This was the plastic 2nd. Ed. bike box! The bike was sculpted by Norman Swales and the Marine by Jes Goodwin as per the 1998 catalogue page.
The 3-bike squad was announced in the September 1996 White Dwarf; I’m still trying to nail down the date of the solo bike box and whether this is the later release with the updated Marine or the earlier one. Based on the front cover being art rather than a model picture and the part number I’m suspecting later, but we will see.
Here are my experiments with magnetising one of the new Kratos tanks from Games Workshop for Warhammer 30K or 40K.
Magnetising the dozer blade came first – I did this after assembly, though it’d be easier to do it beforehand. Taking a power drill to the built tank was somewhat hair raising – if you do this be careful that the drill doesn’t bite the plastic and pull sharply into the hole. I went with 6x1mm magnets as a decent fit, and they are enough to hold the blade up:
I picked the outer aspect of each mount point on the chassis, as there was more plastic at that point on the blade mounts to drill into.
On the blade:
It doesn’t look it from the angle of the photo but the magnets are only just sitting higher than flush to ensure good contact with the other side.
Magnetised and in place:
The body guns don’t strictly need it as the guns push fit into the socket, but… well, I got a bit carried away. 5x1mm magnets – done before assembly:
Here is how I magnetised the new Games Workshop plastic Deimos Rhino kit so that the hatches could be interchangeable.
You just need the sprues that came with it and some magnets. I used 5x1mm magnets but 4x1mm, 3x1mm or even 2x1mm would work as well – they don’t need to be strong magnets as they’re not really fighting gravity here.
On the underside of the top section, cut a section of sprue and glue it in place. You can do this after it’s been assembled if you are careful and use tweezers/small pliers to guide the sprue in and pull it against the underside. Then just turn the tank upside down to let gravity keep it against the underside.
Alternately, do it before you assemble…
I used four pieces of sprue – you really only need one, but since the sprue was being chucked anyway I figured why not.
From the top:
Add a magnet at the front:
The front is easiest for the hatches since the lowest point of the hatches is located there. On the underside of the hatches:
You can see that the 5mm magnet overhangs the area it’s glued to – that’s not strictly an issue, but if I had smaller diameter magnets it would have been a good opportunity to use them. The 1mm depth is important here – two 1mm deep magnets align perfectly with the gap available.
The missile launcher hatch requires a single piece of sprue to be glued under it to achieve the same gap – photos to come.
The gunner/commander will require something across the gap at the front – I used this with a 3x1mm magnet underneath:
For his gun mount I used a 2x1mm magnet on the gun end and a 3x1mm on the handle end – it would be easier to use 2×1 on both ends.
Will need more of part #15 – the arm that the gun mounts to – but something compatible shouldn’t be hard to come up with. More on that to come…
That title was a mouthful. I magnetised this one as seen here.
Test scheme WIP:
Undercoat: Vallejo Mecha Black
Blue: Cobalt Blue blended up to Primary Blue by hand, highlights Primary Blue then a mix of Primary Blue and Art White
Pigments: Dark Mud mixed with Rough, then Dark Mud, with Mars in the recesses, then Natural Soil on top
White: Artic Blue then Art White
I think the pigments ended up reading more red than I expected; going to back that off a bit to try and make it look more like dust accumulation than rust.
