Chimera WIP Part 1

Going on from my previous post, I've started work on my Chimera.  I've been taking photos and will try to lay this out as a guide for others wishing to do the same.  I started out by assembling the track sections as normal (I decided not to go with the alternate track style).  I've left off the tracks for the time being, as I can easily add them on later.  I got out all the other major parts and cleaned them all up ready for assembly.

I then started to work out my measurements.  I concluded that to get the look that I wanted, I could remove between 18mm and 22mm from the top section.  Any less than that and I would partially cover some of the hatches that I wanted to keep.  Any longer than that and I would have to add extensions to the lower hull and that would be painful.  I worked out that I could cut out from just in front of the first lasgun port to just in front of the second lasgun port.  This worked out to be about 18-19mm of hull.  I put together the front part of the hull to help me with guessing and fitting of parts.  I took my new hobby saw and proceeded to cut the section out of the hull.  Unfortunately I let the blade slip at one stage and put a nick in the hull that I will have to cover up later on.

I then cleaned up the cut a little with a file and glued the two halves together.

For extra strength, I cut off two legths of sprue and glued them to the underside of the hull.

Once that was done, I glued the lower section of the hull to the two track sections.  This was a little tricky as the parts all need to be squeezed tightly together to get them to glue straight.  I also lined up my top hull with the lower hull and clipped off the rear rivets and one of the sets of hinges to allow a flush finish.  I'll have to make up the hinge parts that I've removed latter on out of greenstuff or small bits of plasticard.

 Once that was done, I've test fitted all of the parts and am assembling each of the other sections.  I haven't glued on any of the hatches yet as I'll leave them until I've got all of the parts built that need to be.  I've already had to fish one of the small hatches out of the hull as I try dry fitting them in place and filing.

You can see the tank starting to take shape.  I'll keep this updated as I continue working on it.

P.S. The new version of the blog composer is bloody annoying.  Especially the fact that if I'm uploading pictures, I can't write at the same time like I used to.

Eltnot.