Tutorial | Converting a Large Cutter

I went really big, now back down to the really small, to the second smallest seagoing ship-type in the game: a large cutter. But unlike all of my other Black Seas ships so far, this is not a Warlord Games model. This is a cutter from Hagen Miniatures, a miniature company from Germany. 

The cast is a solid chunk of metal, and comes in two parts; a hull and mast. No sails are included, and the deck is devoid of any armament whatsoever. For Christmas I also received the official Warlord Games cutters, which are slightly smaller and come in two varieties, one with guns and the other without. The cards that came with them consider them to be large cutters, with 2 light guns per broadside, but those models are a little smaller than the Hagen Miniatures one. 

So I decided to downgrade the Warlord cutters to just small cutters, with 1 light cannon per side, and the 4 Hagen cutters I bought will be considered the large cutters. But that deck is too empty. So I decided to make some guns to go onboard. I settled on 12 guns, as the armed cutters from Warlord have 10 guns and I thought that they should have a little more.  

I did think of having the guns poking through the side of the hull, but at this scale and with the materials I had I thought better of that. Instead, the guns will go over the gunwales. 

For materials I used 0.020 styrene and 0.032 brass rod. In hindsight, I would have used a slightly thicker styrene so that the guns were more level with the deck instead of pointed up, but I only figured that part out after I had built it. The brass rod is thin enough to be cut with sprue clippers, but all the same I would recommend you use in older one as it does start to wear out the clipper blades. You'll also need two types of sanders, one that can sand the ends of the brass rods flush, and another round sander to file divots in the gunwales for the cannons to slot into. 

I first start off by cutting a thin strip of the styrene out, maybe a mm wide, then cutting that strip into rectangles. These will be the gun carriages. Then gently fit those onto the deck. The Hagen cutter is not perfectly symmetrical unfortunately, so each carriage will be unique to its position. If this results in a carriage looking a little too wide for its length, trim it down until it works. Once you're satisfied, go ahead and glue them into place. Once dry, find the center line of the carriage and mark in onto the gunwale with a hobby knife. Use this a guide for the sander to make room for the guns. 

Now take the brass rod and cut it to be slightly longer than the gun carriage. Because each carriage is unique, each gun will have to be unique. Just try as best as you can to make it all even. Before gluing the brass rod, sand one end flush. The other end should be pinched from the clipping. Sand it a little to take the sharp edge away, but not flush like the other end. This pinched end will go on the inside and at as the breach of the cannon. It's also important to give the whole rod a light sanding, as otherwise the superglue won't have anything to bind to. Ask me how I know. 

And that's it, now you have guns. At this scale you just need the idea of a gun and carriage, and once painted it does the job. Not pictured are the yardarms that I added to give the cutter a topsail. This is literally just two bits of rod with some sanding in the middle so that the glue can have more contact between the yardarm and the mast. All the sails were made with 0.010 styrene, custom cut as none of the supplied Warlord Games sails would fit. 

I then painted up the model to look like the Renard, the first image that came up when looking for a French cutter. This is a much brighter yellow than I've used so far, GW Flash Gitz Yellow, that I painted over a pink undercoat to really make pop. I don't know if I'll do this for every unarmed cutter I have left (6) as the whole process is rather involved, but it is neat to know that if I need extra cannons I can use this method to great effect. 

-The Space Dinosaur