Thread: Seeking Advice on Melting a Vehicle

So I had this crazy idea I was wanting to use for the base of my (chaos) Knight. I was thinking about having a rhino or other space marine vehicle wrecked under one foot, but instead of the usual methods of making a tank look destroyed, I wanted to have maybe half of it melted away. The idea is that it was destroyed by the Knight's thermal cannon.

My working idea was to take my vehicle of choice and then hold a hot frying pan next to one side (without letting it touch the model) until I got the desired result, but I don't actually know if that would work. Have any of y'all tried something like this? Any tips for getting this type of effect?

I have a heat gun. you could try that.

It would be almost like the real thing! You could even role play it!

I made some terrain out of some donated tanks. I took them out in the parking lot, doused them in lighter fluid and went Jim Hendrix on them. The effect was very realistic and my pyro tendencies were put in check for a time.

I like Brandon's heat gun idea moreso than your "burn all the things," John, but mostly that's because lighting them on fire wouldn't give me the desired effect. What I'm sorta going for is if you took a pristine rhino, then stabbed it with rhino-sized lightsaber to melt a hole clean through.

Originally Posted by Kaika87

I like Brandon's heat gun idea moreso than your "burn all the things," John, but mostly that's because lighting them on fire wouldn't give me the desired effect. What I'm sorta going for is if you took a pristine rhino, then stabbed it with rhino-sized lightsaber to melt a hole clean through.

For that you need a blow torch. It will just take a second.

A blow torch would be more precision for that kind of work.

In a pinch what will work with out getting the attention of the fire dept or using tools that could end up burning your own flesh is a tea kettle. Put your kettle onto boil and once steam begins to come out and the kettle whistles place the piece of plastic in question in the path of the steam, wear your kitchen mitts for this part, wait a few minutes (no more than 3). Not only will you have warping effects like plasma would have on real metal you will have a very easy to bend and mold section of plastic. Shape it into whatever form you want then let it cool. The over all effect will very much look like something got hit with a super hot ball of energy ie plasma.

Before you go burning your house down, I recommend a butane micro torch. Smaller, more to scale: http://www.harborfreight.com/http-ww...2099-html.html

I might even drill a hole a little smaller than the size you want, and then just melt the edges, that will give you better control.