MFH Ishoo Twelf: Ork Warbuggy Chassis

Welcome to Mek Shop Month proper! In this first instalment, we'll be tackling how to make an Ork Warbuggy chassis - next time we'll look at the body and weapons. I remember the original Warbuggy plastic kit coming out. It was school holidays, and Mum agreed to finance one to give my brother and I a project to keep us busy. It's school holidays again, and the same plastic Warbuggy kit is STILL the current model. Okay, a few models of that age are still around (Eldar Falcon is a bit younger, the IG tanks are older) but none of them look so dated as the Warbuggy. It's so tenaciously 2nd edition.
So I've decided to have a go at an improvement, inspired by the laser-cut MDF kits produced by Miniature Scenery in Australia. This is a pretty big project, so I've broken it up into two parts - chassis and body. I've also made three chassis (only one is seen in this ishoo) so I can demonstrate other techniques an weapons. And have three buggies. I've also tried to use as few kit parts as possible so that anyone can build these with only raw materials. A few parts had to be used, but could be replaced with something else easily enough.
How hard is it to build such machines you ask? Well, Grot has been a bit miffed with GW since 3rd edition insulted him by applying his name to Gretchin, so he's out to prove that a grot can be a Mekboy. Take it away Grot!

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And there you have it hippo fans! The only kit parts used are on the wheels - depending on what sort of wheels you've got access to, you'll need to take a different approach. These ones had some fairly terrible chrome-plated inserts which just looked wrong so I had to replace them. I'm using different wheels on the other buggies which shouldn't need to be treated this way.
Well, very soon I'll be posting the next instalment on making a body for this chassis. The first one will be armed with big shootas - I'll be doing another on rokkit racks later on.
Until then remember that Orks are worse at building things that you are, so you might as well cast aside all doubts and jump into some kitbashing or scratch building for the Waaagh!