How To Remove/Upgrade Magnets

by Novus

As you may know, Pascal gave me a squad of Chaos Terminators at the Bitz Swap Event last weekend.  Though well built and nicely primed, they suffered from droopy arm syndrome (below).  It looked like there were 1/16'” magnets in there and I wanted to upgrade to 1/8” so they could actually aim at things like those pesky ‘Nids and arrogant Eldar and commie Tau and goody-goody Loyalists and, well… any of those that opose the ultimate powers of Chaos!  Muwahahaha!




As you can see, he can’t even hold his weapons up!




You can just see the magnet in the center of the arm mounting.




The first thing you do is drill a small hole next to the existing magnet.




Carefully pry out the old magnet with something sharp and strong.  I use a dental tool.  You will damage the area around the magnet, but that won’t matter.


 
Now with the magnet gone, drill out the holes for the new, larger magnet.  I typically hand-drill a series of progressively larger pilot holes until I get to the desired diameter.  Pilot holes help keep the drilling easy and accurate.




Now, hold up here because there is some prep to do before gluing the bigger magnet in.




I magnetize all my arms in the same manner; i.e. all the poles match so I can swap arms between models.  I do this by having a “master arm” for both the left and right sides of the squad.




I place a second magnet onto the master arms existing magnet.  This holds the arm out from the body and keeps the poles identical between all the models.




Then I grab the magnet that will get glued into the body and a piece of wax paper or sticker backing.  You know, the slick stuff that super glue has a hard time sticking to.




The wax paper goes over the second magnet and the third magnet goes over the wax paper.  The wax paper keeps the glue from sticking to anything but the body of the model and that third magnet that is being glued into the body.  It also keeps the whole set up from sinking into the body and mucking up the depth of the mount.

Remember, if you are using sticker backing, to place the smooth and shiny side facing the parts you are gluing.




Place a drop of super glue in the hole and mount the entire assembly.  Be sure to allow enough time for the glue to cure before removing the paper.  You may need to change the wax paper a couple times if you are doing a big squad.




This is how it looks close-up on the models left side.  The smaller the gap between the magnets on the body and the weapon, the stronger the field will be and the less likely the weapon will droop.




Bigger magnet now in place!

The same process can be used to upgrade weapon magnets, too!  Remove the old magnets as shown above.




Then place some fresh wax paper on the model using the magnet you are gluing into the weapon.  Face the smooth section toward the weapon.




Drop some super glue into the hole on the weapon.




Place the weapon and let the glue cure.






As you can see, none of the weapons droop anymore and they all swap without any polarity issues.  Mission accomplished!

I hope this helps and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Happy bashing!