Putting Plasma Talons on my Space Marine Bikes

     With the release of the new Dark Angels codex, I am excited to try out the Ravenwing rules for my White Scars Bikes.  I have over 80 bikes built, half are fully painted (not up to my current abilities, however) and the other half are base-coated with the tires and engine/exhaust painted black.  Needless to say, I do not wish to purchase any more bikes just to get the plasma talons.  I went to they Bay-of-E and found some.  I also picked up some of the Corvus Hammers which I will use to make some Black Knights.  These guns are for my Command Squad, though. 

     When I got the bits in, I noticed that they are definitely not made to fit on the standard SM bike.  They arent long enough to reach all the way back to the handle bars like the twin-linked bolters do.  Also, there is this ammo can that sticks down and gets in the way.  Essentially there is not enough surface area to glue them on securely.  So here is my method for converting these to work on the regular SM bike.  First I started withe the plasma talon bits as seen here.

     You can see the ammo canisters that hang down.  These stick out on the DA bikes, but they are simply in the way for the standard bike fairing.  The angled bottom is what we be using to mount to the bike so we need to get these small bits out of the way.  I simply took a sharp blade and cut them as close to the gun as I could get.  Don't use a clipper as it will not leave a flat surface.  We will be using these bits later so don't lose them.  The guns should look like this:

     Next, I had to shave off the Dark Angels Icons that are on the guns.  I wish I had put the shaved side of the guns pointing inwards because the seams of the gun are messed up from where the icons were.  You can see in the next pic that the inward side of the far gun looks better.....

     For the next step, I made sure that the front side of the handle bars and the upper part of the wheel forks were free of glue or paint.  I also had to shave off the small tab that sticks off the back side of the guns.  Then, I put glue on the angled bottom/rear part of the gun and stuck it in the space in the bike fairing.  It fits nice and tight and only needs a little bit of help to get it perfectly straight. 

 

     Finally, the ammo canisters that I cut off got glued onto the back of the guns.  I did this, mainly, to cover up the flat blank surface that is left.  Also, it fills in the large space that is normally filled by the twin bolters.  I will put up some pics as soon as I get these guys painted, too.

     I have also ordered 2 packs of plasma gun bits from my FLGS.  These run $10 for 5 guns.  I will put up another post showing the converstion of these into plasma talons for my Black Knight unit.  You can then compare and decide which is easier, better looking, and cheaper.