Fellblade Project Part 1 - Construction Issues

 The time has come to start creating my Forge World fellblade.  This was a nice present I bought for myself :).  It has sat in a bag though for far too long!  With an apocalypse game soon approaching and an empty space in my displace cabinet, I hurried to rip into the bag.  As far as mould lines go they were very minimal.  The barrels had some minor lines which buffed right out.  I also trimmed and sanded the bottom of the turret since I didn't want it to scrape paint off the mounting plate.  All and all, after some minor touch ups and a bath.  It was ready to go!

I started my assembly as per the handy instructions.  There isn't much cutting and it fits together fairly well.  I use a lot of clamps when I build and I used them here.  I don't think I'd want to build something of this size without them.  I was also careful to pin major sections with paper clips to add extra support.  The photo on the left shows the assembly before I got to the tracks.  Up to this point everything was sailing along.

And then I got to the tracks.  These were a giant pain.  I'm not sure if it was my ineptitude or model shrinkage  Either way, getting the tracks to fit was a major frustration.  The first picture shows a ledge from the baneblade plastic sprue which is used to glue hull/track guards to.  On this model when I attempted to place the tracks, it gave them a rased and akward appearance.  You can see on the underside of the track that there is a groove for this.  It was simply not large enough.  Anyway this was a simple fix, I just scored it with a hobby knife and removed it.  It doesn't not affect the integrity of the fellblade at all.

 

However, the next track issue was much worse.  The frontal track mount (the top of which is highlighted below) did not fit.  This is a multi part mount and a piece of track must attach to it.  As this is all resin and must be pinned, it is not easy to work with.  When dry fitted there was a major gap in the tracks.  I ended up having to carve off a significant amount of the mount.  You can see how far back the mount now sites by the picture.  That resin protrusion at its top should be flush with the plastic.  A lot of pinning, getting my hands stuck together and cursing and I was done!  And then I had to do the other side!

Once that headache was done, everything again went smoothly.  Attaching the weapons, fuel tanks and other fixings went very quickly and suddenly the pride of the Fists was taking shape.

 

After I was done I went around and spruced it up with some decorations including etched brass and Fist iconography doors.  These are rhino sized for anyone interested.

 

The tracks are quite bare (or sleek) so I decided that every 7th track would have a fist icon on it (maybe nurgled number predisposed 1/4 of the chapter to turn rogue?).  Little features like this I think always add to a model.  Even if they're very subtle when you see them they're worth it.