How To: Magnetizing an Imperial Knight Carapace Weapon

Imperial Knights may carry a single weapon system on the top of their carapace.  This could be the twin Icarus autocannon, the Ironstorm missile pod, or the Stormspear rocket pod. I like to have options when setting up for games so magnetizing these weapons helps me choose what to take for any given game. With other knight weapon systems, I'm more content to make firm decisions and forgo the magnetizing.  A Knight Warden, for instance, is a Knight warden because it mounts the Avenger gatling cannon.  No need to magnetize there! And while there can be a choice of close combat weapon (Giant chain blade or mighty power claw), I'm content to just choose one and move on. If I were only going to own one knight and therefore needed the ability to arm it for various configurations, then I would go further with the magnets.  As it is, I am more than happy to collect all of the various knights over time!

But let's get back to magnetizing.

The carapace weapons sit on a post that fits into a hole at the top of the carapace.  Here's what that hole looks like from the underside of the carapace shell.

I simply glued a large 1/2" x 1/8" magnet centered under the hole using 2-part epoxy like this...

What could be easier?  To be sure gravity and hard knocks don't one day unseat the magnet, I glued a sprue bracket over the magnet to help keep it in place. I used more epoxy for this and was sure to get plenty all around the bracket to form a good bond all around.

To make life easier and save time, I cut a piece of spare sprue that already had a right angle to it and trimmed it down to fit. Anything that unseats this magnet will more than likely crack or wreck the knight.  So a loose magnet at that point would be the least of my worries!

Here's a shot of my new Knight Gallant sporting its magnetized rocket pod.

Sadly, I built the carapace weapons quite some time ago when the first Imperial Knight Renegade boxed set was released.  At the time, I wasn't thinking about how-to blog articles and I took no pictures of the process of magnetizing these weapon options.  In short, I followed a similar process of gluing the largest possible magnet that would fit to the inside of the weapon's base prior to assembling it.  I left the post at the bottom of the base alone so that the weapon still sits firmly into the carapace shell as if it was glued down normally.

I think some folks cut this post off and replace it with a magnet of similar size or slightly larger and then drill out the hole in the carapace as necessary.  This works, but I feel it likely that the magnet, acting as a new post, is more likely to get knocked off over time. Also, it's necessarily smaller than what can be glued inside the weapons, so the magnetic attraction will be less which may effect how securely it sits on top of the knight. By gluing the magnets securely inside the assemblies, there is nothing to get knocked off.  And even if the plastic post breaks off for some reason, the magnets will still hold the weapon in place, more or less, until the post was repaired or replaced.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this short follow up to my how-to on magnetizing the waist joint of an Imperial Knight. This is all the magnetizing I will be doing on this Gallant.  The arms and all the armor plates are not glued down in preparation for painting.  Once I get things painted to a certain point, the arms will be glued in their final position and all the armor will be glued down.

Imperial Knights a great models to work with. Lots of hobby space to magnetize, customize and practice with new painting techniques.  Are you working on any new knights?  Please share in the comments.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!