Warhammer 40K - Magnetizing Models (We tried it out!)

Hi everyone,

We gave a first attempt at magnetizing models this past weekend.  Here's a quick write-up on how things went.

First - a bit of background.  We were building a Venerable Dreadnought - and ended up with a weapon-arm on the model which we hadn't really wanted.  And, in this particular case, some glue had gotten onto the 'arm post' and it was stuck fast.

[Apologies - we realized that in our haste to fix the Dreadnought we forgot to take a very good "before" photo!]

After lots and lots of wrenching, it was pretty clear that the model glue we like to use (not super glue) had fused things together pretty solidly.  There was really no getting that arm off!!!

So, we got a little bag of those tiny magnets from our friends at Gator Games.  And, figured we would do some surgery to try to set the arm things right.

1) Tried to use our Xacto-Saw to cut away the perimeter bonded plastic at the arm joint.  This didn't work - but did loosen things up.

2) Finally sawed enough that we were able to pry the arm off.  But, BUMMER - we discovered that the post to hold on the other arms had also been pried off - and was still deep within the arm we had just yanked off.

So, we started reconstructive surgery....

3) We made a flat plate of plastic (a round piece) to cover the hole we had created in the torso of the Dreadnought.

Not super pretty - but certainly functional.  Our flat pieces of plastic covered up the holes which were created when we wrenched off the arm which was glued on.

4) And, we sawed flat the arm portion so that we could attach the magnet.

5) Then, we glued one of the little magnets to each side.

All-in-all it turned out pretty well.  Does a great job of holding together.

Here is our Dreadnought after priming.  The magnets certainly show - but don't look too much different than the plastic pin holding on the other arm...  So, we're pretty happy.

Part 2 of this adventure is that we decided to add some magnets to the doors of our Morkanaut (we were bothered by them swinging open).

That went pretty well - a few key points....

1) There is a small gap in the doors which fit our magnets perfectly (no big need to cut or drill)

2) While we were gluing one one magnet and testing with its mate, the pair went flying to the back of the model and stuck there (with superglue).  No matter how hard we tried - they are stuck.  So, I guess at some point if we want to magnet something in there, we can.

Here's the finished product - working on the painting.  The Morkanaut is part of the Pink Orks army - so working on the bright pink :)

Here is our Morkanaut - the bring pink is coming along nicely.  Going to start working on the details of the arms next....

Follow-ups....

The Morkanaut and Dreadnought so far....

We read a few posts and blogs of other people using magnets.  Seems that there are some very slick schemes for drilling a hole for these little magnets. Was wondering if there is a special drill bit people are using which doesn't have a tapered end ??