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I've been playing Tau for 4 years. For a long time, I've been wedging my XV8 Crisis Suits war gear into the provided arm and shoulder slots and let friction do the rest. Overtime, wear and tear has made it more difficult keeping the plastic pieces stuck in. On numerous occasions, I almost lost a few pieces. It's a real pain after packing up checking and rechecking the table, making sure I didn't leave any pieces behind. After one too many close calls, I finally decided to magnetize my XV8 Crisis Suits.

List of tools and materials:



-Games Workshop XV8 Crisis Suit
-Games Workshop Green Stuff
-Cup of water
-Super Glue
-Cutters
-Modeling Knife
-File
-Point Sink
-Hammer
-Electric Drill
-5/65" drill bit
-1/16" x 1/32" Neodymium Magnets

I bought my magnets off Amazon for $11.99. You may get away with using a manual drill, but I find it difficult working with a 5/64" drill bit. IMO it's much easier using an Electric Drill.



First off, you should get a stack of magnets and mark them. It makes it much easier distinguishing the two opposite poles so that you don't accidentally glue the same magnet discs facing each other. It also makes it easier when you are magnetizing multiple Crisis Suits and you want each wargear piece to be compatible with other Suits.



Next, you should mark where you would like to stick your wargear on the XV8's main body.

For this demonstration I will be using the left shoulder hard point...



and the right outer-arm hard point.

Unfortunately the shoulder and arm slots aren't big enough to fit the circumference of a magnetic disc.





Drill slot using the 5/64" drill bit and electric drill.



As you can tell, the magnet discs now fits perfectly.

Next, you'll want to make sure the magnetic discs is flush with the surface.



Unfortunately, the arm slot is too deep.



Using your modeling knife and cut off a small piece of green stuff. Mix the blue and yellow strip in water until it's green.



Fill the bottom of the arm slot using green stuff and wet modeling knife. Make sure there's just enough room for the magnet to sit on top while being flush to the arm's surface. You could also add a bit of green stuff in the shoulder slot if you later want to hide the magnet.





Glue in a magnetic disc into the arm and shoulder. Make you both come off from the same end of the magnet disc stack and are facing the same direction.

Now we will work on the war gear.





Snip off the plastic strip protruding from the side or bottom of the war gear pieces using a cutter.



Unfortunately your cutter have not made a clean cut.



File down the war gear pieces until the surface is flat.



Drilling is difficult on a flat surface. A drill bit could easily slip and drill away from the intended area. It's much easier to make a small indent before drilling.

Here I, I stick the counter sink and hammer in a small indent, marking where the drill will be.



Now you can drill your war gear. Start at a slow speed.



Frequently check whether the magnet disc is flush or not. It may help to wrap a small piece of tape around the drill bit, marking how deep you should drill.



Use super glue and apply it into the drilled holes.



Remember the marked end of the stack where you took a magnet off for main body? Take a magnet from the opposite end and the stack and glue it up into the war gear drilled hole. Wait for it to dry.





Presto! You now have a magnetized Tau XV8 Crisis Suit!



Each war gear should be interchangeable between both hard points.



They should also be compatible with other Crisis Suits.



As you can tell, the magnets are strong, even when the Crisis Suit is upside down.

I hope this tutorial has been both informative and helpful.

That drill is 8 shades of overkill for this hobby.

Good tutorial.

But man, that drill is huge, I mean, like, really really really big! (Don't anyone dare say thats what she said!)

aerethan wrote:That drill is 8 shades of overkill for this hobby.

MaximusPrime wrote:Good tutorial.

But man, that drill is huge, I mean, like, really really really big! (Don't anyone dare say thats what she said!)

Ha ha, sorry. I don't have any smaller drills, got to make use with what I have. Even my metal file is a bit excessive.

But seriously, the drill I used is perfect. It's heavy and easy to use. I just hold it up over the piece I'm working on and let gravity do the rest.

I'll say that having done this myself as well, I personally find it easier to use a pin vise. I started off with using a dremel with drill bits, which even on the lowest speed tended to over-drill. A pin vise will give you the best control over your hole depth.

Also, I'd like to add...if you want to magnetize your Crisis Commander's metal weapons, you'll need two 1/8" magnets to hold it in place.

All in all, though, great tutorial for those who haven't performed this money (and headache) saving mod!

