Repairing the Land Raider Terminus Ultra pt 3

(Your Magnets and you...)

   As I await my Crusader Upgrade kit to arrive, I spent some time rebuilding the weapon sponsons for the Lascannons.  Most of my brainpower was devoted to figuring out how to mount the twin-cannon sponsons without fabricating a new rotating mount.  A quick touch-up coat of black to cover the areas that weren't painted by the original builder and we were ready for the mounts.

  I began by drilling out the lower half of the mounts, and placing a 1/8" magnet there followed by drilling out the upper mounts and placing another 1/8"" magnet there for stability.



I figured that if I placed large magnets in both the upper and lower sponson frames, I could pick the right size magnet based on the structure of the rotator arm.  Plus the two large magnets would be able to support the weight of two las cannons, the rotator arm and the weapon shielding.

With that done, I drilled 1/16" holes in the bottom of the rotator arm and placed a magnet in there to attach to the larger magnetized base.  On the upper part of the arm, I placed a 1/8" magnet to marry up with the magnet in the upper mount.






How did I get the polarity right on all of these mounts?  Once the superglue set, I placed a stack of the magnets to top of the sponson and then pulled off the top of the pile for the 1/16" magnet to go in the base of the arm.  Correct polarity ensured!

With the sponson arms touched up paint-wise it was time to do a test fit...  Success!  The mounts rotated via the magnets and could be clipped in and out with minimal effort.  Now to pin and attach the twin-linked lascannons, a project that would have to wait for another day!

 

With the parts that remained from the forward sponsons, I quickly drilled out the old mounts and placed magnets in the sponson, using more of the small 1/16" magnets as I intended to place larger 1/8" magnets in the lascannon mount itself.

Since the builder had glued the sponson arms in place inside the lascannons, and one of them had broken right at the top of the rig, I opted to cut it flush with the top of the cannon and then drill a 1/8" hole slightly offset from center to make the cannon hang correctly when the sponson was reattached to the Land Raider door frame.




The slight offset that you can see here, ensured that the lascannon would hang flush with the sponson when it was clipped to the magnet in the mount itself.








While this mount did away with the arm that hung from the top of the Sponson , it at least allowed me to magnetically clip the single lascannons into place on the frame.  I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, or so I thought!

Unfortunately for me, the original builder had built the Sponson platforms upside down, and I had not noticed until I placed it into the forward doors, in the same fashion that the Predator Annihilator  does.

With success being so short lived, I was forced to set down the modeling tools...