Article about an alternative trebuchet model and how to assemble it.

The current official trebuchet model looks great but it does have quite a bit of flaws – it is difficult to assemble and paint, costs quite a bit of money, but most important flaw for me is that it is made of metal and is very hard to customize. 

I have always wanted my army to look unique, and therefore I try to have at least some small unique details on every model I have. That is the main reason I started looking for an alternative. And I had some success – google-fu helped me find an Italian semi-pro resin caster who offered trebuchet kits which were quite comparable to official one in size. The price was reasonable (10 € plus postage) and thus I decided to try it out.

The following is an article about the kit, how I assembled it with lots of pics. Hope it helps someone who is looking for alternative trebuchets as well :)

The Kit.

As can be seen on the pic the kit consists of quite many details. There is the base, the floor panel, two main legs, swing arm and it holder details, counterweight and its holder – all these main details are of resin. Then there is the main shaft for holding the swing-arm, which is a small tube made of copper and a sheet of copper to fold the sling. In addition to these parts there is a full sheet of additional details (ropes, chains, a cross and what-not) plus a fine detail crate. You can add these pieces to Your trebuchet as additional details. Plus there as a piece of rough thread to use as rope.

Preparation.

As is the first step with any resin kit I cleaned all the details with warm water and mild soap (makes painting much easier later). The main details were already rather well cleaned of mold lines, so I had not much work there. Some larger details had some miniature air bubbles here and there, but none made it structurally weak, and I filled the larger ones with greenstuff. Otherwise the quality of cast was good and had fine details.

One thing to note is that the kit is cast into one piece mold, so every detail has one side (upper in casting) that has no details and is rather bland. But the only part where this is more or less visible is the inner side of the arms, where You can glue some additional details later (chains and ropes for instance) and hide the rest with a paintjob. 

Assembly.

As my main objective with the project was to have a sturdy artillery piece that can handle constant use for wargaming I decided to make all the connections as durable as possible. For this reason I used industrial grade epoxy glue and pinning, although usual superglue should do the trick well enough.

First step was to glue the floorboard upon the base frame (I decided to glue it on base made from GW modular movement tray leftover piece to give it even more sturdiness, but You don´t have to do that).

Next I drilled a hole through main swing arm (the position is marked on the arm already), inserted the metal tube and glued it in place. I also cleaned up the shaft holders.

Now was time to install the main legs. This was a bit more complex operation. First I held them in correct position and measured the right places for the shaft holders on main legs and glued them in place (You must be sure to have them in balance). When these had dried, I drilled holes in the base and legs and pinned the legs before glueing them. Then I put the swing arm in place (no glue there yet) and gently fixed the position of legs in place with a thread. I did this to be sure the legs end up in correct position as the epoxy glue takes 24 hours to dry.

The next step was building the counterweight holder. As the original kit had the other shaft made of resin I decided to modify it (to add more sturdiiness again). I cut the „horizontal rod“ part of the holder out, drilled a hole through main arm and through two small arms and installed a piece of copper wire there. I did not glue the rod to the main arm yet, only the fiwed the smaller arms with glue. On my photo the main arm is incorrectly upside-down, but at least You get the idea :(

Now was time to add the counterweight. I drilled another hole in both ends of the small arms and through the counterweight and installed another piece of copper wire there. As I wanted to see the model really swing before i fix all details with glue (and have the counterweight stand in the correct angle in the end) I did not glue these details yet.

Thus looks the model in free swing :)

Now I measured a correct place for my reloading mechanism (so that the swinging counterweight would not destroy it). Having made the measurements I installed it. This piece is kitbashed by myself. I found two left-over spoked wheels from Dwarf cannon/organ gun kit and added them to russian made Zwezda Siege kit leftovers. The central rod here is kut from a left-over sprue. I later added the dwarf cannon matchloc as a stopper mechanism on the inside wall of the leg to catch the spokewheel and look like trigger for releasing the trebuchet.

For the next step I forgot to take pics, but basically I fixed the main arm holding shaft and the counterweight holding shaft with glue and fixed the main arm in the position I wanted with a thread again. Meanwhile I made a slig out of greenstuff and put a stone inside it. After the glue and greenstuff had dried, I fixed the pieces of „rope“ in place, fixing them with superglue.

After that I installed some additional bitz and pieces, Bretonnian shields and a hanging poster from Citadel wood kit. And the trebuchet was ready to be painted. Here are some pics of the finished but unpainted model:

And the size comparisons with GW trebuchet (it is slightly higher but almost the same length and width):

And after the paintjob it looks to be ready for battle:

Oh, and those who liked the model and would like to give it a try – the caster has opened a small web shop by now and this piece can be purchased at http://www.thelazyforger.com/

Plus the caster said that he is more than happy to build new trebuchet model (or give additional details to this one) if someone gives him data needed for the job :)