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Hi All

I'm sure this has been covered a million times before, but can someone please give me a basic tutorial in magnetising or at least link me some threads. I will mostly be magnetising planes for my elysian army i have planned, though i will probably start doing sentinels too and parts of my current dark angels army once i figure it out. I mostly want to know what size magnets i should use, how to apply them and how to hide/embed them into models as well as general tips so i don't ruin my models.

Thanks in advance

How big are the things you're wanting to magnetize? Get some magnets that are a bit smaller. Provided the parts are all plastic, even a single pair of rare earth magnets will normally be strong enough to hold them up. If you want to have multiple options, just be sure to take care with the polarity, but its nothing that 5 minutes of thought during the dry fitting stage won't solve.

Personally I use 3x3x0.5mm square magnets because you can surface mount them easily, so no drilling needed. A lot of others use 2 or 3mm diameter round magnets that are 2-3mm thick and recess them in. This is more secure for gluing them in (but even so you can't totally prevent magnets from dislodging themselves).

Its very hard to ruin a model throguh the application of magnets. Ususally they will be positioned in an area that will either be hidden by another part, or something nice and flat to allow stuff to be stuck on. hence you won't lose details. In the worst case you misjudge the position of a hole and need to fill it in.

I started out by buying a range of different magnet sizes and played about a bit until I found what worked for me.

I have a portion of my blog where I magnetized some infantry, with pictures. The best advice is ensure that you stay consistent. If you are gluing magnets, glue one, stick a second on and then glue the second magnet to the second object, being careful not to glue the magnets together. Nothing force that realizing after the glue has set that your magnets repel.

I primarily use roughly (since we're going metric, here) 3mm diameter, 1.5mm thick disks, although I did pick up a few 6mmx2mm disks for larger parts. I've found that most parts that are heavy enough to require more pull strength are also large enough to accommodate multiple magnets, so much larger sizes are rarely needed. High-torque joints are generally better served by a pin to support the part, with a small magnet keeping it from rotating and/or popping off.

I prefer disks to squares, as they're easy to fit flush and I want my joints as seamless as possible - just drill a shallow hole with the appropriately sized bit, dry-fitting to check depth, add a dab of CA glue, and shove it in Some folks like to use a tiny blob of epoxy putty to completely fill the hole, but I've found a tight fit and a dab of glue to be more than sufficient. They're actually a royal pain to remove if you botch the job, so dry-fit like crazy to avoid alignment errors.

I keep the magnets in a stack to maintain proper polarity and make handling easier. The stack acts as a handle, which you can slide away once your glue has set. Since all magnets in the stack will also be oriented in the same direction, I can use a few "spacer" magnets when installing the second one, reattaching the stack to the first part and simply shoving the accompanying piece onto the opposite end of the stack, guaranteeing proper polarity.

Here's a Dakka article on vehicle magnetization, which covers a few different projects with some general advice. Really, though, it just takes a bit of thought. I magnetized my Predator completely differently, because I had different priorities - all of my magnets are small and countersunk to maintain the model's aesthetic. I also wanted to keep all parts' full range of motion, so I replaced the pins and sockets on the weapons with small magnets, allowing them to pivot like the stock model. It's more fiddly this way, but with a bit of planning, was doable by the novice I was, at the time.