Land Raider Crusader - Part 2 - The Build

Like all mighty Space Marine tanks, 

the Land Raider Crusader features 

incredibly solid armouring on all sides - 

it comes with metal panels, 

hatches, rivets and searchlights. 

It displays an explosive array of weaponry.

- Games Workshop

Hello hello! Welcome back to our weekly fix of The Art of Caesura!

Last week we saw my 20-year-old Land Raider Crusader roll out of storage, this week we'll be looking at the refurb!

I mentioned last week, that - much to my surprise and delight - while many pieces of this plastic and metal monstrosity had fallen apart, only one single piece actually broke. But, we'll get there. 

The first order of business to return this incredible tank to its former glory was to clean up and reassemble the Hurricane Bolter Sponsons. They are the defining feature of this tank, and when we left them last week, they were in a million bits. 

So I completely disassembled each one, scraped off any remaining Green Stuff, filed out their attachments to make them deeper and reassembled them using superglue. The completed sponsons feel secure and still swivel!

Next, I had to address the Assault Ramp...

Seeing it in such a state just depressed me. As I mentioned last week, when the Black Templars upgrade sprue came out, I tried to retrofit The Crusader, breaking the "door opening" mechanism in the process. For this re-build, I tried to see if I could mend the mechanism in any way, I tried to pull the sides of the Land Raider open to get at the mechanism, but it elluded me. 

Ultimately, I decided that all I could really do would be to glue the top hatch in place so that at least it was secure and not sagging in. The bottom hatch still opens and closes. 

Next up was the crew! Thankfully the forward crewman was still in place (minus a head) and I still had the torso and arms of the rear crewman. 

I mentioned at the beginning, that only one piece had actually broken: that was the (plastic) strut holding the (metal) multi-melta, but we'll come on to that. 

For the crew, I found some appropriately Templars heads and a new Black Templars left pauldron for the rear gunner. I had a hell of a time reattaching him through the inside of the tank (luckily the side hatch still opens) and up through the top hatch.

So, here's where we are so far:

Now, time to fix that broken Multi-melta. 

What it should look like...

I started by completely removing the old plastic strut. 

I then drilled a hole in the bottom of the metal multi-melta where I planned to attach it to the body of the tank with a paperclip. 

The very tricky thing about all of this is that I had to be quite precise with the length and bend of the paperclip, because not only did it have to support the multi-melta, but the butt of the gun had to be correctly aligned to rest in the gunners hands!

After a bit of backing-and-forthing...I got it!

Now that the support structure was in place, it was time to bulk it out. I pressed some miliput with a bit of plastic to give a flat, regular surface. 

And once I slid it on, I was happy that "it'll do."

So with the multi-melta fixed (I kept it, and the crews' heads detachable at this point for ease of painting), the build was almost complete. The last step was just to apply some texture (Technical Astrogranite) around the treads which would bring some realism to the paint job. 

And with that, my mighty Land Raider Crusader was reforged!

Tune in next week for painting this beast!

Watching: Barbecue Showdown - Season 2

Reading: Lessons - Ian McEwan

Next Week:

Slappin' on that paint!