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so i've broken down, bought some wardogs and am gonna try to magnetize them.
my question to the group is how do you prevent them from looking like a worn out floppy action figure?
thats my biggest fear and why i have always glued guns in sponsons and make anything that moves static... i hate parts that flop around.

for the wardogs it seems most people leave the shoulder joint mobile... i think i'm going to glue mine in place.
it will let me swap out weapons but make the poses static... i think im ok with that.

any magnetizing tips?
how do you stop rotation on the magnets?

When I magnetized something and joint point have enough space I add polystyrene pin next to magnetes. Pin prevent rotation and add stiffness and magnetes hold pieces together

I'm not completely sure with the dimensions on a wardog, but for some models I magnetized where the rotating part has 2-3 typical positions it looks good at I added several magnets in one part at different positions.
Like: I have a howitzer for a tank (so typical positions would be straight forward at 0° and upwards at about 30°) and the swivelling howitzer part hat a magnet in the 0° and 30° position, so that it is stable in both of them. That might work for other rotation parts to. Like for an arm: one central magnet it can rotate around and another, offset which matches to the body at angles that look good.

thank you both, great ideas.

@Pyro - the joins are a little small for multiple magnets, you magnetize joints like elbows so not much room for more than one magnet. i love the idea though and will keep it in mind for the future... eventually i think i want to move on to a tank.

@kaba - i love this idea and may give it a shot... a small pin in or near the magnet hole may be a winner. basically just some sort of key to hold position.

If you have large enough joints, there are more exotic methods, like embedding metal balls in one side, and get super-strong ring-magnets for the other side.

Greenstuff World do a range of sets for this, but I'm sure you could do home-brew versions for cheaper with local vendors.

https://www.greenstuffworld.com/en/rotation-magnets-n52/429-rotation-magnets-size-l.html

wow... how neat is that.
thx flinty.
i wonder how well they keep things from rotating when you dont want them to.

They are designed to hold xwing minis quite firmly in place, so I imagine they are pretty frictional.

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
so i've broken down, bought some wardogs and am gonna try to magnetize them.
my question to the group is how do you prevent them from looking like a worn out floppy action figure?
thats my biggest fear and why i have always glued guns in sponsons and make anything that moves static... i hate parts that flop around.

for the wardogs it seems most people leave the shoulder joint mobile... i think i'm going to glue mine in place.
it will let me swap out weapons but make the poses static... i think im ok with that.

any magnetizing tips?
how do you stop rotation on the magnets?

One option is to prevent rotation, use two smaller magnets. Or three in a little triangle. That's kind of a more advanced technique but it's what I'm doing these days. I feel like you do that the magnets flopping around is very unappealing. However it's worth noting that a decently large round magnet for a weapon swap like that, probably will not rotate freely very much. A magnet of sufficient size will require actually putting force on it to move.