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Hey guys,

So I ordered a Techmarine off of GW late a few nights back thinking it'd be finecast... it's actually pewter. D'oh.

I'd whine about it but it's my own fault for not reading it carefully, c'est la vie.

Anyhoo, I wanted the marine for his arms and his servo harness so that I can use it with other GK parts to make a more GK-looking techmarine conversion.

Now I am worried about transporting the model/its general resilience because the last pewter techmarine /w Servo Harness I had for my old Blood Ravens actually had his arms break off when I used to transport him in bubble wrap inside a box. The way the arms are positioned is a little dodgy.

I am not investing in a foam tray or anything so I think my solution will be to make elements of the techmarine detachable.

Now I am considering magnetising the back itself to the model's back, but that won't help the arms if they get in a sticky situation. I could magnetise them to the backpack itself but that would be a bit of a nightmare for A. drilling and B. using up 8 magnets, which may not be strong enough anyway.

So I was hoping to get some ideas... or maybe some critique for this suggestion:

I've never tried pinning before but I was wondering if it would be viable to dry-fit the pack together and drill a holes through the arms and into the pack (on the join) so that I can stick a rod through these and hold the model together that way. Is this a viable alternative to magnets? Would it be firm and yet still removable?

Any thoughts are welcome, thanks.

Pin it.

Pin every metal to metal join.


True story. Once I put together a unit of metal striking scorpions. Taking them to my basement for priming, I slipped, and the tray they were on tipped and over the railing they went. The unit fell ten feet or so and hit a hard wood floor.

Other than one sword being slightly bent, not a single arm or weapon came apart.

This is the magic of pinning.

Also, don't bother with making him detachable, the backpack is heavy and the arms aren't on large enough surface areas. If you pin him, he'll be resilient enough to transport.

Magnets.

Magnatize the harness. That way when it comes to transporting just unstick it and away you go. Reattach when its time to battle and the rest is gravy.

@Redbeard

When my old harness broke it wasn't actually on the joins; one of the arms snapped in half, it strikes me as a brittle model.

Snrub, do you mean the backpack or each arm individually? 'Cos the latter option is not only troublesome but rather expensive surely?

Despite Redbeard's convictions about magnetising, it might be worth trying to see the feasibility of it... I'll prolly just end up pinning AND magnetising. But if anyone else can help me figure out said feasibility or come up with some ideas that'd be grand.

I would magnetize the entire harness, then during transport, you can take it off and wrap it separately, ya know? I magnetized the torso's on my TWC so I can A) change the weapon load-out if I want; and B) they won't be busted off if I'm that unlucky.

Otherwise, you could possibly trying heating and bending the arms into a position that's a little less of an issue? That would be iffy at best.

If you're doing a bubble-wrap cardboard box combo for transport, may I suggest a tackle-box (originally designed for fishing)? Might give you a little more durability, on top of some ability to sort. Not sure what exactly you've got going on, so that is my cheap transport solution.

I suppose the 'vulnerable' arms are only the lower two with the plasma-cutter and flamer on... so that's just four magnets. I'm just running short 'n' rather reluctant to use them!

If you feel you must magnetize it, the obvious location (the backpack nub) is lower than the center of mass for the backpack, so unless you use two magnets, or a non-glued pin, the harness will tend to rotate away from its intended centered position.

You can also try a combination of magnets and pins if you want it to be removable. Have a longish pin coming out of the marine's back which can (hopefully) be strong enough to keep the pack on by itself - but not glued into the pack. Then a magnet to keep them together. The pin providing stability for the magnet.

I would magnetize the Backpack to the body and then pin the arms.

And its not really that expensive. Just look for magents on ebay. They are pretty cheap.
For example - 150 x Disc Rare Earth Neodymium Magnets N50 3mm x 1mm costs $11AUS. Gotta be able to pick em up in England for close on the same price. Although if you can get 2mm x 1mm. Ive got a whole bunch of 3mm x 1mm and i find they are slightly to big.