A new start (again)

Time to start this whole thing again!

I've kept the posts from the (ancient) past, and will be planning on doing regular updates on various projects I have going on at the minute.

Fingers crossed I keep up with it this time, third time lucky!

A little about me (updated):

I have been involved in this grand old time-absorbing money-dissolving hobby for around 15 years now. It all started way back in 2000/2001 when I purchased a 3rd Ed. 40K starter set with my friend, I took Space Marines, naturally, and he kept the Dark Eldar portion. We kept up with it for a while but gradually he drifted away from the hobby and I stuck with it.

I continued for a few years until I went off to uni and decided in my infinite wisdom I would probably never hobby again, I sold all my collection on eBay to provide some beer tokens, in hindsight an enormous mistake.

After uni and during my masters course in 2009 I decided I needed a hobby to have some time off thesis writing, and wandered into my local GW to see what was going on. It didn't take long for them to suck me straight back in after our initial "you haven't played since 3rd Edition?? Sit down..." discussion.

Since then it's been full on hobby love, I eventually replaced my entire old collection (paying a lot more now as a lot of what I had is now pretty collectible) during a long and protracted eBay purchasing campaign.

My main focus is painting, as ever, and as such I'm currently scaling down my large collection to leave me with the pieces I actually want to paint and display.

My current projects include (but are not limited to, of course); Tyranids, Ad Mech, Dark Angels, 30K Emperor's Children, Horus Heresy characters, Bolt Action German Army, Fine Molds Millenium Falcon and a host of other individual models I've promised myself I will get to one day. One day...

Magnetising a Tyranid Hive Tyrant

I've been attempting to magnetise the plastic hive tyrant kit in order to switch it out between the Swarmlord and a normal hive tyrant on foot. Here's where I've got so far.

Tools:

• pin vice
• 1mm, 2mm and 3mm drill bits
• 2mm and 3mm rare earth magnets
• paper clip/brass rod (1mm)
• wire clippers
• super glue
• patience

I started by drilling a 2mm guide hole (not too deep so you don't penetrate the body cavity) into one of the arm sockets on the torso. This hole was widened out with the 3mm drill, and a 3mm magnet glued into place (ensure you get your polarities right so the arms will stick and not repel!).

In order to line up the arms I put a blob of white paint in the centre of the magnet in the torso and placed the arm in the socket at the angle required, this put a mark on the arm joint to tell me where to drill the next hole. After drilling another 3mm hole into the arm joint another 3mm magnet was glued into place, again checking polarities.

I came across a problem at this point, the weight of a scything talon arm caused it to droop down when the miniature was moved around. This could be due to the strength of the magnets, I had no idea when buying them that you can get different strengths (the N value) so perhaps in future I will try to buy stronger ones. I got around the problem (after almost giving up) by using pins to hold the joint in place.

I drilled a 1mm hole above the magnet in the torso and carefully lined up a corresponding hole in the arm above the magnet again. I then cut a short length of paper clip (approx. 3mm) and glued it into place in the hole in the arm. This enables the magnet to hold the arm in place, and the pin stops any unnecessary rotation of the limb.

On the weapon arms where the left arm connects to the weapon I will be using a 2mm magnet to secure it into place, pics to follow.

Hopefully all that makes sense, and you can see my progress in the gallery below. Just the rest of the arms to go now... that's a lot of weapon options.