OK guys, I just thought I'd have a bash at one of these sorts of threads, and see how much interest it gets. It also has the added bonus of forcing me to continue some of my infamous 'half-arsed' projects! (infamous to those who have known me for a while, of course).

I will put up my first article tomorrow (or later today, depending on your perspective) and it's a step-by-step PLog of my PH White Scars jetbikes, although the concept is universally applicable to any PH legion.

First things first, this is all the stuff you will need for a standard jetbike. Any bespoke riders or special characters will require more bitz, I'm sure, but that's up to you.



The list is:
1. Space Marine bike sprue
2. BFG Imperial Cruiser sprue
3. Ravenwing bike headlight frontplate (I couldn't think of a shorter name, but it will be called 'Wing plate' from now on)
4. 2 Space Marine boltguns
5. Some spare sprue rod
6. Small flying base
7. Modelling knife
8. File
9. Hack-/razor-saw

The first thing to do is clip off both sides of the bike chassis and both sides of the cruiser chassis from their respective sprues.

Any red lines on pictures indicate lines along which you must cut.










The first bit of plastic to get the chop was the nose section of the cruiser, and the two sides were then glued together, thus:



I then sawed through the front mud guard of the bike on both sides at an angle perpendicular to the direction of the fork piston:



Follwoing this, I sawed through the mud guard at and angle that was just shy of 90 degrees to my previous cut. This cut followed the linear edge of the joint between the fork and the mud guard, before finally removing the mud guard completely with a complementary cut from a modelling knife on the other side of the fork:



Next, using a diagonal cut of the razor saw, I removed the lower exhaust pipe from the bike:



I did this to both sides and after a little neatening up of edges, glued the two sides of the bike together:





I then filed the three ridges of the front of the bike's engine manifold, and then compared by eye the angle at which I would have to cut across the rear corner of the cruiser nose section to get it to fit snugly onto the front of the bike. (I think that was correct english :S):



Roughly judging the line, I then sawed the rear top corner from the cruiser nose section. On two out of my three jetbikes I judged it perfectly, but one I did have to file considerably.

At this juncture it is worth stressing the point that it is better to cut off slightly less than you think you need to cut off, as adjustments are easily filed into being that way. Have fun green stuffing and plasticarding your way to victory if you misjudge it and chop off too much.

This adapted nose section I then glued to the front of the engine manifold and the underside of the bike's fork bracket, like so:



(Sorry about the constant swapping of the direction the components are laid out in, I was obviously having flippy fun time while assembling this particular 'bike)

Next I sawed the front lip from the bike foot plate, as I thought this made it look more aerodynamic.



I then cut away the pipes that led to the lower exhausts, as they no longer existed:



The foot plate was glued to the underside of the bike chassis:



At this point I took a short break to supply myself with some glucose. This came in the form of a Fox's Fruit Glacier sweet, but your specific choice of energy source does not directly affect the construction of the jetbike. What's important is that you are supplied with enough sugar-phosphates to keep your problem-solving, cerebral synapses firing regularly! [/public service broadcast]



Post-sweet, I clipped the engine section from the cruiser sprue. I then slid it into the gap in the rear mud guards. This will take a minute amount of filing on both sides of the inside of the mudguard, but otherwise it is a satisfyingly snug fit.



Making sure the engine section pointed directly backwards on the 'bike, I then scored a line on the underside of both exhausts to indicate where the flat inner surface of the enigine section lined up with. I then clipped off a length of sprue frame that I thought would be about right. I slotted one end into the gap right at the base of the engine, directly beneath the seat and trimmed the other end to a flat surface in line with the scores I had made under the exhausts. I glued this into place, and then glued the engine section onto the flat end:



Next I clipped off the 'wings' section from the cruiser sprue and sawed it along the red lines shown to get the following two slices of it:



These I glued under the exhausts, the front swept portoins attaching to the rear of the foot plate:



This was to hide the large gap beneath the rear mud guard, and also to provide a stylistic complement to the cruiser components on the front of the 'bike, as without them, the nose section would have stood out too much compared to the rest of the bike.

Next thing is the Wing plate. It was a fairly simple task to saw straight down the edge of the winged flanges of the plate:



I then filed the edges of the headlamp section, and also bevelled the hard edges slightly, so they would not look quite so sharp on the finished miniature.

I'd love to get this finished right now, but I have lectures to go to, so I shall complete this when I get back home.

Cheers for reading this far by the way, anyone who has... I'm grateful :P

BEST tutorial ever. :D

I'm moving this to the Tutorials section - can't wait to see more!

YES.
This is awesome, I need to get my hands on some BFG ships. Thanks.

Looking good so far! Can't wait to see the finished result!

That's awesome! I wish this was up a couple weeks ago before I started my poor excuse for a jetbike hackjob.

What an awesome guide! I would never have thought to put the BFG ship on the front!

Now, you just need a warning sticker on them telling them to keep away from Banewolfs ;)

Heheh Banewolf Choke!

Excellent Tutorial, didn't even know BFG was out in plastic!

This is a great Idea, a bit expensive. But well worth the investment.
Cant wait for you to finish the project. :D

Its not even done and you can tell that this is easily going to be the best looking plastic jetbike out there. Very SAVED! :D

-Eric

Hey guys, thanks for the great comments. This is my first web turtorial, so I was a little unsure.

