On to the prep work. I trimmed down all the arm tabs and cleaned off the flash.You can see the details of the model. Pretty good, but not the best, especially with the way some of the models got cut out. I’m not a fan of the softness of the jacks, but since I’m assuming that they’re using a formula similar to monpoc’s minis I suppose it’s to be expected. It’s very easy to work with, but I hope the plastic jacks will be harder.
After cleaning I dumped the minis in some cleaning agent + water to get rid of the mold release. That helps ensure that the primer stays on. The water ended up stinking to high heaven, but I don’t know if that was due to the cleaning or because I left the minis in there for a few days. ._.;;
Now more the special bits: magnetizing. I recommend colouring one end with a permanent marker first… Anything that helps prevent screwing up and putting in poles that repel each other is a good thing. Especially since in the end I still ended up screwing up mightily! Even with marking I ended up having two magnetized arms with the wrong polarity. Tried digging out the glued in magnets and ended up stabbing myself as a reward for all my effort. So again, make sure you get it right. Measure thrice, glue once!
I used 2mm diameter magnets for the main jack chassis and 1mm for the arms. Drilling out holes was easy enough (omg I would never do this on metal minis), as the plastic is easy to work with. Also remember to dry fit your magnets before you superglue them in, lest you give yourself more work!As you can see below I match the magnets by the marks I put on them. One has a bit of red ink, the other doesn’t.
I found that the 1mm magnets were a bit weaker than I wouldve liked; the torque inherent in the join meant that the were a bit droopy and loose, but I didn’t have enough 2mm magnets so I soldiered on. The smaller magnets were more than enough for the small jacks though.
In order to give all the models a unique pose I ended up doing a decent amount of converting. Each set of khador/Cygnar heavy/light jack got one stock pose, with the rest cut up and bent into other poses. Im a lot more used to the malleability of metal; with pewter you cut the bit up, bend it in and it’s done. Here because the plastic was more rubbery/flexible, they would have a bit of ‘memory’ and return to their original shape after bending. I’ve heard that you can heat up the bits with some hot water or a hair dryer and bend it in that heated state to cause the shape to retain, but I was much to busy to run down and heat me up some water on the stove.
Here’s some of the minis after having all the arm bits magnetized! Part 4 is basing and painting.
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