From The Chopping Board - Articulating a Dreadnought: Build Finished

Two posts below this, there's the first half of this article, so go read that first if you like (and haven't already).

Done that? Right, let's crack on...

As mentioned in my previous post, I lost my phone which included all the work in progress shots for this project. As you can see in the first picture, he's now covered in a couple of layers of paint.I'm going to do my best to show what work was done between part one and now.

Previously I'd cut the arms out of the shoulder mounts and we were at this stage:

To rebuild the arm at the desired angle I filled the shoulder joint with Milliput then pushed the shoulder joint onto the body while it was soft - in order to maintain the plug hole for the body/arm connection. It's good to add a little water/saliva to stop it sticking, works wonders.

I then worked the arm onto the lump of putty sticking out of the shoulder piece and got it to the desired angle. Again, a little saliva stopped the arm sticking. I then left it to cure for about an hour, maybe two, then replaced the arm on the now much more firm putty, and roughly trimmed down all the excess. I tidied it up properly once it was much more properly cured.

This gave me the arm angled out in a pointing/firing direction shown above and in the first picture of this post. I repeated this with the left arm which was a little more simple as I wanted it hanging straight at his side:

Next up for these arms was fitting their weapons. With a little trimming the pointing arm's flamer went on fine.  The melta on the black arm needed it's hose removing to fit. The melta's hose was trimmed down and replaced quite simply (see above). The flamer's needed twisting (gently or you'll snap it) into place:

Next up was to replace the cables I'd trimmed from both arms. I have a set of these:

Once you've had a little practice they work a treat. I added three or four to each arm:

Two added inside the elbow joint here

Four added to this arm; two front and two back of elbow

Sorry, they're about the best pictures I could manage. They looked a bit like this before:

The only other thing I did with the arms was drill a hole inside the shoulder and body joint and add a pin so they'll stay at the right angles. I've not used anything else to hold them to the body; it's a petty snug fit without needing magnets etc.

For transport I like to be able to split my Dreads into legs body and arms. The easiest way to fix the body is using magnets. For this drill a pilot hole in the leg and body sections of the waist joint. Then drill the correct size hole for the magnet and pop them in place:

Note the additional pin and hole, again to keep him pointing the correct way. This guy has a lump of slate on his base, I might have to add another magnet for a little security, I'll wait and see.

So there you go. Not as detailed as I'd have liked but hope you get the gist. Next up: paint!

Adios for now...