Hi all, I wanted to share my custom reproduction of the fabled "Man-O-War" or Leviathan Defender I did for the Joe Customs / Joe Declassified contest. I had a lot of fun doing this project, but due to my schedule, I only had about two weeks to complete it. I tried to stay true to the original design as much as I could, having only one picture to go from, I had to resist doing any of my own altercations and additions. The inspiration is drawn from this photo:

YOJOE.COM

I am a big fan of Guy Cassady and any excuse to make another version based on his Rolling Thunder design the better. The Rolling Thunder was chopped in half and joined back together. The cannon is completely scratch-built with vehicle and playset parts added to detail.

The cannon mount spins 360 degrees and attached to that is a European cabinet hinge that allows the cannon to move up and down. The cannon is kept parallel and stable by hidden rare earth magnets while lowered or in down position. It's this hinge that allows it to be detached from the "Man-O-War" chassis to be used as a personal toy firearm with a rotating top stabilizer handle as a shout out to 90's over the top "play action". The cannon is also easily removable for upgrades. The crank on the barrel box does spin, however, at this time, the cannon does not fire. The middle section opens for troop and supply storage.

Once again all, thanks all for checking it out or commenting, cheers!

Thanks once again to Joe Declassified, Joe Customs, Hisstank, and John Warden for a great contest and I was happy to be a part of it.

Ultimate Custom Contest Winners! | Joe Declassified

It's now up on EBay to help fund Joe Declassified's activities and presentations.

More pics...

More pics with my 3 larger vehicles together. Which I still need to post by themselves.

outstanding work.

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Thanks Zephyr, I appreciate it.

I was wondering about the handle, but now I am wondering if the thing will fire??? If you can, up load a video shooting a nerf missile.

Thanks bcost, but it doesn't fire. I don't know if the original prototype really fired. I also don't know if that is what doomed the production or chopping the original tooling in half, lol. If I had had more time maybe I could get it to fire, but by the time the Rolling Thunder arrived from EBay and Joe Con, I had no more than two weeks to finish the piece while running "Daddy Day Care". The contest did say "any stage of production", so this is the stage right before they figured out the firing mechanism.

Toilet tube holder with the spring, lock piece and trigger...then load nerf missile, aim and fire!!!