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Hey dakka, I'm going to get my first Predator soon and I was wondering about how easy it is to swap between the lascannon and autocannon turrets, and having sponsons vs. not having sponsons. Can they be easily magnetized or pinned so they're easy to swap out (ie. as easy as Dreadnought weapons) without sacrificing the quality of the paint job?

If you're willing to sacrifice the mobility of the pieces, it's easy. The sponson gun hangs down from a piece, so you can just stick magnets inside to get the gun hanging from it. It'll be easiest if you glue the magnet inside the gun before assembly. The sponson itself is very easy to magnetize.

The turret is a little bit more involved but it's easy enough to do, you just need to do a little cutting inside the turret for a mount point.

It's not as easy to set up as a Dread but it's not overly complex.

Yeah its fairly easy to magnetise the whole sh'bang witht he predator

for the turret I put a magnet each side of the main turret piece (where the pegs used to fit into) and witht he guns i clipped the pegs off and drilled holes either side for 2 more magnets. Probably using more than is needed there but it retains the up/down posability, provided your magnet fit is decent then it doesnt droop down too

The sponson guns were easy to swap with plain plates with a magnet in the recess and one onthe back of the plate, didnt even need to drill that one.

the guns to be changable on the sponson mounts was the most tricky part for me, In the end i put a single magnet inside the guns before glueing the two halfs together, and then mounted one into the tiny little rod that the guns mount to, that one was smaller than the res at 2mm diameter by 1mm depth, all the others i used were 3mm diameter by 1.5mm depth.

I even managed to have the hunter killer mount magnetised, a 2mm one in the center of the cross that is its mounting bracket, and one fitted flush intot he armour plate where you choose with milliput filling and sanding job to hide it is well enough hidden once painted up if you sand it well enough.

edit; also be sure to make the ammo/battery box for the back of the turret changabel too so you can have lascannons with batteries and auto cannons with ammo boxes

HairySticks wrote:
Yeah its fairly easy to magnetise the whole sh'bang witht he predator

for the turret I put a magnet each side of the main turret piece (where the pegs used to fit into) and witht he guns i clipped the pegs off and drilled holes either side for 2 more magnets. Probably using more than is needed there but it retains the up/down posability, provided your magnet fit is decent then it doesnt droop down too

The sponson guns were easy to swap with plain plates with a magnet in the recess and one onthe back of the plate, didnt even need to drill that one.

the guns to be changable on the sponson mounts was the most tricky part for me, In the end i put a single magnet inside the guns before glueing the two halfs together, and then mounted one into the tiny little rod that the guns mount to, that one was smaller than the res at 2mm diameter by 1mm depth, all the others i used were 3mm diameter by 1.5mm depth.

I even managed to have the hunter killer mount magnetised, a 2mm one in the center of the cross that is its mounting bracket, and one fitted flush intot he armour plate where you choose with milliput filling and sanding job to hide it is well enough hidden once painted up if you sand it well enough.

edit; also be sure to make the ammo/battery box for the back of the turret changabel too so you can have lascannons with batteries and auto cannons with ammo boxes

This above is pretty much how I did it.

For side sponsons I made a cross with rectangular card into the slot of the gun and resting on top of the gun with small magnets in it and magnets in the top of the gun. It was more solid at the expense of the up/down movement.

Here is what I did, made a tutorial for my Rhino/Predator tanks here on Dakka as well. I pretty much did the same as the over two did also.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/484712.page

This is probably helpful. Fully magnetised, fully mobile. Oh, and no issues with painting too.

http://www.winterdyne.co.uk/maz/winterdyne_tutorial2.pdf

Here's another guide, there's quite a lot of them online if you do a google search:

http://space-wolves-grey.blogspot.com/2010/03/magnetizing-predator-tank.html