How to create a bolt thrower for under £1...

[athamas]

OK, under £1 is only really true if you are making more than 1... but come on... your gonna to ain't you...

You will need:

> usual array of crafting material [glue, cutters, knife etc..]
>really this styrene rod [circular or square, does not matter] to be used as rivets, so i mean the really really thin stuff
> Greenstuff & milliput, or which ever poison you prefer
> Sheet styrene, [plasticard] something about .5mm should do, you don't need a whole sheet, just some left over piece [for the bracket fungus]
> paper clips, or some other form of metal pin to act as mushroom stalks

for each bolt thrower you will need:
> some form of base.. either 40mm or 50mm square [I'm using 4 skull pass bases glued together]
> thin square styrene rod, 2.0mm - 2.2mm is ideal
> thicker styrene square rod 3.2 mm is ideal
> 1 spear head

1) Pic 1
A weapon of mass destruction such as this needs a good sturdy base, so to start, i have made a nice sturdy setting using the thicker rod, the base needs to adequately fill the 40mm or 50mm base so it does not look out of place, it should look right when its the correct size.

2) Pic 2.1 Pic 2.2
Next up is giving to height to the actual launcher, this consists of making a support frame from the thinner rod, this consists of 2 uprights that then have supports going back to each out rigger, a stop bar at the back is also added to keep the this together.

3) Pic 3.1
Next up is the stock of the weapon, this was created from 4 pieces of the thinner rod, 2 long, 2 shorter, the long ones are about 40mm the sort one's 30mm, in this pic i placed a strip of plasticard between them for aesthetic value to make it look different.

4) Pic 4
Now for the arms of the thrower. These are created by taking the thicker rod and bending it back on its self, the idea being to get a section of nice curved plasticard. once it is significantly bent, cut it in half so you have 2 equal length that have a nice gentle curve to them.

5) Pic 5
These then want to be attached to the stock, so they curve back to give you that nice crossbow look, they really should be set back a fey millimeters from the front so the stock juts forward a bit.
You also want to cut out a nice front plate from plasticard that has a central gap that lined up with the stock, it should extend ~2/3 of the way down each arm and be tall enough to hang down over the arms with the spikes pointing upwards when the central gap is aligned.

6) Pic 6
Now you want to attach the front plate to the stock, line up the central gap with the stock, and attach it there, once dry, attach each side in turn so that the front plate is curved.
Next, chop a few small [cube like] bits of the really small rod. and attach these to the front of the plate as rivets.

Due to the height not quite being right for me i added the little joint section in to attach it to the base. provided the base is tall enough it is possible to suspend the stock between the two uprights [see finished pics for example]

7) Pic 7.1 Pic 7.2
You have now basically finished, and you should have a bolt thrower ready to add to your army..
However, if you have got this far, you really should add some more detail...

8) Pic 8.1 Pic 8.2
OK, so now we have a basic but somewhat boring bolt thrower, it looks like its made of fresh, chunks of steel boxing that have been badly welded together...

this is not at all appropriate for a warhammer army... time to make it look used...

First thing to do is hack at the edges [i did not do this till later in the pics because i forgot about it, but doing this now make it a lot easier...]
Just take the hard edges off of things, you know what old planks should look like. Its also a good idea to add some putty to build the support into the base.

Once this is done its time to add the fungus.

This is achieved by using small disks of platicard that are attached to random bits of the frame, it does not matter ho big or small they are, but they want to be fairly level on top, its best to get a good strong place to attach them so inward corners are great.

9)Pic 9
Leave the fungus to dry for a while, go paint some mini's or build some mushrooms and the spear [see sections 10 and 12] once dry you need to fill in the are under the plasticard so that it slopes down like fungus should... [for reference search 'bracket fungus' in Google] and add some detail to the bottom like groves.

10) Pic 10.1 Pic 10.2 Pic 10.3
Creating the spear is fairly easy, you need a random plastic spear head, and a piece of sprue, long enough to be the shaft of the weapon. this then needs to be whittled down until it looks like it is the correct size to be the haft of the spear.
Then you want to make sure the spear is the same length as those carrying it, so compare to the size of a goblins spear and chop to the correct length. then pin the head and haft together, making sure they are straight.

