Magnetizing Terrain - a Novice's questions

[Ace Debonair]

Greetings, my fellow hobbyists!

 

I recently obtained the Kill Team: Hivestorm box, and am very excited to start painting it. 

 

However, unlike my previous venture with the Gallowdark stuff, the Terrain needs to be glued together in order to actually stay together (for the most part, at least).

 

This will then make storage and transport a righteous pain, so I am thinking of dabbling in the forbidden art of using magnets to stick it together instead, so it can be safely disassembled and packed away with relatively little fuss. 

 

I've never done any hobby stuff with magnets before, and am thusly wondering if any of my B&C family have any recommendations for little magnets strong enough to work on reasonably chunky terrain, or indeed any other good advice for a total novice in this field. 

[Heraclite]

I don't have any experience with magnetizing terrain but I did magnetize a repulsor for all weapon options. I think it really depends on how the terrain assembles. 

If the glue is normally here just to hold it in place and it is sturdy enough to kinda stand on its own, you might be able to use small strategically placed magnets instead of glue. 

But if it depends entirely on glue to stay together, maybe you could use a combination of pins and magnets. The magnets will hold it together while the pins ensure sturdyness

[Ace Debonair]

I hadn't thought about pinning. 

But that's a good idea, to be honest.

 

I'm not quite sure how all of the terrain goes together yet - some bits have little notches that are clearly meant to fit together, others look to be reliant solely on the glue from what I can tell.

 

EDIT: Some of it does, in fact, look sturdy enough to stand on its' own without any real hassle.

Hopefully this will mean a minimum of pinning things, another field in which I am an untested novice.

 

There doesn't seem to be any videos on magnetizing terrain kicking about, either - that or my search-fu has failed me again - so maybe it's just not something people generally do. On the other hand, it seems like the sensible place to learn how to do magnets, since any mistakes can be passed off as battle damage, with a little creativity. 

Edited October 10 by Ace Debonair
Left out a detail or two

[Heraclite]

plus you may only have to combine magnets and pinning on the pieces of terrain that can have models on them . If it's just a corner ruin, you can just magnetize both corners and be done with it. 

 

If the terrain is even slightly modular, make sure to place your magnets in a way that lets you build any combination. magnetize your first piece of terrain, and then use it as a reference for the other elements

[Bryan Blaire]

Hopefully these can help some:

 

 

I think that one is actually a multi-parter.
 

 

 

I haven’t watched all these and can’t speak for their quality - I have magnetized some of my plasma conduits and Necromunda walls and a gate, but that was as far as I got when I realized that I’m going to have to invest in a lot more magnets…

[Ace Debonair]

Ah, fantastic - my attempts to find videos on the subject just produced 16,000 videos about building, scratchbuilding or painting terrain, and two or three about magnetizing loadouts for Imperial Knights. 

 

I'll take a look at these as soon as I have the free time to do so, and see what secrets can be gleaned from them. Many thanks! 

 

EDIT: That last one is more or less exactly what I needed, although the camera doesn't quite focus on any of the stuff the guy's trying to show. 

Nevertheless, that's the approach I'll attempt, and Emperor willing, I'll have some sweet collapsible scenery sooner rather than later.

 

First however, I need to buy some more magnets 

Edited October 11 by Ace Debonair

[Firedrake Cordova]

The Sector Mechanicus video is great (I remember seeing it years ago), but I hadn't seen and really must watch the Sector Imperialis one - thanks @Bryan Blaire 

[Bryan Blaire]

Realized that the video I posted earlier is the old Imperial Sector terrain, so here’s a couple of ones I found for the Sector Imperialis stuff (they don’t actually show how they did the magnetization, but you can pause the videos and see where they placed the magnets at least):

 

 

 

Again, hope they can help some.

[Ace Debonair]

These are all great finds, and are giving me a lot of ideas. 

This might be the start of a new obsession, I'll have to keep reminding myself I don't need (much) more terrain! 

 

I'm just waiting for my magnets to arrive and I'll give it a go - I'll be sure to post the results here (or at least in the WIP section) 

[Rogue]

Also, depending on terrain-type and just how much you want to be able to break it down, but...

 

When I built the original KillTeam terrain (the Imperial ruins that I think of as a cathedral), I made the ground level, and then the second level, but the two levels aren't glued together - one just rests on the other. It means I can build them up as different levels, or different tops, or lots of low level stuff. No magnets required, and reasonable to transport - it all fits into a box lid.

[Ace Debonair]

That is a really cool idea, but the way the new stuff goes together is a bit less modular - some of the walls are just really tall, with obvious gaps for the floor to rest in. 

 

Still, the magnets *should be* arriving today sometime, so I can give this all the old college try soon. Hopefully. 

[Rogue]

Ah, fair enough.

 

Good luck with the magnets :)

[Ace Debonair]

My Brothers, I must report on my progress with this experimentation with magnets and terrain It's been...

 

an overwhelming success! 

(My phone camera is a damaged potato, but I'll get some actually viewable pics soon )

 

I magnetized nearly every part of it - there's a couple of small buildings that just clip together, no glue needed, so I've left them as they were for now.

 

The Killzone Volkus terrain has a lot of different connection types, which meant a large variety of approaches were needed, so thanks again to everyone for your suggestions, and especially to Brian Blaire for all the super-useful videos - every time I got stuck I came back to this thread to watch something to give me an idea of how to proceed. 

 

May The Emperor/Dark Gods/Other Deity of Your Choosing bless you all, and may your hobby projects flourish! 

[Ace Debonair]

Brothers, forgive me. I'd uploaded these pictures to my PC a while ago and then completely forgot to get them on the forum.

 

Above is the complete building A from Hivestorm, brought to you through the power of SCIENCE magnets, easy to assemble and take apart. 

 

More pics in the spoiler below!

 

 

The magnets I used to hold the walls together on building A. One at the bottom (dirlled into the girder) and the other two at the top, where the plastic was just about thick enough to take them:



 

The magnets on top of plasticard I used to support the floor for building A. Without the 1mm plasticard, the magnets were just too far apart to actually support the weight of the structure without glue, and since doing this without glue was the entire point... plasticard it is!



 

The corresponding magnets on the upper floor for building A. I mostly attached these by sticking them to the other magnets first, then waiting for the superglue's bond to be stronger than the magnet's one. (spoiler: this was a terrible idea, next time I'll just put paint blobs on the first magnets and use them to mark the plastic for me)



 

Even Building B was not match for the power of magnets:



 

These magnets were for holding the floor up:



And these ones, with lefty there glued to some plasticard on top of a bit of sprue, is for holding up the top floor. It can't easily be seen once the building is put together, and shouldn't get in the way - not that this will stop me painting it, of course.



This one's the magnets in Floor B - shown here leaning against the building so I could get a proper shot. Chunky girders are your friend for hiding magnets; treasure them and use them with glee.



And lastly an example of how the walls went together. This one was both easier and harder than building A, as some of the walls are a bit thin, so there's a few extra holes in them around the corners. Luckily, battle damage explains that away easily enough, especially with a little judicious painting!

 

Hopefully this proves to help someone in the future, and if nothing else, let it stand as a testament to how much easier it is to use magnets to build terrain than might be expected. I went from clueless to pretty good at it in the space of two walls, thanks to the aid of my fellow hobbyists. 

[Bryan Blaire]

It looks fantastic, Ace Debonair, really glad you could get it to work out!

[Ace Debonair]

I couldn't have done it without the videos you found, that's for sure, so many thanks again 

 

The only test left is to see how well it plays with the magnets holding it together, but that's coming up on Christmas Day, Emperor willing.