Tutorials
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Magnetizing the Big Mek in Mega Armor

Quick tutorial post on how I added magnets to the Ork Big Mek in Mega Armor. While I don’t generally add magnets to my minis, this guy seems like a good candidate to work on.

Magnetising the Big Mek

This Big Mek is from the Meganobz box where you can build one of the Nobz into a Big Mek. The arm weapons don’t have options, so it is the backpack mount that I magnetized. This way I can either arm him with the Kustom Tellyporta Gun (which sounds fun) or provide a defense with the Kustom Force Field (probably more helpful).

Drilling the Holes

Once the main body and legs were built up, I left the top armor plate off. This is meant to be the weapon’s platform but works perfectly for adding the magnets. I set the piece in place and used a small drill bit to drill through it and the top of the body.

To prevent the magnet from moving, I didn’t use a larger bit as the top plate so it would hold the magnet in place.

drilling pilot hole in the megamek

I then swapped the top plate to the weapon sides. Both bits have a given location it aligns with the bit. Once I got it in place, I used the pilot hole to drill into the weapons.

Magnetizing the Big Mek's Back Options drilling pilot holes

Now I knew exactly where the magnets all needed to go to line them up.

Adding the Magnets

To get the magnet in the main body, I used the 1/8″ bit which is the same size as the magnets I’m using. Centering on the pilot hole, I drilled into the body and cleaned it up.

I then used super glue to attach the magnet to the top plate. A dab of plastic glue and I attached the top plate, holding the magnet, into place.

Adding Magnet to top plate of big mek

The same was done for both weapon options. To get the magnets to align properly, I placed a piece of paper on top of the body and set a magnet onto it. I then put a dot of super glue onto the magnet and placed the weapon in place.

I could then use the paper to lift the weapon and magnet and let the glue dry. While a small amount of paper attached itself to the magnet, I later cleaned it all up and covered the hold with Liquid Green Stuff. This provided additional support for the magnet so it wouldn’t pop out later.

adding magnets to big mek's weapons

The Results

As you can see, both weapon options fit neatly into place allowing for flexibility and fun. This was a fun little magnet experiment and took hardly any extra effort.

Magnetizing the Big Mek Weapon Options

What do you guys think? Do you do many magnet conversions to allow weapon swaps?