How to magnetize a TerrorgheistI got my hands on a Terrorgheist kit over the holidays and recently decided to put it together. It´s a very nice kit and it´s absolutely huge as well. I was really wondering how I´d transport the darn thing if I´d had to go somewhere for a game.
That´s when I decided this would be the perfect opportunity for me to try my hand at magnetizing a model . I´ve done some magnet work for my Dystopian Wars CoA fleet, making all my turrets swappable, but hadn´t tried anything more complex.
So, for today’s instalment of Midweek Modelling I thought I’d show you how I went about doing it.
Here´s the finished product.
All in all it was a good learning experience. It holds together pretty well (I can hold it upside down without it falling apart), it isn’t wobbly or anything, but I do feel the need to handle it with some caution. Might just be nervousness, but I’ll probably have to play a game with it to see how it holds up on the table. I’m sure it’ll be fine but want to make sure.
Anyway, on to the actual guide.
Materials I used
I used 3mm wide magnets that I got from here. They are small enough to be placed in the various joints of the Terrorgheist and strong enough to keep the beast together. I used 14 magnets, but could have done with only 12.
2 slightly bigger magnets, 5mm I think. I used these to help check I put the magnets in the right way and as a tool to put the smaller magnets in. You don’t need these 2 magnets to magnetize a Terrorgheist, but they sure made it easier for me!
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| 2 large magnets holding 3 smaller ones. |
A hand held hobby drill with a 3mm drill bit. I used the GW drill, which just about holds the 3mm drill bit. I’m sure there’s other drills out there that work just a well, but I used the one I owned.
Super glue of whichever variety you prefer to glue the magnets into place.
Plastic glue of whichever variety you prefer to glue the Terrorgheist together.
A Terrorgheist, in separate bits. Duh.
Now, some tips before I get started with the step-by-step:
1) Make double sure you put the magnets with the right side up. The last thing you want is to have your carefully glued in magnets repel each other. No fun digging out superglued 3mm magnets, let me tell you…
2) Dry fit everything! I sorta mighta kinda not have done that with everything and therefore ended up having to reposition my Terrorgheist’s right wing so that it’d fit on the base. Fun story, actually. Terrorgheist uses the biggest base GW sells and I manage to build mine so it doesn’t fit on properly. Good stuff.
3) You are going to be drilling some very fiddly holes. Sometimes the part of the model you’re drilling in to will be so small, a hole will be all that’s left when it’s done. Don’t worry about it. Just make sure the magnets align well enough and remember you can always Green Stuff / paint over any exposed magnets to help blend them into the model.
4) Magnets do not have to align precisely for them to work. While it’s important to make sure your magnets align, they don’t have to fit exactly on top of each other. The Terrorgheist has a lot rounded surfaces and aligning your magnets 100% would take forever. One can be at a slight angle compared to the other and the bond will still hold. Don’t overdo this though: be as precise as you can be, just remember to not be too worried if it’s not 100%.
5) Always carefully think about how the joints, and the model as a whole, will fit together. For this model the main reason I wanted to magnetize it was to facilitate transportation. This meant that I’d have to make sure the wings would be removable, and preferably the body as well.
6) Leave everything to dry properly. If you are too quick testing or using your magnets and the glue isn’t dried yet, you’ll pull the magnets loose and you can glue them in again.
Ok, on to the pictures!
-First things first. Build the body of the Terrorgheist but stop as soon as they want you to start adding wings and legs. Make sure you do glue on the shoulder blades (+ muscles) and the hip bones.
-Now, take the left leg and drill a hole from underneath the leg up into the lower leg, right next to the toe. Where the red arrow points to, see? Glue in a magnet and let it dry thoroughly.
-Glue the left leg to the body. You should be left with something like this.
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| Ignore the front red arrow for now, we're doing the rear part first! |
-Now, take the right leg and assemble that to the rock it stands on. Yes, that’s right. Don’t glue it to the body, glue it to the rock. This is because the right lower leg is too spindly to have a hole drilled in. Once the glue is dry, take the right leg and drill a hole on the inside of the thigh, right next to the little tab that fits into the hip. Top red arrow shows you where. Glue in the magnet. Leave to dry.
-Assemble the rock for the left leg. Take the top of that rock (the bit with the toes on) and drill a hole smack in the middle of the toes, where it’ll align with the magnet you’ve already drilled in the left leg. Glue in the magnet (making sure it’s got the right facing up) and leave to dry. It's in the picture above (the lower red arrow) too.
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| This will need some Green Stuff to cover up |
-Take the body of the Terrorgheist and drill a hole in the right hip bone, next to the little hole where the tab from the leg will fit into. Again, remember to align it with the magnet in the leg and to make double sure the magnets won’t repel each other. Glue in magnet and leave to dry.
Once the rocks are firmly attached to the base you can attack the body of the Terrorgheist and it’ll look something like this.
On to the wings!
-Starting with the left wing (that’s what I did, anyway), drill a hole in the musculature of the shoulder blade, just above the hole. Glue in magnet, leave to dry. <As you can see from the pic, I actually put in two magnets here, because I was worried it might not hold otherwise. After I’d completed the model I realised that 1 magnet here would have been fine.>
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| Now you can look at the left arrow! |
-Then take the left wing and drill a hole just above the little tab top of the Terrorgheist’s humerus. Try and align this as best you can. You’re working with convex / concave shapes here, so this is a bit fiddly, but the better you do this, the better the magnets will hold (though keep in mind tip 4, above). Once the magnet’s glued into place and has dried properly, glue the claw to the wing.
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| Again, two magnets on mine but you'll only need one. |
-Next, assemble the rock the wing will stand on. Now we’ll attach a magnet to the bottom of the rock so that we can fix that to the base. This doesn’t need any drilling, but I glued in a bit of extra plastic so that’d I had a larger surface area to glue the magnet to. See pics.
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| Blue arrow points to extra plastic bit |
Now it’s time to attach the left wing to the body and dry-fit the claw and the rock to the wing to see where everything will end up. The purpose of course is to find out where the rock will end up on the base so that you can drill a hole in the base and put a magnet there.
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| Base with magnets for both left and right wings in. |
-Once that is done glue the claw to the wing and the rock to the claw in the dry-fitted position. Only one wing left!
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| Base with left wing attached |
-For the right wing follow the same procedure as for the left wing. First drill a hole in the musculature of the right shoulder blade and glue in a magnet. Next, align the right wing, drill a hole in the top of the humerus of the right wing and glue in the magnet there. By now you should be familiar enough with this process, right?
-Then, take the little rock the right wing will be attached to and dry-fit this on the base and the wing to mark out where you need to drill a hole in the base. Glue a magnet in the base and underneath the rock in the same manner as you’ve done for the right wing.
-Your base should then look something like this.
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| Base with right wing attached |
-And lo and behold, you have a fully magnatized Terrorgheist! You might need to use a little Green Stuff here and there to hide parts of the magnets if they’re showing, but all in all you should be ready to go paint your ‘gheist now!
And that’s it for this week. See you next time!
