I magnetized the sponsons on my Predator about a week ago. I finished assembling it and then primed it black before realizing that I had not made a blog post about it. It’s a bit late to really give a proper walk through, but better late then never I suppose. My apologies if this all seems a bit confusing.
Fortunately magnetizing Predator sponsons is probably one of the easiest things to magnetize as there’s very little modification needed and no drilling necessary.
I started by clipping the off the flat extension that goes into the gun right below the block portion. A 1/8” magnet fits perfectly onto its surface.
I then cut a little piece of 1/8” thick plasticard to fill in the gap where the extension would have gone into the guns and glued another 1/8” magnet, centered on top of what was the hole. I chipped away some of the primer so you can see the magnet a bit better and if you look closely you can see the outline of the plasticard piece around it.
Doing it this way still allows for 180 degrees of rotation. It does however, prevent the gun from pointing up or down, but really, just how important is it that the gun be able to point up or down? In my opinion… It’s not important at all.
Using the 1/8” magnets was perfect because it placed the guns at almost the exact same height as the non modified part.
I did have the turret magnetized also, but it was rather flimsy so I’ll not bother going into detail how I did it. After some consideration I decided to just glue the twin-link lascannon into place. Honestly, I can not see myself ever using the autocannon and should I some day decide to… There’s always ‘counts as’.
Thanks for stopping by. Cheers!
That easy huh? May have to get me a Predator...or 3 :D
ReplyDeletealways impressed! I've had magnets for a while but stayed away from using them because I really hate drilling. This is a really good approach that also looks good. Can't beat a win win.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good technique. I magnetized mine differently, using very thin magnets to hold the two halves of the lascannon sponson together around the little swivel post. It works pretty well and allows for the up and down movement, but yours does seem a bit sturdier. I'll have to give that a try next time.
ReplyDeleteLike Beau (above), I too magnetized mine a bit differently, but I really like this strategy. Mine are kind of a pain to work with as they are, but after reading this, I think I'll bust my guns apart and remagnetize them.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the inspiration (and the props on my blog that inspired me to come digging through here).