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Magnetizing Land Raider Doors and Sponsons (Note for pictures please visit http://captureandcontrol.blogspot.com/2010/04/magnetizing-land-raider-doors-and.html )

Land Raiders are arguably the best vehicles in Warhammer 40,000. With three basic types loaded out to do different tasks and transport different numbers of troops you can often face quite a dilemma as to which Land Raider variant(s) to take in a list. Sometimes you may want a mobile bunker with long range firepower for a troops choice, in which case you take the trusted God Hammer with twin linked Las Cannons. The most common variations are Crusaders and Redeemers. Luckily with the advent of the new Space Marine Codex GW made a beautiful new kit for the Crusader and gave us the bits to make a variant called the Redeemer, and if you were like me you bought one and immediately threw it on the shelf because you couldn’t decide which variant to build. Enough has been written on the net about the differences between them; one look on the Dakka forums will show you the benefits and detractions of the two are hotly debated. It took me a little while to realize I could just magnetize the sponsons so I could have both Hurricane Bolters and Flamestorm Cannons. So I got to work building the crusader/redeemer with magnetized sponsons. The results looked great, the magnets where strong and they held everything in place beautifully. Then I realized a fatal flaw in my construction. I only magnetized the sponsons to go on and off the rear doors! “So what’s the big deal?” Well, if all you plan on fielding is the Crusader then there is not a problem, but Flamestorm Cannons do a much better job being mounted up front and now that I had done a great job magnetizing these sponsons I realized I should have magnetized the doors too. Luckily this LRC was for my Space Wolves and I didn’t anticipate running an LRR anyways, but I was bound and determined to do the magnetizing right for my Salamanders since giant flamers on a Land Raider just seems to fit them better anyway.
Let’s get down to it. What you’ll need:

* 1. The “new” Land Radier Crusader/Redeemer

* 2. The GW (or other bits companies) LRC/LRR upgrade sprue so you have the extra sponsons

* 3. A safe well ventilated area in which to work

* 4. Plastic cutters

* 5. Hobby knife

* 6. Super glue/plastic glue

* 7. “Rare Earth” magnets (trust me buy these ones, the small ones are the perfect size and they are amazingly strong)

* 8. Optional: Insta-set (it comes in handy every now and then and is effective when used SPARINGLY)

Start off by following GW’s directions through step 1 and most of step 2. The only difference is you will not attach the inner panels on the front doors. Sorry to those of you who immaculately paint the inside of your Land Raiders, this conversion probably isn’t for you. It should look like this.

Next skip to step 7A or 7B it’s your choice. Build whichever sponsons you want first, just build one set, you can repeat this step once the whole process is finished.
Now you will need to cut up pieces of the sprue frame to act as the inner supports for the magnets inside the LRC/LRR. Cut 4 pieces so they fit vertically (up and down) into the door frames and then cut 8 smaller pieces to be upper and lower horizontal supports for the vertical beam.
Make certain the vertical supports will fit inside the doorway. Now organize your magnets, make sure the magnets on the inside of each door are the right polarity so they both attract the magnet attached to your sponson. Now glue the magnet into place on the middle back of the sponson. Attach the next magnet to the magnet on the sponson, put a small dab of glue on the back of the magnet and align the vertical support and glue it in place.

Now place the sponson inside the rear doorway with the vertical support attached magnetically. Use the small pieces for the upper and lower supports and glue them into place above and below the vertical support bar, be careful not to get any glue on the sponson. This may be where you want to use the Insta-Set. Repeat this process for the vertical support for the other doorway. Then repeat this entire step for the other side of the Land Raider.

The last thing you will have to do is magnetize the doors. The doors don’t extend into the hull of the tank as far as the sponsons so you will need to cut two more short pieces off the sprue frame. Glue them onto the back/middle of the doors. Match up the polarity of two more magnets to the magnets on the vertical supports and glue them to the back of the doors.
Once all the supports/magnets are glued securely in place go back to the GW directions and finish building the Land Raider. When everything is done you can repeat the steps for the sponsons with the set you got by bitz ordering, just make certain you always match the magnets polarity before gluing them in place. Now your Land Raider can mount its doors in the front and rear slots.

Has anyone tried yet? I am interested on hearing some feedback. Anyone have another way of doing it they would like to share on here or on Capture and Control?

Not to highjack your thread (cool blog BTW), but here's how I did mine. I had two LRs but wanted all the options. I drilled the holes and added more support within the frame using modeler's putty.









I have 3 LRs all in all, but I wanted all the possible options for my GK & DA armies.  So I painted the diagonal stripe on both so that the doors could interchange with the weapons.  Here's without the doors/ weapons on them:









Sometimes I run Crusaders & sometimes not so I also magnetized the front treads:





And the interiors for those who are interested:

Not hijacking at all. I like the way you did yours, I think I will give this a shot for my next raider. Thanks for the response.

@ overwatch:

yes, i did a similar thing with my landraider godhammer/crusader/redeemer and also with a few rhino/razorback/predator models.

the best part about doing these models simultaneously was the TERMINUS ULTRA pattern. great outcome.

only just came upon this thread, but yes, the way explained here is more or less the way i used, but with some additional details for hatches/multimelta options on the land raider and all the predator options.

pm me if you think i should post or you want pics. good to see these tutorials!

Good tutorial but could you upload some pics?

He has a link to the article with pictures at the beginning of the post.

good idea i just bought land raider and sponson are too big to foam tray