Sunday, May 17, 2015

Fellblade Rescue


This thing has been a royal pain in the ass but it is finally assembled and ready for paint. A while back my buddy Joe picked up a Fellblade from ebay (check out his blog to see his awesome commission painting). When it arrived it was clear to him that the glue bomb he had just received was a recast full of problems. He brought it to me to repair in exchange for some trade. 

I had to begin by disassembling it. There were major gaps, broken and missing pieces, warping, and nasty seam lines. Joe had picked up some 3rd party treads and forgeworld doors he wanted to use. In addition to the extra bits he wanted to add, we had to completely replace the bottom of the hull as well as the two interior side walls. While I didn't take any 'before' pictures I have detailed the steps I took below.

One of the many broken pieces was the .5mm lip around the sensors on the main turret. I trimmed of the broken portion and replaced it with styrene cut to shape and size.

These little brackets were missing from the model so I whipped some up out of styrene and apoxie sculpt. The rivets are from MENG


The turret itself had several chips and gaps in the edges. A bit of putty, a lot of sanding, and a coat of grey primer later and its as good as new. When working with putty it helps to apply a layer of primer after sanding to see the finished product. Followed up by subsequent sanding and primer seam lines an blemishes disappear.


Several of the steps were broken or chipped so I shaved off what was left of them and replaced them with styrene cut to shape and size.

The lascannons needed some serious straightening, nothing a dip in some hot water couldn't help. The sight rails also needed to be replaced. Don't ask me why unmanned weapons need sight rails but apparently in the 31st century they do.

One of the back tread covers was broken and a duplicate of the opposite side. It needed a great deal of putty work to rebuild.

The third party treads didn't fit at all and required modification of the undersides to fit. The forgeworld doors only required a gentle sanding to fit in place.



Considering where it started out I'm quite pleased with it and look forward to seeing what it looks like painted. Oh, and yes, that is a Sicarian Battle Tank in the background, but I'm saving that for another post.