So, to continue where I left off...

Next, the wings need to be added to the area just behind the eagle head on the nose section, however, you will nedd a larger, flatter surface on which to glue them than the tiny little promontory edges that are there already, so trim the top edges of the prow using your knife at approximately a 45 degree angle, thus:



Now, glue the headlight portion of the wing plate to the appropriate place on the front of the bike forks. This should be a standard fit as per the regular headlight plates for bikes. If it's not, you've gone wrong somewhere.

Due to the angle of the cut on the winged flanges from the wing plate, they will have a leading edge that is triangular in cross-section. A controlled trim will remove this, and also the rough plastic edge from the cut. Then, glue the flat edge of the wings to the flat cut top edges of the prow:



At this point, the majority of the body of the 'bike is complete, but they are lacking bite, so it's time to add guns.

90% of the flank of the nose section is flat, inset area to which you would fix whatever armament you wish to the cruiser. In hindsight I believe it would make a better looking model if this was adapted in some way. Personally, I wanted to fill the flat with small-gauge wire mesh (pictured), but guitar wire hoses, plasticard plating, and anything else vaguely similar will do.



These 'bikes, however have it blank due to time constraints, which wasn't really noticeable one I'd finished, so meh. As with all aspects of the build, these are MY steps to making MY jetbikes, it's all totally up to you how you go about it.

Now, the bolters will be placed along the bottom half of the flat inset of the nose section, but they will need some method of standing proud of that surface, otherwise the rear of the prow obscures their line of sight.

Clip out a section of sprue frame from one of your spare sprues. Make sure it is easily twice the length of the flat surface of the nose section, and try to pick a bit that doesn't have writing on, although it's no biggy if you do, it'll just need to be filed down.

Trim one end flat, and then line the rod up with the flat inset on the nose. The rod is trapezoidal in cross-section, so make sure the wider edge is flush with the inset surface.

Roughly gaugeing the length you need (overestimating a little) cut the rod to fit. It can be filed for precision. Now glue this to the bottom part of the inset to form the bolter brackets:



The next thing you do is remove the grips and trigger guards from both bolters. Then, choosing which side your bolters will be fixed to, file flat the side of the bolter that will be glued to your 'bike. Glue your bolters, making sure they are straight and level, to the sprue brackets:



Nearly done!

The last thing to do is drill a hole in the underside of the 'bike for the flying base. I did this about one mil in front of the square block on the footplate. Then glue the two pieces of the base together, and fix it in the hole:



I left mine loose for ease of transport.

Et voila! One Adeptus Astartes jetbike to add to your legion's arsenal, so that you may better bring the light of Imperial truth to the galaxy.

Of course it needs a rider, but they are out-of-the-box bike riders unless you want some sprecialist models, but obviously that's up to you. Here are some pics of my complete jetbike riders.





I hope this tutorial has been helpful.

Now my plan while this was in member articles was to carry on with some pics of truescale marines, but it wasn't going to be a tutorial, so my progress on them will be hiding somewhere else once I get round to DLing the pictures. Ciao.

Really cool i may have to take this idea :D

Well done mate, great tutorial!

I think this deserves an "Important" tag - and maybe a reshuffling of the posts so that the tutorial reads smoothly.

great tutorial - like the use of BFG ships :D :ph43r:

what would be the total model price for one of these?

Very nice tutorial.

I have 1 critique though - magazines on the bolters is probably a bad idea. Does he have to reach down and change them when the gun runs out? I'd have put in feeds.

Perhaps adapting this model:

Would ammo drums from Storm bolters be another possibility?

Certainly a safer choice, but then we're talking White Scars :D

I can just imagine them hanging upside down, gripping their jetbike with just their legs and slapping in new magazines while screaming at the top of their three lungs...

As inspiring as this mental image is, it was a decision I made based on the components and the time I had. 1500 points of White Scars in five weeks, from scratch, is a little... well, thruthfully, it hurt.

But yes, I totally agree that some adaption to the bolters would fit better. I have seen jetbikes that use the normal bike bolters, upside down under the footplate, with the slope ends of the magazines glued to the sloped face of the plate, indicating an ammo feed slung underneath the engine.

As with most of my Scars, at some point in the future I hope to be able to adapt them slightly to make them more detailed and contextually accurate, jetbikes included. The most likely course that I can think of is ammo belts made of lengths of small gauge plastic rod, 'belts' of green stuff, and a plasticard hopper slung under the nose section.

But yeah, anything like drum mags, belts feeds, whatever, it all makes sense.

had that idea a while ago, but didnt wanna waste money on minis incase i bugger it all up... nice work, consider it stolen..

Steal well, my friend... it's there for anyone who wants it.

Also, I only just noticed the Banewolf slurs in the middle of this thread... gr.

King Fluff; a SM bike in a box is £6, the Imperial cruisers come in boxed of two and are priced at £9, and you could get the Ravenwing plate and bolters fairly easily from a bitz website for a pound or so.

In fact your best value:components ratio is probably to buy two boxes of cruisers and the Ravnewing bike squadron box at £22.50, as this gives you components for three jetbikes straight off the bat.

joink......... idea stolen an filed :)

great work