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How feasible is it to magnetize a space marine arm, making it swappable? What size magnets? And can I get away with using a normal drill (rather than a pin vise I do not have?)

PS - Or is it better to place a small magnet on the end of the marine's hand, and in each gun option, and make the guns swappable??? (All my swaps will be one gun for another).

Swapping weapons is easy with one-handed weapons, but probably more trouble than it's worth with two-handed weapons.

After a lot of experimentation and testing, I'd recommend:

1/8" x 1/32" for the arm-shoulder joint
1/16" x 1/8" in the arm (for weapon swaps)
1/16" x 1/16" OR 1/16" x 1/32" in the weapons

If you've got fancy shoulder pads to swap along with arms you can use 1/16" x 1/32" for that.

I'll be uploading the instructions for my Assault Marine kit later - it includes a part list - so you might find that useful.

Edited to correct size in one entry.

Due to the nature of my weapons/arms, I either have to swap at the shoulder joint, or leave the whole arm on and swap out just the weapons.

How easy is it to screw up drilling a magnet directly into a bolter?

You may want to magnetize the weapons and not the arms.

They make tiny magnets that work extremely well for this purpose. The problem is that it's very easy to screw up the polarity on such a magnet. For my Thunderwolves, I went with slightly larger magnets and set them in the shoulders so I can swap entire arms. None of them are two handed weapons.

That said, if you are looking to swap say a Meltagun, Plasma Gun and Flamer in a Tactical Squad, I would magnetize only one hand. Drill the magnet into the hand holding the grip, and drill the other magnet into the gun where it meets that hand. Just allow the other side of the gun to rest in the offhand. If you try to magnetize two points, you will often end up with messed up polarity and mis-aligned magnets. It's difficult enough to align one set of magnets at such a small scale. Aligning two is almost impossible.

Aldarionn wrote:They make tiny magnets that work extremely well for this purpose. The problem is that it's very easy to screw up the polarity on such a magnet. For my Thunderwolves, I went with slightly larger magnets and set them in the shoulders so I can swap entire arms. None of them are two handed weapons.

That said, if you are looking to swap say a Meltagun, Plasma Gun and Flamer in a Tactical Squad, I would magnetize only one hand. Drill the magnet into the hand holding the grip, and drill the other magnet into the gun where it meets that hand. Just allow the other side of the gun to rest in the offhand. If you try to magnetize two points, you will often end up with messed up polarity and mis-aligned magnets. It's difficult enough to align one set of magnets at such a small scale. Aligning two is almost impossible.

This is what I'm doing with a squad of Vanguard vets, lots of extra arms and a magnet at the shoulder. Plus magnetized jump packs. I'm going with a couple of flamers/melta guns too. I just glued the hands to the guns and used the shoulder magnets

Brotherjulian wrote:

Aldarionn wrote:They make tiny magnets that work extremely well for this purpose. The problem is that it's very easy to screw up the polarity on such a magnet. For my Thunderwolves, I went with slightly larger magnets and set them in the shoulders so I can swap entire arms. None of them are two handed weapons.

That said, if you are looking to swap say a Meltagun, Plasma Gun and Flamer in a Tactical Squad, I would magnetize only one hand. Drill the magnet into the hand holding the grip, and drill the other magnet into the gun where it meets that hand. Just allow the other side of the gun to rest in the offhand. If you try to magnetize two points, you will often end up with messed up polarity and mis-aligned magnets. It's difficult enough to align one set of magnets at such a small scale. Aligning two is almost impossible.

This is what I'm doing with a squad of Vanguard vets, lots of extra arms and a magnet at the shoulder. Plus magnetized jump packs. I'm going with a couple of flamers/melta guns too. I just glued the hands to the guns and used the shoulder magnets

Works like a charm. Especially since the shoulder pad usually covers up the magnet and the joint entirely so you don't see anything once the arms are in place.

Here is another idea I had, I'm going to search hardware stores for small steel pins of an appropriate size so (if I'm lucky) I can drill all the way through a marine body from shoulder to shoulder, glue in the pin, and then my magnet's polarity won't matter.
Back years ago, before all these neat rare earth magnets were around, I glued a small square of steel out of a soup can on top of my Leman Russ and glued part of a vinyl refrigerator magnet on my hunter killer missile's base. The magnet sucked, and I had a light coat of paint over the steel so it didn't stay on well.

say a nail Brotherjulian?

bit of advice, use an arm with a magnet on it, so that you get the correct polarity that way. So the magnet is on the arm as you push it in. Then there will be no issues with polarity.

kizzap wrote:say a nail Brotherjulian?

bit of advice, use an arm with a magnet on it, so that you get the correct polarity that way. So the magnet is on the arm as you push it in. Then there will be no issues with polarity.

I don't think a nail would be quite right because one end would have a wide head and not the other, I think I tried using the arm to put magnets in with like you said, but I was afraid of getting glue on it and sticking them both together

i magnetized my belial model for my deathwing. i had to do it at the hands since i had 3 weapon swaps and the model was closer to the aobr style than a normal in the sense that you put him together from 2 pieces that joined through the chest and back (i couldn't just swap out at the shoulder snce the cape would be cut also).



i used magnets on the wrists and tiny iron washers on the hands to not elongate them too much.

Thanks for the comments guys. With regards to polarity, on other projects, I've found that using a permanent marker to, well mark, one side of each magnet helps me not screw up polarity immensely. Could work for those teeny tiny 1/16 inch magnets, although I imagine those would be hard to handle no matter what.

I magnetized a few marines at the arm using 1/8 by 1/32 inch magnets, which didn't seem too bad. I am going to try my luck at magnetizing the weapon with 1/16 inch magnets later this week...