Daboarder's How To's: Mk 1.5 Combi Rifle

Hey all,

So I haven't done a tutorial in a while, or any 40k hobby, but thats because for the time being at least I have put the grimdark aside for a slightly more positive vision of the future. Yes I have been traipsing around the Human Sphere and loving every minute of it.

From the game balance (The best I've ever seen, every unit is viable and while there are some design philosophies lists should roughly adhere to you can mostly run whatever you want and expect a good game.) To the Cost (A single 30-40 dollar box of minatures will get you 120 pts or more of starting force and thats all the buy in required.) To the fantastic miniatures (Though there is some discrepancy in design and scale unified paintjobs minimized the jarring caused to a force).

However it is only recently that I feel I have started to obtain sufficient "feel" for the universe and the way to models go together to start converting them. I am starting out small with some head swaps and weapon mods but I wanted to share with you one that I personally find not only easy but very good at "updating" a model that is rather old.

And the item I am talking about is the old, humble PanO Combi-rifle.

Now I dont know about you, but I HATE the snub nose, I actually cannot stand that barrel and its enough to put me off a model entirely. But, I have a neat little mod that is easy to do and unless your model is holding the barrel, then any model in the PanO range is far game for this conversion. This should bring the barrel size inline with pretty much the entire rest of the range.

Did I mention that its cheap?

Well, without further ado, lets get too it.

First mark off your combi rifle a fraction ahead of the little nub that sits below it. You want this part of the barrel to hang out a little bit from that segment.

http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/s...ps3abgemge.jpg

Then just hack the front part of with a saw. I recommend a saw over a blade as you want the cut to be as perpendicular as you can to the gun.

http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/s...ps5u4qimtq.jpg

Next take a piece of 2 mm diameter plastic rod and cut a 1.5 mm long section. A good trick is to roll the plasticard around using the edge of your blade to score the circumference before you cut it. This should again help keep it even.

http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/s...psppmuuvcd.jpg

Glue the little piece of rod on the end. You might notice that the diameter is not significantly different to the metal barrel, and yeah its not a huge change but the small step down not only makes the barrel flow visually to a point (helping draw focus on the gun) it should also create a disticntion with regards to highlights once its painted.

http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/s...psuhmdaaua.jpg

Next, we want to use a very small slim barrel, but just gluing it on the end would probably lead to a lot of breakage given the small contact area, so we are going to fix that,

Get a 1.5 mm drill bit and drill out the centre of the plastic section. You dont need to go all the way trough, just create enough of hole that we can comfortably fit the final section of barrel into the gap.

http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/s...ps120qqxpv.jpg

Now, take a plastic rod (1 mm works well) and glue it into the barrel, make sure that it comes out straight and not crooked.

http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/s...psephe7lu4.jpg

Final step, once the glue in the above step has dried sufficiently (5 mins) then chop off the end of the barrel at a desired length (I find 2 mm of "small" barrel works well)

http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/s...psgx9trcbc.jpg

Congratulations, you now have an upgraded/retrofitted comb-rifle to gun down the enemies of Panoceania in style.

Heres a picture of how it looks on a model.

http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/s...ps321kxwnv.jpg


EDIT: Just some quick notes.

1) Use a minimal of superglue, I find it easier to put a drop of superglue on something disposable and pointed (like a toothpick) and then use that to put the superglue on the join, this helps to limit the amount of glue and prevent it turning into a messy blob.

2) If you wanted, you could add a little bit more detail to the barrels, either by using a saw to cut cooling grooves along the top of the metal section, creating an effect like the latest combi-rifles.
OR
You could drill small indentations around the barrel like the cooling sheath on a HMG.

3) Keen observers might notice that the secondary ammo feed blocks the sights for the gun, a rather major design flaw, if this is the sort of thing that bothers you you have two options, either remove the offending ammo feed with two simple cuts (down the curve back and along the bottom) Or remove the sights entirely (who is to say a futuristic gun needs them.)

Eiher of those two ideas should help add a little extra detail for those that are that way inclined.