Magnetising Space Marines

I thought I'd continue Hobby Week for 3++ lol. I had 9 or so magnets left and have a squad of Tactical/Assault Marines on my "to paint" table so thought I'd do some pics as I go about putting them together. Not the best of tutorials but gives you a rough idea of what I do. I tried something new here as well with pinning shoulder pads to magnets in arms to save some painting with mixed results so will need to work on that a bit more. Ultimately this uses nine magnets per Marine (ouch) and allows me to switch my marines as Tacticals or ASM which saves a lot of painting and money in the end.

The first picture is of my buddy...some lizard thing. Say hello to Australian animals everyone! This is about as cute as they get because it's not deadly lol. So what you need for this endeavour:

• hand drill with 1mm and 3mm drill bits
• 3mm diameter magnets (I used 3mmx1.5mm rare earth magnets from The Combat Company)
• hobby knives
• some sort of marking device (i.e. paint or permanent marker/texter)
• super glue
• the models and pieces you want
• wire/metal rods
• clippers
• a plan!

Here's a picture of my setup before I start hacking into things.

No clippers or glue in here but you can see enough pieces for two Marines, the drill and assoicated bits, hobby knives, the marker and some magnets...

Not many left! Will need to order more. So the most important thing with magnets is to have a plan. If you don't have a plan you'll use far too many (I've done this on tanks...). So what I'm doing for all of my Marines is a nine magnet setup. Three on the main body (arm, army, backpack), two for spare backpacks (normal and assault) and four for spare arms (bolter and pistol/ccw). I've trialed running metal rods in the arms instead of using magnets but they often aren't very stable and will instead generally run that for shoulder pads so I don't have to paint a ton of them. Another important note with magnets is the minute you get them MARK ONE SIDE. This is what the marker is for. This ensures every magnet goes in the same direction so you don't get screwed up magnetic fields and every arm/backpack can go to any model. Although this may have minimal practical use, it's important for model balance and can be fun and giggly just to swap arms and see what poses you can come up with.

So I've got my plan and marked my magnets so know what direction their field is going, I'll start with the backpacks of the Marines. Before you can start drilling holes we need to chop off the back bulb from the Marine torso. This makes it a lot easier to drill as we end up not needing the bulb anyway. Take a hobby knife and get rid of it like so:

Next drill a pilot hole with your 1mm drillbit. This makes your drilling with your larger drill bit easier. Drill in about 1.7mm (or just a bit deeper than the thickness of your magnet). This is important for the magnet to sit as flush as possible with the plastic around it and the glue takes up .1-.2 mm of space depending how heavy handed you are. You can check this by sticking the stick of magnets into the hole you have drilled. If the magnet completely disappears and then some, all good. Once you have done this you need to do the same for the normal Marine backpack but not the Assault backpack. Instead you actually need to buff the Assault backpack so the magnet sits flush with the plastic around it. You can do this a number of ways such as greenstuff, putty or building up with spare plastic/metal rods. Whatever works for you as long as you ensure the magnet sits flush with plastic.

IMPORTANT: Place all magnets in the same direction. I will repeat this quite a few times.

Once you've drilled your holes, built up your Assault backpack and made sure your magnets are sitting flush with the plastic (and pointing in the right direction), put one drop of super glue in each hole. Be patient and wait for the glue to fully dry. This is where marking your magnets comes in handy as you can check if they are pointing in the correct direction without having to test. Here's a picture after the gluing process:

You then repeat this process for the arms. The pictures I will show you are using metal rods instead of magnets in the actual arms to hold to the magnets. This makes the arms a little less stable but I've only used them on the Tactical Marine arms as they have the added security of the boltgun glued to their arms which increases stability. However, once again you'll notice the magnets are flush with the torso of the Marine. Remember; ensure your mangets are pointing the same direction! If your magnets in the torso are in the wrong direction and you've marked them incorrectly, they can flip due to the magnetic field.

Here's a picture of the magnet in the arm socket and bolter arms glued together and with rods as magnetic connectors:

And here are pictures of the Marine with bolter arms and then pistol/ccw arms:

So there you have it. A not so super awesome tutorial on magnetising Marines but it proves I have fingers lol! I'd use bigger magnets for tank turrents (i.e. Razorbacks) and skimmer bases (i.e. Wave Serpents) but the 3mm is a very versatile magnet in being strong enough to use for lots of plastic and small enough for Marine bodies. They are a bit big for hand-held weapons and other armies however but the smallest I've seen are 2mm magnets.

Anyway, I'll be working on making a Hobby page for 3++ (replacing the Warseer Battle Report page) so if anyone has any requests for what gets put on it, please let me know. It'll make it easier to navigate modelling/painting tutorials and anything else which falls under this label!