Battering Ram, Pt.4

Will wonders never cease? I've actually done some more work on the ram today. I made the handles for the Troll to push the thing, then fit its hands to the handles. I began by taking the arms, removing the drum sticks, then drilling out the remainder of the sticks to fit a large bamboo skewer. Lastly, I cut off the locating pin at the shoulders. These arms are held on (and quite securely) solely by the two magnets.

 

I needed two blocks per side to hold the handles. To help maintain alignment, I drilled out the large block on the left, then split it in half, as on the right.

 

When I made the ram's frame work, I took care to make  the rear uprights  perfectly plumb. Now I had to make sure the skewers in the Troll's hands were also plumb. As originally assembled, they were not. I cut around the joint with a razor saw, so I could bend the wrist down. Luckily, when I first put the arms together, I strengthened the joint with a brass wire. I was able to carefully bend it down, without it actually separating from the rest of the arm. After using a square to achieve plumbness, I drizzled some thickened CA into the gap.

 

Some Squadron Green Putty finished filling in the rest of the gaps. I will sand away the excess tomorrow. (Or maybe fashion some wide bracelets.) If this model was to be used for just this purpose, I would have glued the arms directly to the body. But if you ever visited my other blog, you know I magnetized this Troll so all of its options were available. (See here) This leaves a rather noticeable joint line. To cover it I fashioned this leather (metal?) poncho. To make it, I used standard 1/4" and 1/8" paper punches to punch blanks out of my lead sheet, which were then flattened with a small ball peen hammer. They are glued to each other, but not to the Troll. (I still need to add some more.) This way it can be removed, allowing all the other options.

 

The blocks glued in place. (The skewers are loose-fit.) These joints are rather fragile, when they are fully cured, I will try to find a way to pin them for extra strength.

 

I've cut two skewers to size, and drilled them for brass pins, so they do not fall completely through

 

Since the shoulder locating pins are removed, the body can be easily pulled away from arms. (I suppose I could glue the arms directly to the handles, but you know me, I like options.)

 

I mentioned a single ballista for the front platform, but I'm also considering GW's Corsair Arbalesters as well.

From Games Workshop, this is how they look professionally painted.

 

That's it for now. If I get any farther along on this, I guess I need to make a gate for this to batter.  Don