You also want to create the fins on the spear, to file the last 5mm or so of the haft so that it is square with the blade, and cut up a strip of platicard into 3 squares, and then cut a corner of each.

Then its just a case of attaching the fins to the squared off end. One bolt ready to be glued to the stock of the thrower.

11) Pic 11.1 Pic 11.2
The finishing touches to the base are to place a very small amount of GS on the top of the fungus to stop it from being perfectly smooth, and blend it into the frame, and add rivets where ever you feel it appropriate, these can either be a small cube of the thinnest rod, or a strip of GS wit two cubes at each and representing a metal joining plate.

12) Pic 12
Mushrooms are a very iconic goblin trait, and thus should be included in everything you do.
To make the body of the mushroom, take a blob of miliput and roll it out using something flat, but instead of trying to create a long thin sausage, you want to angle what ever you are using to roll it to get a cone, repeat with the other end.
You should end up with some odd looking worm like things as shown in the pic. Once dry these can be cut in two to give you two mushroom bodies. you then need to drill a small hole in the bottom of each mushroom, but remember to let them dry fully before drilling them else bad things happen.

13)Pic 13
For the stalks of the mushrooms you want to drill lots of holes into your base and frame [remember to leave some space between them and space for the stock and arms] and then add chopped up paper clip or similar to these hole so that you have a nice collection of metal spikes glued in your base, on to these you can then glue your mushrooms.

14) Pic 14.1 Pic 14.2 Pic 14.3 Pic 14.4
You should now be able to attach the stock, and leave everything to dry, or wait until painted to attach the stock so you have more access.

and a final Picture of all 3 that i have built so far in an almost finished form

group shot with gobling for size comparison

[athamas]

a second post incase i run out of room in the first...

[nanktank]

Fantastice tut, I must say I did the same thing only with balsa, and an old spear for the actual bolt, mine is probably a lot more flimsy than yours.

[Mrlemonjelly]

That looks like you could make it from sprue, also, if you really want to save money.

Good though.

[unwanted]

Really wonderfully executed... It looks the part

[god octo]

for a quid, that looks amazing. It looks perfect- just like the GW ones. Once painted, i bet it looks like you bought it.

[Ornithoticus]

awesome work, might do some of those myself

[jostie]

ow, damn, that's really cool. If i played orcs i would make one myself!

[Mephistofeles]

Haha, almost made me want to create a goblin army just to include 1 or 8 of those...

Great work!

[athamas]

thanks for the coments..

i was endevering to make another update tonight, but time got ahead of me.. [really need sleep]

im gona make up a load of mushrooms and then head to bed so that i will actually have smeting to decorate the base with.. and show how damn easy it is..

[Paulus]

Not bad at all, nice work I like the look & I like the cost!

[athamas]

ok, just to say, finnished the tutorial, of anyone spots any mistakes please tell me, i think i got most of them, but my spelling is not the best.

i will try to get painted pics added to the end aswell,


hmm i have a small army of dwarves sitting beside me....

i wonder if its possible to make dwarven bolt throwers this way...

ill get playing, i have a weekend to have fun and make stuff, ill use my second post to place updates to any dwarven antics..

[Brother Smith]

Enter, the realm of Chaos, your nightmare has just begun..

We are talking about the Birmingham based Grindcore band right?

[SevenSins]

Looks very nice.
I recently bought the battle for skull pass box so I considered making a few bolt throwers myself. Mainly out of dwarf corpses and rubble (not to fond of dwarves), That added to spears from my bit box should look gobliny-unstable enough.
Now the real problem is time for this among my thousand projects....

[Frankly]

very nice work, I really like that. I made my own B.Throwers as well a few years back, but they're certainly not as cool as those. Well done!

[Samuel Bootsman]

i think i'll make some of those myself aswell since i tend to hit 5+ half the time
and since the are cheap as hell both in points and in money

[athamas]

i have some painted/ finished pictures, ill have to post them once i find them, [along with the other stuff i created in a simular way!]

[Rolo Ramone]

WOW! Thanks a lot, that´s great! One of the best tutorial I´ve seen. May you post that finished pictures?