My miniatures are on individual bases, but I don’t want to have to put a hundred or so individual models on movement trays everytime I bring them out. To solve this, I will be magnetizing the bases and the movement trays will be metal.
Under the bases are slices of rubber magnet. By luck, the ones I got were the perfect thickness.
I did not opt for neodymium magnets because of the cost, but mostly because I didn’t want the connection to be so strong that the other parts of the model break off!
I initially put rubber magnet on sheet plastic for the movement trays. But even with correct polarity, there are places where the models like to be and places where they don’t. That is, if I place a model down on it, it will ‘jump’ and magnetise to one location, the next model will ‘jump’ to another and not rank up quite nicely. So, magnet-on-magnet didn’t work for me.
I am now trying out sheet metal. I can’t remember if it is stainless steel or some other material, I acquired it a while back.
I cut out the shapes with sheet metal cutters. It was a bit frustrating but managed to make movement trays with the correct dimensions and minimal bending. I used a grinder (some off-brand Dremel that I have) to smooth the sharp corner and edges.
The current problem is that it is so thin that it is kinda difficult to pick up and move around. I can mount/glue them onto sheet plastic. But then they won’t magnetize to a magnetic carrying case, which would be the next big step of this project.
If you have any ideas on how to do this sort of thing, I’d love to hear them!
It looks wonderful to avoid the horrors of setting up 20+ miniatures for every regiment for a game of Oathmark or Warhammer Fantasy.
I, myself, avoid this by multibasing. For me this is one of the great benefits of Kings of War over the other game systems. It looks great and avoids the problems you solved by this extensive project.
What if you glue the steel sheet onto a piece of mfd (of matching size) and then drill magnets into the bottom of that mdf again. The added 3mm from the mdf would make it easier to pick up and also give it a nice flat edge. The added magnets would make it stick to another steel surface.
I’ll probably start multi-basing with new models, but these were assembled before I played Kings of War. and I’m not about to go snapping them off of their individual bases!
Ya, I could put magnets under the sheet plastic like @FredOslow suggests. Good idea actually!
Similarly, I could still put the rubber sheet magnet under the base. Basically just turn my old attempts upside down!
How thick is the plastic sheet? I mentioned mdf because you would some proper thickness that way (more space to drill and insert magnets). Plus with mdf you might be able to use good old pva white glue to bond with a steel sheet.
Or I use it the other way around and let the metal magnetize to the rubber magnet. Then to pack up I remove the metal sheet with models and place it in a magnetized carrying case. … which is probably more finicky.
The first option is probably more practical.
That way you end up with magnet sheet in the bottom, facing down I assume, so you could stick the unit into a storage container with metal floor?
