Magnetizing a Stormraven?!?

From the title, you might think that this is a blog post about how I magnetized a stormraven that I am working on.  If you thought that, you would be correct...partly.  When building the stormraven that I just completed for a commission job, I actually found that there was relatively little need for magnetizing. 

In 40k, magnetizing is a great money saving measure for expanding the usefulness of models in your army. You can see my article, That's attractive: uses for magnets in 40k, which talks about various ways I have found to use magnets in the hobby.  With a little work, you can save your pocketbook the lightening effects of having to buy new models for every specialized unit you have. 

When I started the stormraven, I thought that the plethora of weapons options would mean a magnetizing bonanza.  I was pleasantly surprised that I was completely wrong!  What I found is that the stormraven (or at least the one I put together) is so well made in terms of joint-to-joint connection, that in many cases, no magnets were needed.  The servitor turret on top of the raven didn't need magnets as the rod that connected the two guns holds them in place rather well.  Also, the nose mounted gun emplacement didn't need magnets as the heavy bolter, mult-melta, and missile barrels/apparatus fit tightly in to the sockets provided.  This was an extremely nice development. 

That left two places where I discovered a need for magnets: the side door/hurricane bolter sponsons and the armor plates on the turret guns. Both were relatively easy fixes considering the construction of the stormraven pieces.

To magnetize the doors you will need 2 pieces of roughly 1 1/2x 1 1/2 in. metal plates.  I use duct metal that you can get from any hardware store for relatively cheap.  **This needs to be done before you put the top of the stormraven's body on as you need to get inside the cargo cavity.  Simply apply glue to the inside of the doorframe on each of the side doors and press the metal plating in tightly.  From the outside you should see the door completely blocked by metal.  Next, you simply apply the magnets to the inside of the doors and the sponsons.  For the doors I chose to apply the magnet to the middle strip on the inside of the door as it provided a smooth place for the door to adhere to. On the sponson, there is a cross between two bracing pieces that I attached the magnet to lower on the door.  In both cases I chose very thin magnets as there isn't a lot of space to work with between the plating and the doors/sponsons.  See the various thicknesses of the magnets here: K&J Magnetics. I went with magnets that were around 1/16" thick.  **Take a look at my part 1 link below to see these steps.

Sadly, for the armor plates on the turret guns, I didn't take pictures of the process, but the it is pretty easy to do.  Each gun comes in two halves.  Due to their construction, there is a cavity large enough for a thin (1/16" or less) magnet to fit.  I simply glued a magnet into the cavity before gluing the halves together.  Beware, though that you don't cover the hole used to attach the guns to the connector rod on the turret. If you do, the guns won't fit right and will be kind of shaky on their mounts. 

That's it!  The new stormraven, though less sleek that most of us thought it should be really is a sweet model to build and work with.  I really enjoyed putting it together and painting it.  To help collect my efforts, I have linked to all of the other articles I have written on the process below for easy perusing.  Take a look and feel free to leave any comments or questions that you might have. 

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5