Hi Folks,

After succumbing to the charms of an überbargain price on an already bargained limited edition box, I ends up with 3 Knights to be built and painted.

I have decided starting with the Castellan. Or the Valiant. Or… Both at the same time. It will be a big premiere for me consisting in trying out magnetizing a model. I of course had my dosis of tutorials on Youtube, bought some Neodyne magnets and prepared the material to commit the crime.

I had decided myself to go for a variant: instead of glueing magnets on added on cut sprues inserts, I planned to fill the void with Milliput. Yet, while planning the job, an issue appeared. The kind of issue you become aware after reading carefully the instruction manual (something I usually never do, but it is too hot to work).

In order to understand the issue, lets clarify my scope of work. I do not plan magnetizing the torso/legs joint ball. Neither do I plan to magnetize the hunterkiller missiles (or whatever these are called) or the small turrets mounted on the carapace. I will strictly stick to the arms.

And this is where the details matter: you can’t do it just that straight forward as some parts for the weapons are in limited numbers. Which ones? The back of the weapons, that kind of cork looking stuff with the cog. You have only 2 of these and if you aim at getting options for swapping weapons you should have 4.

Options:

1. Recasting with blue stuff is an option.
2. Cutting some of the extra reactor cores of the second back plate available on sprues is another option. That or using similar spare parts from Moirax kits I built.
3. Magnetizing this bits and swapping it with the arms. But this is not going to be the way to go for me. Too much magnets at the time. I already aim at getting polarizations OK for 4 pairs which may be tricky considering my concentration level these days.

Interestingly I am not aware this point has been raised in ANY of the numerous videos I looked for on the internet about magnetizing Castellans/Valiants…

And this ois because these videos once applied to Castellans/Valiants are meant to make the knight easier to dismount for storage or transportation purpose. It is not (for this chassis) meant to add flexibility in tooling up the machine.

And as such the forementioned “missing parts” can be generalized to some other parts such as the side arm armor panel part or the “elbow”.

If you purpose is to swap weapons, then you should magnetize the miniature not on the joint as usually shown in videos but in the weapon itself. And even as such, you may need to resign getting the small pistons holding the weapon.

You should not magnetize at this joint as usually shown (this works maybe for Questoris but not for Castellans)

You should magnetize INSIDE the weapon instead

So how did it goes for me? I went to a test with the Valiant conflagration cannon as this is not the variant I am pushy for. So if I fail it is not that critical. I went for blue cast way for the back barrel. Then I cut and carved into the plastic. And I gave up after slaughtering through the plastic in such a way that I hit the table underneath - poor dosing of torque and applied force with the Dremel.

Magnetizing 0 – Standard fixed built 1.

So what? I have failled. It is not that critial as the Valiant is not necesarily a type of knight I was considering. But the idea of keep on failing while going on more critical parts (such as the Volcano cannon) as cooled me down.

I will not give up completely the idea of magnetizing though. And I am sure these magnets will have other uses latter on. Magnetizing weapons on Questoris chassis looks easier and more straight forward… And now that I have 5 Armigers 1 Questoris and 1 Castellan (some still on sprues), I may naturally add more knights sooner than latter. So let's treat this as a learning curve and postpone the task.

See you with a painted Castellan in fixed configuration. And as for as magnets are concerned, let’s try again another day.