Speedy Delivery!

The postman dropped off something interesting the other day:

more to come as I experiment with these...

Rustoleum Plastic Primer

In the previous post, when I primed my Heavy Warjack kit I was trying out a new primer - Rustoleum Plastic Primer:

I usually use Duplicolor primer - I finally ran out for the first time since I moved last year, and wasn't sure where to buy it in my new neighborhood.  However, there is an Autozone right around the corner from our new house - I stopped in to buy a taillight bulb, and they had a sale on primer, so I grabbed a few cans:

The good:  The primer has low odor, and the smell dissipates quickly.

The bad: this primer takes forever to cure.  I let it cure for four or five hours, at which time I had to move the parts of the model - even after that amount of time, touching the pieces left some fingerprints that I had to touch up later:

Overall, I'd have to say that if odor is a huge factor for you, then it might be worth a look - but I'll be going back to the Duplicolor primer once I run out of this.

Priming Over Magnets

In my previous post, I had pics of how I added magnets to the Khador Heavy Warjack kit.  Next, I had to find a way to primer the model without completely covering the magnets - while they are neodymium magnets and are very powerful, they're small, and a few coats of primer / paint / clearcoat over them will greatly diminish their effectiveness.

Luckily, I found a solution in the toy section of my local drugstore:

Silly Putty!  (Note: in the past, I've had good results using poster tack, but the store actually didn't have any.  I've also bought Silly Putty at the dollar store before, so it might be cheaper if you want to stockpile it).

I probably don't need to explain the concept too deeply: you pull off tiny bits of the Silly Putty (work it for a bit to get it soft) and press it over the magnets:

After that, you can prime the model as usual:

After the primer dries, you can pick off the Silly Putty:

After the primer had dried, I roughed in my basecoat color (Vallejo Model Air Fire Red) around the magnets:

Since I plan to paint the model using zenital airbrushing, I'll have to paint the model with the magnetized bits attached - to make this easier, I went ahead and basecoated the backsides of the magentized bits:

Since I was using the Model Air paints, it took 3 or 4 coast to get adequate coverage with a brush.

Next, I gave the backs of the pieces a coat of brush-on Citadel 'Ardcoat:

...I wish the reason for this was some cool technical tip, but the truth of the matter is that I needed to transport the model unassembled, and I wanted to protect the pieces from getting chipped up in the box:

...the backs will be sprayed with matte varnish once finished.  The process of covering the magnets with Silly Putty will be repeated when the model is airbrushed.

Fire Sale!

...so after sorting through the ridiculous amount of wargaming stuff I've accumulated over the past few years (and there's still a large box of Forge World stuff unaccounted for somewhere in the garage), I've decided to clean house a bit, and hopefully help fund construction of the gaming lair (also known as finishing the basement).  If you're so inclined, check out my Ebay auctions.  There's a lot of Fantasy Orcs & Goblins, but also some Tau, Tyranids, Hordes, & other assorted stuff!

Magnetizing the Khador Heavy Warjack Kit

...a while ago I bought the Khador Heavy Warjack kit - This is a single kit that allows you to build a Demolisher, Devastator, or a Spriggan. I didn't want to limit myself, so I decided to magnetize the interchangeable components, so I could use whichever one I wanted.  As this was the first model I've built in a loooong time, I was a bit rusty, and it took me a while - I didn't document the entire process, but here's the highlights:

The interchangeable parts for the warjack are the weapon arms, shoulder pads, heads, and the armored shroud covering the head.  The basic process for all the bits is the same - drill a hole slightly bigger than the magnet as deep as possible in each side, fill the hole with a tiny bit of superglue and Green Stuff, press the magnets into the hole, and remove the excess.  You have to make sure the poles of the magnets are aligned properly.

Magnetizing the shoulder pad

The middle part of the arms of this model were really weak and kept flexing - I built them up with several layers of Citadel's Liquid Green Stuff, and will file them into shape when it cures.

Magnetizing the front carapace

Filing excess Green Stuff after it has cured

Drilled out the barrels of the cannons on the Spriggan shouldpads

Mostly finished.  Since the head is almost completely concealed by the armored carapace, I opted to just use a single head, since magnetizing it would be awfully fidgety, and they're so small that they'd be waaay too easy to lose

...and that's about it for the build.  Next I have to find a way to prime it without covering up the magnets...

Ten Years Gone

As I mentioned earlier, I had very little spending money during our trip to GenCon this year, and I wound up not even going into the dealer's room.  It was a bit of a bummer not coming home with any swag, but a few days after I got back this arrived:

...that softened the blow a little.  More details as work progresses...