Muzzel Blasts

So, during a VSF battle last week, there lumbered the mighty behemoth tanks and walkers, firing for all they were worth... and it looked.. dull. No Bang, No Flash, bah. On the to hobby table to tackle the problem of no muzzel flashes. First was the problem of how to make it removable since there would be times the big gun would not be firing.

So on the left is a half inch of plastic tube, into which I hot glued with a glob of hot glue, a piece of bamboo skewer. I small glass of water was near by which sped the cooling time of the glue by dipping it into the water. I had to be really carefull with this first step so that the skewer and plastic tube were aligned properly and not pointing off at some angle. On the right is the first build up of hot glue, on went lots of glue, then dip to cool and repeat.

Next 2 photo's show the continued build up. I reshaped the areas that were "wrong" to the eye by holding the tip of the hot glue gun to the spot in question till it softened, then shoved it around.

Having gotten the hot glue on and cooled, I then proceeded to give it a paint wash and bit of dry brush. Hmmm still not right, so on went some Cotton for smoke out of which the flash comes. Still, not to bad but the remaining problem that became apparent when I put it on the end of the tanks cannon was that the plastic tube was larger than the diameter of the end of the cannon and that the flash drooped down in a not satisfactory direction. I solved that by adding a bit of Plasticine modeling clay into the end of the plastic pipe so that when its placed on the end of the cannon, it acts as a temporary stabilizing tacky glue.
And there you have it, fast and easy to make.