Entering the Gaslands

So over the last month l’ve been painting seven beastmen to go with the Khornate champion I painted a couple of years ago. I digress, this post isn’t about them. They’ll get their own for reasons...
This is my inaugural Gaslands post! My local dollar store had Hot Wheels on sale for 2 for $1. And I just couldn’t look that cheap miniature gift horse in the mouth. So I bought 30+ cars for less than you could even look at something made by GW. I then ordered the rule book and a couple of sprues of parts from http://www.northstarfigures.com/. Much to my surprise, the rule book was hardback and of very good quality. And even with this covid-19 crap going on the shipping time from the UK to the good’ol USA was not too bad. I’m impressed, those guys have great customer service!
Reading through the rule book it definitely has an old hammerish diy feel to it. And it gives me an opportunity to make a bunch of new stuff in a new scale. I figured I’d do some tutorials on how I’m making things for this new project. I suck at battle reports so we’ll see on that.
Anyway, here’s how to make some car mounted guns on the cheap:

I start out with a Diamond brand extra long toothpick 

And cut it down to length. The none pointy end has some nice details to it. Then I cut off a small bit of sprue and square it up with a file. We’ve all got some of this hanging around, don’t we? (You paid for it when you bought those plastic miniatures. Never throw away your money.) I then drill a 1/16” pilot hole in the middle of the sprue bit.

Be fairly precise with this because you won’t have much room in the next step. I used a 3/32” drill bit to make a counter sink for the toothpick barrel to sit in.

Now glue the toothpick barrel into the sprue bit. Refer to the first picture. For added details a bit of paper clip across the top of the sprue receiver and some plastic bits for the side plates of the receiver and the front sight.

They were made from a 1/16” strip cut from the blister that the hot wheel came in. (You didn’t throw that away, did you?) Triangles for the front sights and rectangles for the side plates.

Maybe when the car is closer to being done I’ll route a zip tie belt feed. I also want to do a tutorial on the auxiliary fuel tank. 

Until next time, stay healthy and stay safe.