Thanks for the suggestions! Magnetizing metal weapons is a pain. I've been trying to magnetize the old Fire Prism, but I haven't found the right magnet for it.

Great post for me, as a new tau player worrying about wyswyg for tourneys I'm going to use this on all new models I get

The other alternative that no-one else ever seems to go for is that you can get 0.5mm thick magnets of the same strength as the larger ones. The benefit is that you can surface mount the thin magnets without all that annoying drilling

Oh quick question does painting it after all this hurt the magnet strength?

SabrX wrote:

aerethan wrote:That drill is 8 shades of overkill for this hobby.

MaximusPrime wrote:Good tutorial.

But man, that drill is huge, I mean, like, really really really big! (Don't anyone dare say thats what she said!)

Ha ha, sorry. I don't have any smaller drills, got to make use with what I have. Even my metal file is a bit excessive.

But seriously, the drill I used is perfect. It's heavy and easy to use. I just hold it up over the piece I'm working on and let gravity do the rest.

i saw the estwing in the first photo and my first thought was 'he's brave!'. i'd probably crush my thumb with the first tap and the mini with the second

great tutorial

I've used a full sized power drill in my modelling as well. Now to be fair it was to make a hole so I could affix a flight stand to a slotta base, so I was more interested in going through than stopping part way, but it worked just fine if you were careful.

Flinty wrote:The other alternative that no-one else ever seems to go for is that you can get 0.5mm thick magnets of the same strength as the larger ones. The benefit is that you can surface mount the thin magnets without all that annoying drilling

Even 0.5mm thickness is still noticeable to someone who pays close attention to details. I like my pieces being as flush as possible.

soundwave591 wrote:Oh quick question does painting it after all this hurt the magnet strength?

I haven't had any problems.

father inire wrote:i saw the estwing in the first photo and my first thought was 'he's brave!'. i'd probably crush my thumb with the first tap and the mini with the second

Jefffar wrote:I've used a full sized power drill in my modelling as well. Now to be fair it was to make a hole so I could affix a flight stand to a slotta base, so I was more interested in going through than stopping part way, but it worked just fine if you were careful.

My heavy duty drill is easy to control at low speeds. I've never had any problems drilling too deep.

I like to use 2 magnets for mine, I found that with 1 magnet if you gave it a knock, the weapon rotated on a round magnet. And when you constantly moving you suits quickly (usually twice per turn!) it became a pain. So I uppgraded to 2 magnets and then that way they line up and never tilt.

I'm getting mine from hong kong for $2.50AU for 50 2x1mm shipped to my door in 4-5 days. These are on ebay, just search for 2mm magnet and sort by price.

I used a dremel for mine, but I was a jeweller so I'm pretty steady with it lol. I went cheap and got a dremel for $60 but it doesn't have dynamic speeds, just 6 set speeds so I didn't like it to start (I'm used to a foot pedeal like a car). But after a few drills you get the feel for it, so I'd recomend trying a few dummy ones on some spare plastic first, just stick to the first speed (slow) otherwise you melt the plastic. Just slowly touch it, don't press, just let the burr do the cutting. I used a 1.8mm straight burr (pic below) that came with the dremel as it is a perfect cylinder and the same shape as the magnet and like SabrX said, just mark the depth with some tape so you don't go to far (I don't bother with this as I'm used to judging the right depth). But you will end up with a flush bottom and it will be perfectly flat. The reason you want to use a 1.8mm instead of 2 for a 2mm magnet is that in soft material at that size you will always get a small bit of vibration which will expand the hole size a tiny bit.

Oh also liquid green stuff... BEST THING EVER lol. I stuffed the hard point full of solid green stuff and painted the gaps with liquid then burred it out once set and then any excess gaps, just painted the liquid greenstuff it over again.

so now for some pics

Nice use of a Dremel. I got one recently, but lack the drilling bit that you have. Having two magnets side by side definitely helps preventing the pivot. I wished liquid green stuff existed when I wrote this tutorial.

I just read your eldar codex, great job !
But something surprised me a lot : warlock for 35pts !!! O_O
I think current warlock price of 25pts is too high so 35pts i don't understand. Maybe i missed something in their rules !?

My dremel didn't come with that straight burr, I've been using regular old drill bits and just living with having an extra cone in the bottom of the hole. I need to get one of those.