Irrestitable Attraction, or how to magnetize your CoC

Hobby article! How the mighty have fallen.

When I started buying Convergence vector kits, I had a bit of trouble finding good articles about magnetizing the warjacks and what kind of magnets to use.  I found some decent videos on youtube (eg. Crippled System and Fresh Coast Gaming) which weren't concise enough for my tastes, so here is my summary:  

What you need

• 3mm x 1mm rare earth/neodymium magnets
  These are really strong magnets that you need for this stuff to hold together. These by law cannot be displayed in stores in NZ (kinda like tobacco products) due to issues with small children swallowing them. I had to order them from an online distributor, but make sure you are VERY CAREFUL with these as they are very small and easy to lose. 3mm is the perfect size for the Hover Vectors (you barely need to use a drill.
• Drill bits! 1mm and 3mm are what I used. Basically you need one drill bit for pinning, and one drill bit to drill shallow holes for the magnets.
• A good hand drill or small dremel drill. Hopefully big enough to fit the 3mm drill bit, because the two I had weren't. Using your fingers as a pin vice is very time consuming and not all that fun.
• Paper clips or whatever you use to pin things (and something to clip them)
• Super glue (obviously)
• A positive mental attitude 

 

Tips on preparing your pieces

• See the photo dump below for specifics.
• Most preparation ends up drilling wholes where stumps are on the original model. The weapons should also be put together.
• For the walker vectors, you want to put the shoulders together.
• Make sure you double check the polarity of the magnets before gluing them. They are VERY hard to take back out after the glue has set due to their size. 

Untested Advice!
The Walker vector's right arm is a bit special. There are 3 pieces that can potentially go there:

1. Cipher's Piston Spike
2. Monitor's Saw flinger
3. Inverter's Phallic Dongalator

The reason it is wierd is that the Saw Flinger piece includes the whole shoulder piece, and the Dongalator piece includes the swivel part that is glued into the shoulder piece (see the first picture below for what I mean).
While I chose to set up the right arm just like the left arm (thereby cutting the Dongalator swivel part away), I theorize it would probably be better (both visually and practically) if you did not glue the swivel part into the shoulder piece and instead glue the swivel part permanently onto the Cipher's Piston Spike attachment.
Then you can magnetize the Dongalator's and the Piston Spike's respective swivel parts, which would be a stronger and tighter joint by far, reducing weapon flaccidness on the table. Nobody likes a flaccid Dongelator.

Walker Vector:

Left + Right shoulders - glue in the lower piece.
Pin inserted for stability.

Walker body side - notice the pin hole.

Walker body front.

Walker heads

This piece is the reason the shoulders aren't glued on: the Monitor's right arm is a complete piece. I guess you could glue the Vector's left shoulder on as all the left arm pieces are detachable (see below)

All the left arm pieces. Notice the use of green stuff to fill the hole, as it is a little too deep by default.

Hover Vector:

Body for the Hover Vector. There is a magnet under each arm, where the little stumps were.

Reverse of the Hover vector. This magnet is entirely for the Modulator backpack. It's not necessary but it looks cool, and when painted shouldn't show much.

Modulator backpack. After everything has been glued, you can put this in hot water or under a strong light for a few seconds to lightly bend the cables to the appropriate place.

Some of the Hover weapons. The hole fits magnets almost perfectly by default.

Bad photo of a Hover head with magnet showing.

Now you just need to undercoat everything, and weep in pain at the trauma you have just inflicted on yourself.