(Maybe that is why I gave myself a month of no purchases!)
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| a half-primered, partially-based, semi-magnetized Imperial Knight |
I knew that it would take some time for me to pull the Imperial Knight kit apart and figure out how I was going to use it. Obviously I wanted to magnetize the weapons, but since I knew I would be building a second one of these, I decided to take the time to look at how I could customize the kit for Knight #2 coming up in a few months.
The magnetization scheme for me wasn't as elegant as I've done before, with countersunk magnets, but rather a brute force install of magnets superglued to the surface, with sprues and I beams cut to place them correctly.
The thermal cannon worked out well, even if the fuel tanks on the side don't sit perfectly flush. While the Battlecannon's ammunition tray had enough room to mount the magnets in a recessed manner, the fuel tanks for the thermal cannon didn't. AND I was too chicken to drill into the part for fear of overdrilling it like I did the heavy stubbers! (wouldn't want to mess up that cool detail in the tanks!) If you look at the top image, you can see how the tanks received surface mount magnets instead of countersunk ones.
Thankfully, GW included a total of four of the eyelets that glue onto the top of each weapon shield. It is almost as if the WANTED you to magnetize the model! (If I was going to believe that, then they would have made the cannon power pack easy to install inside the weapon.) If you want to see how to make it interchangeable, there are plenty of tutorials on YouTube for that! I wasn't going to spend that much effort on this Imperial Knight, as "good-enough" was having a weapon mount with the correct barrels pointing at my opponent.
The battlecannon's ammo tray went on better, as I mentioned earlier, and with a little forethought, I was able to make some small cuts to the frame of the heavy stubber so that the battlecannon mount slid right on and off of the main weapon assembly. If you look at the first image after the break, you'll see how I cut off the lip that was molded into the stubber's receiver so that it fit smoothly onto the inner side of the weapon mount.
Getting the depth of the magnet mounting for the Battlecannon was a little more difficult. If you look at the image you will notice that it is one main piece of sprue with another slim section cut and glued onto the first. Go figure, my first attempt at setting the depth was wrong, and the magnets did not touch. Actually the way I verified that the depth was too much was by gluing a magnet to the weapon mount and simply attaching another to it. Then I placed some superglue on the "front" magnet, and when it didn't even get glue on the sprue, I knew I needed to make the mount larger. A small shim of sprue brought it to the right depth and married up with the second magnet with superglue on it. I let the glue dry and then pulled the forward barrel assembly off, and voila, perfectly matched magnets.
Once again, I was happy that there were enough tie-downs to place them on each weapon without having to pick and choose!
After finishing magnetization it was off to lay out the items for the base. A quick layout to make sure that nothing looked too strange in close proximity to the Knight. I didn't want it looking like he was going to trip over the rubble with his next step!
Once the main pieces were superglue in place, a watered-down mix of PVA glue was used to set the bricks into what approximated a pavered pattern. If I hadn't been so impatient, I think I would have added more sections of the bricks, but I wanted to get to the sand and gravel mixture quickly. That and I've built a few paver patios in my life and I'm pretty sick and tired of doing that! The end result below looks okay, and I think once I primer and paint the base, it will hopefully blend better.
The magnetization scheme for me wasn't as elegant as I've done before, with countersunk magnets, but rather a brute force install of magnets superglued to the surface, with sprues and I beams cut to place them correctly.
As you can see, I opted to leave out the power pack for the thermal cannon that sits inside the arm mount. It will make the customization easier, and I'm pretty sure my opponent won't disqualify the Knight over that!
The thermal cannon worked out well, even if the fuel tanks on the side don't sit perfectly flush. While the Battlecannon's ammunition tray had enough room to mount the magnets in a recessed manner, the fuel tanks for the thermal cannon didn't. AND I was too chicken to drill into the part for fear of overdrilling it like I did the heavy stubbers! (wouldn't want to mess up that cool detail in the tanks!) If you look at the top image, you can see how the tanks received surface mount magnets instead of countersunk ones. Getting the depth of the magnet mounting for the Battlecannon was a little more difficult. If you look at the image you will notice that it is one main piece of sprue with another slim section cut and glued onto the first. Go figure, my first attempt at setting the depth was wrong, and the magnets did not touch. Actually the way I verified that the depth was too much was by gluing a magnet to the weapon mount and simply attaching another to it. Then I placed some superglue on the "front" magnet, and when it didn't even get glue on the sprue, I knew I needed to make the mount larger. A small shim of sprue brought it to the right depth and married up with the second magnet with superglue on it. I let the glue dry and then pulled the forward barrel assembly off, and voila, perfectly matched magnets.Once again, I was happy that there were enough tie-downs to place them on each weapon without having to pick and choose!
After finishing magnetization it was off to lay out the items for the base. A quick layout to make sure that nothing looked too strange in close proximity to the Knight. I didn't want it looking like he was going to trip over the rubble with his next step!
Once the main pieces were superglue in place, a watered-down mix of PVA glue was used to set the bricks into what approximated a pavered pattern. If I hadn't been so impatient, I think I would have added more sections of the bricks, but I wanted to get to the sand and gravel mixture quickly. That and I've built a few paver patios in my life and I'm pretty sick and tired of doing that! The end result below looks okay, and I think once I primer and paint the base, it will hopefully blend better.
So next I'm off to primer the shoulder pads and carapace!
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