WIP: Stormraven Fully Magnetized

Spent more time thinking about my Stormraven than actually working on it, but I've got it all worked out now.  Fully magnetized, and ready to go!

The two big things I had to figure out were the side doors/bolter sponsons and the wings.  For the side doors, I decided to make it easy on myself and just magnetize at the base where the door hinges go. I drilled holes for little 3/16" magnets, one on each side of the door, and each side of the door jamb. The top is a pretty snug friction fit, so that's easy and won't require an invasive magnet where there's really no nice place to put one.  For the bolters, I had to stack 3 magnets to span the gap, but it works perfectly. I can't imagine I'll run it without the side bolters too often, but you don't want to get stuck in some WYSIWYG tournament long on points and not have the option to remove them if necessary.

Next was the more important and possibly difficult magnetization.  What to do with the wings. This thing is pretty darned big when it's fully assembled.  I need to be able to remove the wings if I'm going to transport it around to games and store it in a nice padded case.  The Sabol cases are way too small for a full Stormraven, but if you pop the wings off and store vertically, the case works nicely.

My initial plan was a little more grandiose than where I ended up.  I was going to take the 3 parts in to work and use an end mill (square profile drill bit) to carefully drill a perfect hole for large 1/4" magnets.  One magnet on each side, but perfectly mounted so it'd look great. End mills can be a little sketchy though, and they can run hot, so I was risking melted plastic which could botch the whole thing. Then I realized that my 1/8" magnets fit perfectly in to the slots already provided on the roof, both in diameter and just under the depth.  That's a lot easier and doesn't risk power tools on soft plastic.  Done.  Not as pretty, but what do I care what it looks like packed up in the case? Well I went to design school so I care a little, but nobody else will.

I glued one magnet on each of two corners (diagonally) in the slots and then when dry, put another magnet on top.  I put a little dab of glue on top of those magnets and put some kicker ( glue accelerant) on the back side of the wing connection so it would cure instantly when I squeezed the wing in place.  Super easy!  Now when I put the air scoop on eventually, it will create a little undercut where the wing can slide in, but not move upward.  That will give me good enough stability I think during gameplay, and if not, I'll just do the other two corners.  That air scoop means that I'll have to slide straight in from the sides though, and that's not going to happen with the raised nub at the edge of the fuselage body that locks in to the underside of the wing.  I carefully cut that off (just the lower one has been shaved in this pic) and now we're good to go for paint!

Hopefully this week I'll finish off the inside and get to the final assembly and cleanup of the outside. Thanks for the discussion last week.  Was useful.

~Deet