Kitbash Autocannons for Havoc Squads

hey guys, found this nice tutorial and thought i'd share it. Originally Created by -Max-

-What you need-

1. The Reaper Autocannons from the Defiler kit.
2. The Heavy Bolter from the basic Chaos Space Marines boxed set

Step 1:
Cut the barrels of the Reaper Autocannon off just behind the reinforcement rings on the receiver.


Step 2:
Cut and file the excess so that it's just the barrels and reinforcement rings. It's better to file the back flat while it's still got the barrels attached to it.


Step 3:
This is how you cut the barrel up. I leave two ventilation holes on the barrel part I want to use. Discard the middle part, and file the pieces flat and smooth.


Step 4:
This is how you cut up the Heavy Bolter. Slice off the ammo belt and the barrel parts, then file smooth. It's important that you file it nice and flat, and make sure that everything is at right-angles before you glue it; you don't want your barrels to be going off at an angle.


Step 5:
This is what it looks like once you attach the shortened Reaper barrels to the Heavy Bolter receiver. A little dab of glue and you've got the basic cannon. If you wish, you can stop here, or continue onto the next steps.


Step 6:
Cut off the brass deflector on the ejection port and file that area smooth, because that's where the ammo drum is going.
You can go 2 ways with the ammo drum at this point. The first is to mount one of the drums from an Imperial Guard autocannon from their Heavy Weapons Team kits. If you have one of these pieces, this is the faster and nicer route to go. If you dont, here's the second method using plasticard:

Step 7:
This is .25" plastic tubing. I've cut a section about 8mm long.


Step 8:
Glue this section of tubing to the side of the autocannon where you smoothed the ejection port a bit.


Step 9:
Trace the ends of the tubing on some flat plasticard. I don't have the package this came in anymore, but I can tell you it's not terribly thick, maybe 1mm.


Step 10:
File the flat drum ends as round and smooth as you can, but don't go crazy. The pieces should be bigger than the diameter of the drum by about 1.5mm.


Step 11:
Take some solid round bar plastic of about 1/16th of an inch or so and cut some little rivet sized pieces off. I make several, because I invariably cut some sideways and there's just no way to file these flat. Just eyeball that sucker and use the best two.


Step 12:
Glue the flat round bits to the end of the tubing section. It's going to stick out because it's larger than the tubing, so bias it to stick out a little bit on the top, but be basically even. You could be fancy and file one side flat to snug it up, but I don't think it's necessary so long as the round pieces are more or less round. A dab of glue and the "rivet" pieces go in the middle of the ammo drum ends.


Step 13:
Some solid square bar 1.5mm x 1.5mm. Measure it against the gap. It's going to fit into that area on top, snug between the lips you left when you biased it to stick out more on top.


Step 14:
It can be fiddly to get it in there straight. You put in too much glue and it runs. You don't put in enough and it sticks quickly and probably at an angle. This top piece is just to add texture and to distract the eye from the fact the end pieces won't be perfectly round or matched to the tubing.


Finished Product: