perhaps you could remove the cupola and hatch next to the turret and instead bog it up to have a connection on the side of the railgun. That way the railgun's elevation could be (theoretically) varied, unlike AA's design which has a fixed elevation. It wouldn't have a massive range of movement but better than nothing.

The Warhound SMS system looks right at home and suits well.

Interesting idea using the rotators in place of the side hatches like that. With a bit of cleaning up and nice puttying I'm sure it could work quite well.

Did you ever see Dark_gear's HH up armouring thread on ATT:

Great start buddy - keep it up!

[Warhound]

This has been a night of tinkering elves!

Great work Jacob, this has been really well administered! I agree with Zac and think that the length of the heat sink needs to be extended to help balance on the fulcrum mounting point. The height is fine though I think, but without cutting the scope off may make it hard to mount?

The SMS made me double take- its so long since I have seen them! Nice adaptation and one that I should have thought of

I look forward to seeing how you finish the drones and up armour the hull!

cheers
WARHOUND

[Wolfs16]

Thanks for the replies! Sorry I've been lax in responding. I had a few models that I wanted to get done so I could clear room on my desk. Anyways, I did a little thinking about your suggestions.

One thing I totally agree on is that the gun is too tall. It looks kinnda goofy as is, so I tried cutting the bottom rung off of the extra Railgun I had to see how it would look. I like it a lot better like that; I feel lik I can integrate it into the turret better. Now, I tried attaching it the way the normal Railgun does, but I needed something to connect to the "hinge" piece (I hope you guys know what I'm talking about). I then took the bottom part of a standard Railgun and mounted it at the bottom of the new one so it could stick to the turret. They I attached two pieces from the Ion Cannon. I'm not sure if they work, but I think I can figure it out.

Now, I know that there is a lot more work to be done, but I wanted to get some more ideas before I chopped up too many parts. Ignore the heat sink area on the back for right now. I'm not using the turret I have built up at the moment, so there will be more back there. Any ideas on how best to lengthen it?




I think that just a little bit more length in the back would make it look pretty balanced. So what do you guys think?

[mangozac]

Yeah I like where it's going. Removing the "bottom rung" like that definitely works and by the time you block all of that area in with plasticard etc. I think you will probably be able to get away with not extending the railgun body.
The only problem is that the bottom section of the rear of the railgun has those pipes going to nowhere. Perhaps you could leave the heatsink box how it is in these pictures but build some detail underneath that is a bit wider and from where those cables can be coming.

Now that said I just realised that the capacitors aren't currently attached. And IMO adding them back on top where they're supposed to be is going to make it look tall and goofy again. What if you modded the capacitor block so that it mounted on the side of the railgun instead of the top so that the capacitors point diagonally downwards instead?

The top of the railgun could do with that power coupling/pipe part from the plastic kit too.

[Wolfs16]

Okay, so I have been meaning to update for awhile, but real life took a big, steamy dump in my lap so I have been delayed. Anyways, onto the pretty pictures!

Here’s the SMS that I have been working on for my Devilfish. I know the picture is really dark, but it is black right now and I was having issues trying to make the picture lighter, so I just gave up. Hope you can make sense of it.


Obvviously it needs paint, but I think it looks pretty solid modeling wise.

Now onto the Hammerhead!

I changed the mounting a bit to make it fit more into the turret design. I think it turned out okay, but it is still missing something…



I was thinking of adding this Koto bit near the flat parts of the gun near the heatsink:

(It’s the ones in the upper left)

So what does everyone think? I feel like the gun might be a little too high, but I’m not sure how to fix that.

Mango, you mentioned attaching the capacitors and have them pointing down, but I'm not exactly sure how to achive that... any thoughts?

[mangozac]

YES to the mounting.
YES to the koto vents.
ONLY if you mount the capacitors on the side. To do this, sit the capacitor block on top where it is supposed to go. Then rotate it 90° so that the capacitors are poking diagonally downward. Obviously some filing of the lower part of the capacitors will be required so that it sits flush against the railgun but that will look fine.

By doing that you lower the profile enough to make it look good.

Chop chop!

[Wolfs16]

It finally clicked in my head what you meant about the capacitors. Is this right?




(Obviously, the last one will be a bit straighter.)

As mango said, gap filling and filing needs to be done, but I really like it so far! (I'm waiting for Warhound to come in and burst my bubble ) What do you guys think?

[paulson games]

I think it looks good so far. The railgun appears to have a slight bend to it, might want to check it with a straight edge. If it is crooked; heat it up in hot water so it softens enough to bend back straight.

[mangozac]

That's it! I like it!