Custom-cut Resin Leviathan Dreadnought Base

I'm using these bases for my army. I love their design and I think it compliments the Black Templar look well. However, they don't come round in sizes big enough for a Leviathan Dreadnaught.

So I got the idea to buy a bigger base and cut it down to size. Should be easy, right?

After asking around for help online and locally, a friend stepped in. Warren did this for me and he wrote a little post on how he did this, take a look!

There's even a little clip on how the resin base got cut. I couldn't link to it directly, but here's what Warren said:

I mounted the base on small backer plate in a lathe, using some
double-sided tape. This particular base has some writing and rocks /
rubble, so keep that in mind when figuring out where the center should
be.
I then plunged from the face at a relatively low RPM, using a (cheap)
carbide single point threading tool to cut to diameter and get the
bevel. The plastic / resin turned really easily, and came off in
really long, soft ribbons, not dust. I ended up using a shop-vac to
suck these off, just so I could easily see the work. The surface
finish was good, with no melting or chatter.

Anyway, that's it! Here are some more pics. Thanks for looking, and thanks for doing this Warren!

Fixing Storm Raven exhaust Rotation!

Hey, here's a weird one. So you know those little stabilizer jet exhausts that come with the Storm Raven kit? At the tip of the wings and just under the cockpit? Turns out they can swivel.

It's a bit difficult to see, but the two models below show it okay. The first Storm Raven has 4 jet exhausts pointing sideways (towards the camera), and the second's exhausts are pointing down:

  

Well I hate stuff like this! Assemble them too stiff and moving them becomes grindy. Assemble them too loose and they start to rattle and move on their own. The best solution might be to just fix them in a certain position.

Unless you use magnets to keep the little things fixed in their extremes? And then you can switch between the two with a light touch and a satisfying click? Oh yes.

Use a sprue bit to create a girder down the middle of the exhaust bit and use it as a platform to add two magnets. The magnets should have the same orientation with regards to polarity. I used 3mm magnets.

Now use a sprue to place a magnet inside the wing. I used a 6mm magnet here:

This might take a few tries, but align the magnet so that it hits against the sprue when the exhausts are pointing sideways. If you place it correctly, the big magnet will catch either magnets as you rotate the exhaust:



And here's how it looks like assembled:

It works great. However you have no idea how satisfying it is to switch the exhausts between the two configurations. You just nudge it and the other magnet picks up on it and snaps it in place with an extremely satisfying click. This is worth doing just for the click, trust me!

That's it. Thanks for reading!

Also here's a teaser of what I'm working on: