An Epic Warlord Titan and a selection of weapons.

An excuse for an introduction

No matter your army, you can easily adapt all the techniques presented here. Weapon balance, shape of the weapon mounts, material involved and weight are all the factors to consider. Everything is quite easy, but this article lingers more on the various problems I encountered to help you avoid them. I am barely able to change a lightbulb, need I say more?

As you may have guessed from the title, my approach is based on magnets. Powerful and affordable neodymium magnets. I buy them from ForcefieldMagnets. They have a huge catalog but don't worry: I will give all useful references along this article. Of course, you can order online from their website. Other people get their material from Radioshack stores, but I feel their magnets are not as strong as WonderMagnet ones. Of course, they ship worldwide.

I also use a Dremel tool for drilling, invaluable for any serious modeler. A file and a small hand drill for lower budget can help achieve the same results but with a lot more effort, especially when dealing with metal.

Finally, two-part epoxy glue is used to hold everything in place. Even if it dries slowly, this glue is extremely strong after 12 hours, giving an appropriate resistance to a part holding some weight.

Swapping attempts

A Starcannon platform - for the moment.

Weapon swapping is a problem as old as the Hobby. Solutions have involved adhesive, pins, jointing, and any means conceivable by the human mind.

As you can see towards the end of this article from the Painting Clininc, some modelers are going quite far for addressing this issue. Despite a great looking paint job, this particular attempt to weapon swapping illustrates unfortunately how frustrating modeling can be: a lot of work for little results. A whole army with this swapping system is hard to imagine with so many hours of filing ahead. This approach is ill-suited for models like Wraithlords for the weapon emplacement is not appropriate.

An attractive solution

Each swap requires three magnets: one on the mount, and two on the weapon. Having two on the weapon is a matter of personal preference. With my Eldar models, I noticed that a pile of two magnets was perfectly fitting. Depending on your weapon size, one may be plently.

The mount had to be hollowed out for the right magnet to fit in.

On the picture above, the magnets look misaligned but it's just because I put the Brightlance up in order to take the picture.

A Shuriken Cannon after modeling work.

I used mainly high grade, gold-plated 3/16" x 1/16" disks (item 7) for their strength and small size. Don't worry for the gold plating; they cost a measly $0.15 each!
All Eldar heavy weapons share the same shape for their inset in the weapon mount, a flat cylinder the size of two magnets stacked together. This distinctive feature the magnet in the mount to be placed freely on left or right side and still being able to hold the weapon.

The first part of the job is to file heavy weapons to glue magnets in place. I can't stress it enough: All your magnets should be oriented the same way on weapons and mounts!
Exact polarity is irrelevant as long as it is consistent. To avoid any error, just start with a single weapon and then make all further weapon and mount magnets align with this weapon of reference. It's so frustrating to realize too late that weapon and mount don't match that it's really worth some extra time to make sure it does not happen. If it happens, you can as well throw the faulty part away: it's impossible to remove a magnet drowned in epoxy.

When gluing magnets in place be careful to keep their contact surface clean, and that there is no drop of glue blocking the way the weapon is inserted in the mount. Otherwise, you may be unable to insert the weapon properly; and if some glue stains contact surface, magnets won't align properly and the weapon will hang untidily and stay misaligned.
Everything can be corrected when the glue is still soft. Working in such conditions requires careful consideration because any blade getting close will be attracted and will also attract the magnet! Modelling around a magnetic field is tricky. Avoid it with some foreplanning if you can.

Weapon mounts

Working on the mount is more difficult. You cannot simply glue the receiving magnet in place; before, you have to drill a hole for it, otherwise not enough space will remain to insert the weapon in the mount. Depending on the shape of the mount, you may find more convenient to put a magnet in one side or another. Your reference weapon can come handy for checking this.

Whenever I have to drill something, I start with my Dremel tool and a drill of the same diameter than my magnets, which results in a slightly larger hole. I finish the job with a mill. When working on plastic, you can do everything with a mill.

A Vyper gunner and a discreet magnet.

More advice

Magnets and Glue
Both don't mix well because magnets attract all the tools we usually rely on (pincers, files, cutters). It's somewhat tricky to set the magnet in place. Unexpected and disastrous results often occur and it's rather difficult to reposition it, and clean it of all glue spilled on the contact surface. You should use toothpicks, or anything made of wood or plastic.
Be very careful of not letting iron around. As long as the glue is not dry, the magnet is still able to react and may jump off its hole, or worse, turn on spot.
I've encountered many problems when gluing magnets, usually because I wanted to do too much in too little time. I tried to get the most of my epoxy glue mix while it was fresh: bad idea. Magnets were interacting with everything around: files, other magnets left aside for hardening, and so on.
The golden rule is: take your time.

Painting before or after?
It's up to you to paint your weapons before or after installing the magnets. If you paint the model before, you take the risk of damaging your paint job with a bad move when drilling an emplacement. On the other hand, it's not a very good idea to paint magnets. Acrylic paint does not adhere well to them. The area will endure scratches whenever the weapon is set in place or removed, so the paint is likely to chip.

In my project some of the weapons or mounts were already finished when I worked on them just to add magnets. Other weapons had just been undercoated. I did not paint the magnets as they were gold plated and had a proper look for my army.

Speaking of colors, another stupid error easily overlooked: getting a wrong paint scheme. If you want to swap weapons, all of them must share the same paint scheme or at least a paint scheme consistent with the rest of your army. It can get especially awful when some of a tank's weapons can be swapped while others are not, and when the alternate weapons' paint scheme does not match the firm ones'.
Yes, it means that sharing some weapons between your Space Wolves and your Ultramarines won't be that easy.

A Word on magnetic power
Some weapons made of plastic and other are in metal. The contact point with the mount can be located very differently related to the center of gravity. Although it appears not very important, you should ensure that your magnets are strong enough for what you plan to do with them. If it's unlikely that a weapon falls and get lost by accident, it's a lot more likely that Lascannon will be unable to stand firm facing the ennemy but faces the ground. Correcting this requires some planning.
When it's not possible to use a strong enough magnet you can add a discreet pin to avoid the weapon from stalling. Not only the weapon is attached by a magnet, but it is resting on this pin to avoid unexpected rotation.

Going further

Magnets can be used for a lot more than weapon swapping. Using slightly larger magnets (item 32) you can articulate tank turrets the way you like, even removing them. I changed my Falcon's turret joint with a magnet to remove the turret easily and play it like a Serpent. The Titan shown at the top of this article is articulated at the waist with two flat cylindrical magnets painted black.

Using a magnet as an axis, but drilling is required!

For my Eldar Support Weapon Platforms, I've drilled more and used a "rod" magnet (item 56) to act like an axis for the whole platform. Hence the antigrav engine, crew platform with a gunner and support weapon are three different elements holding together. No particular reason other than having the magnets at hand. It looks incredible, as from the look of the miniature the intermediate piece is supposed to rotate.

Left: a magnet to hold the weapon in the shield Right: two more magnets to create an axis for rotating the weapon shield

Using the same weapon swapping technique I also created a join for my regular Eldar Weapon Platforms, between the shield and the antigrav base. I took care of upping the shield slightly so it could rotate without damaging the platform's paint job.

The face of fellow players when I unpacked all my stuff - drooling with envy - proved me that weapon swapping was well worth the trouble!

So, what are you waiting for?

What will you use to crush your opponent with today?

created on 21 Mar 2006
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